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A story of boats, imagination and adventure. The story is set around a lake in the North, which is a combination of features from Coniston Water, Windermere, and their surroundings and is the first in a series about the adventures of the Swallows (the Walker family) and the Amazons (the Blackett Sisters) and various other friends, both children and friendly grown-ups.
The Swallows are so called because the boat at Holly Howe, the farm they stay at, is called Swallow. The temptation of a sailing boat and an Island eventually become too much and they beg their father, who is away in the Navy, to let them go camp and explore, which he does. Whilst there they meet the Amazons, local pirates who claim Wild Cat Island as theirs and enlist the Swallows against their Uncle Jim, Captain Flint, who lives on a houseboat on the lake and won’t join in any fun.
Captain Flint is a retired pirate, complete with a cannon, a parrot and a ship full of gold, to the Swallows at any rate, hence his name. One of the best things about this book is that whilst the characters’ imaginations are allowed to freely roam and make an exciting sea full of pirates, explorers and savages out of the English Lake District, the reality is always mentioned, for example Captain Flint was the black sheep of his family, sent abroad to return the year before the Swallows arrive.
The real world also intrudes directly into the adventures of the children such as when they are having a war to capture each others’ boats and a burglary takes place on Captain Flint’s houseboat. They are told to warn Captain Flint of the burglars but the fact the Blacketts have inadvertently turned Captain Flint against the Swallows means that Captain John keeps getting in trouble for things that happen to Captain Flint, who insults him when he comes to warn him.
Of course everything turns out well in the end, with a war and a feast. But before it does there is one of those rare things in children’s books, a boy with emotions. Not much but still a moment of emotion when Captain John has to make peace with Captain Flint after being called a liar by him. That’s what’s brilliant about this book, it’s not just a book of childhood adventure. It’s a book about a proper holiday adventure, including the unpleasant things you try to forget afterwards. And just like all really good holidays it ends with a promise to come back next year.
But what is the reason this is the book that largely made my childhood? Well firstly it teaches you a lot, sailing, fishing and other useful skills. In fact by the end of reading the book I had learnt how to use a ship's compass and about sailing and by the end of the last book of the series I had also learnt navigation, semaphore and a hundred other things. It also introduced me to the Lake District, and there is no better introduction. Ransome knew the Lakes well and lived there with Trotsky’s secretary (no really!) and created there the best books ever written for those who love the Lakes, many in his house right by Coniston.
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