I admit that, despite the fact it was voted in a 2003 BBC poll as one of the nation’s favourite reads, I didn’t warm to this book initially. But it was a set text on my children’s literature course so in I plunged. I never read Swallows and Amazons as a child – in fact I never heard the title mentioned even among any of my friends. Mistakes are set right, apologies given, the children become firm friends with Captain Flint and all resolve to meet again the following summer. But of course, since this is a book intended for child readers, all must come right in the end. Initially ‘enemies’ the Swallows and the Amazons enjoy a few skirmishes until they agree to band together against a common foe – the Blacketts’ uncle James whom they call “Captain Flint” who angers them by thinking them responsible for the theft of his precious trunk. His novel relates the outdoor adventures and play of the two sets of children who are spending the summer holidays in the Lake District. Ransome, who was a journalist with the Manchester Guardian, was inspired to write the book after a summer spent giving sailing lessons to the children of some friends. It introduces the Walker children, John, Susan, Titty and Roger (the Swallows), the camp they create on Wild Cat island and their adventures with the two intrepid Blackett sisters (the Amazons). Swallows and Amazons was the first title in Arthur Ransome’s classic series of 12 novels written between 19.
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