The Arthur Ransome Society

& she was still a month shy of her fifteenth birthday when she set out :0

Clinker dinghy Amazon, from the '63 BBC series /and/ '74 film of Arthur Ransome's 'Swallows and Amazons', moored up in front of Swallow, here in everso flat Norfolk.

Nine hours and four hundred and twenty miles of driving later:

Oh yeah!

Though part I think is that she'd seen the films multiple times. She also had zero time for Enid Blyton but hoovered up Swallows and Amazons.

It's ace!

It'd go very nicely with the swallows and amazons/Arthur Ransom tea towel I was given a few weeks back 😁

They do in Swallows and Amazons too. But at least they also get to sail and be pirates. Depending on the girl.

we got Swallows and Amazons in school when i was 12 (1979), barely comprehensible, I had to reconstruct its milieu as i went

A Dutch girl, Laura Dekker became the youngest person to sail solo around the world in 2012, 16 years old when she finished her 518 days and over 27,000 miles journey.
Laura had been sailing since she was just six years old and had always dreamed of sailing around the world.

Jessica Watson sailed solo around the world at age 16. Her journey took over 23,000 nautical miles lasting 210 days.
She faced rough seas, high winds, and equipment failures.
In 2011 she was named the Young Australian of the Year.
Her Autobiography is "True Spirit" 2023

In 2005 Dame Ellen Patricia MacArthur broke the world record for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe.
Her early interests in sailing included Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series.
She saved school dinner money for 3 years to buy her first eight-foot dinghy.

Aged 16 Robin Lee Graham sailed alone from California to Hawaii in 1965. He headed west in his 24-foot sloop reaching Fiji in 1966, New Guinea then South Africa in 1967 and Panama Canal 1970.
He married along the way and, after almost 5 years, ended his journey in Los Angeles.

Ambassador Volunteer (Volunteer Speaker London & SE) Help support our mission to keep canals alive by becoming an Ambassador volunteer today through our wide ranging events programme. Be part of a team delivering these for local people and visitors alik...

volunteer.canalrivertrust.org.uk/opportunitie...

The Armitt: Museum, Gallery, Library
"The Armitt is looking for volunteers to join their wonderful team.
If you would like to volunteer with them at The Armitt or would like more information, contact:
info@armitt.com or on 015394 31212"

Superb Wainwright exhibition currently on at the Armitt Museum, Ambleside. Congrats to Chris Butterfield (the AW Archivist) on putting this together to mark the 70th anniversary of the first Pictorial Guide. Don't miss it!

It’s 3 months since the Bluebell peak in our woodland

They are now dormant which means we have a window of 15 weeks to work on the bluebell fields

We don’t wander aimlessly, it’s only where there is an absolute necessity that we come off the paths. Even then with light steps 🤫

Josephine Quinn · Born on the Beach: Ancient Coastlines Seas are repetitive creatures, working in cycles of tides, migration and climate change, which is normally to say the...

‘Blue Humanities has taken over large parts of the academy in the last decade, bringing the human relationship with oceans, rivers, lakes and seas to the top of the scholarly agenda just as those waters gather to end humanity for good.’

@josephinequinn.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

On the water The implications of lakes in Toronto and beyond, plus Biblical graffiti and historical verse

I just sent out my latest newsletter - featuring the upcoming issue of Spacing themed around the waterfront, the lake-sailing children of “Swallows and Amazons,” Biblical graffiti, a Toronto song, and an unexpected poetic discovery.

open.substack.com/pub/dylanrei...

ROW4MND Charity Row for MND Join us in an epic rowing challenge inspired by Rob Burrow and Doddie Weir, raising funds and awareness for Motor Neurone Disease.

www.row4mnd.com

Spin off from a popular tv series.

11. Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett. As always, hard to choose just one, but this has Pratchett really getting into the Discworld groove, with Granny, Nanny and Magrat in top form.

10. The Pinhoe Egg by Diana Wynne Jones. It’s a lesser entry in the Chrestomanci series but it has summer holidays and horses and magical creatures and fabulous interior design and a Houdini cat.

20. Pigeon Post by Arthur Ransome. Again, really hard to choose a favourite, but this one has pigeons and prospecting and wildfire preparation.

Sorry, that tended towards being cryptic. I always associate Windermere with Swallows and Amazons. I've spent happy days identifying locations from the books.

Ransome's world is a cut and shove. The frontispiece map in Swallows and Amazons is pretty much Windermere but Wild Cat Island is in Coniston. The children's world was long gone by the time I read the books.

But hand drawn.

My computer suddenly has swallows and Amazons all over the screen and a message asking for money. I think it's been infected with Arthur Ransomeware.

#LunchPun

Hollowponds

Your local rowboat venue may be cheaper or only provide canoes or pedalos. hollowponds.co.uk

Getting the glue out to repair this recent kitchen tragedy.

World Rivers Day Millions of people in more than 100 countries participate in World Rivers Day

4th SUNDAY OF SEPTEMBER
worldriversday.com

2 Mallard ducks standing in shallow water. The one to the left has a yellow bull and is likely a non-breeding male. The one to the right has an orange bill and is likely a female.

A couple of Mallards for this #MallardMonday #birds #ducks

Meme. Painting of a river bank, showing an eel weir in the water, and some eel traps on the bank, as well as a long pole. There is a half-finished trap leaning against a tree, and there are two fish on the bank next to a small net. Someone is really into fishing. The scene is warm and inviting, like a late-summer afternoon. You want to sit on the bank, put your toes in the water, and forget about the troubles of the world. It's a moment that demands sweet tea or some such drink. You can lie back and close your eyes, listening to the sounds of the rippling water and feeling a part of the universe. All while ignoring the life-and-death struggles that happen in the weir traps right in front of you. This is not a bucolic scene for the eels. It's a killing ground. But you? You can ignore that and ease into the oneness with time and space. You're a monster, really. But don't worry. We all are, in our way. Meme text reads: "Eels in the water. His eels. Weir gonna need a bigger net."

English eel-rents had vanished by 1700. But landlords still wanted their eels!

In 1781 the fishery at Wickham's Weir in Cuddesdon was leased for £9 per year & no eels. But the tenant did have to sell his landlord eels "of a good size" at the below-market price of 7d. per pound.
🗃️🧪