Winter Holiday

 

Winter Holiday may not be the best of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series, but it is definitely my favourite, and the one I've read the most times -- this old copy of mine is almost falling apart. In contrast to the previous three volumes, there is almost no sailing in this one, and unlike the others, it takes place in deepest winter rather than the height of summer or in tropical heat. The deep snow and hard frost of a northern English winter seemed hugely romantic to me, marooned in temperate Australia or PNG: that was one attraction.

Perhaps the most powerful appeal of Winter Holiday lay in the introduction of Dick and Dorothea Callum -- not experienced sailors and explorers like the Walkers and Blacketts, but town children, unschooled in the outdoors. If there was a place in the adventures for dreamy Dot, always writing stories in her head, and nerdy bespectacled Dick, then surely they might find a place for me?

I love the frozen lake, I love the rescue of the cragfast sheep, I love the final race to the Pole in the snowstorm. But I love even more poor Captain Nancy suffering with mumps, buying the others an extra month of holidays and trying to direct the action from her sickbed; I love Peggy trying valiantly to fill her sister's pirate boots. And I relish the scene when Captain Flint arrives at his ice-bound houseboat, taken over by Arctic expeditioners, and discovers Dick and Dot comfortably at home, surrounded by rabbit skin hats and mittens and sheepskin blankets...

I just wish Dot didn't pin all her self-esteem and pride on her brother's skills! I just know that Dot and I would be friends (though she's a far better skater than me.) And there are no 'natives' and 'savages' in this book, just seals and 'Eskimos,' which somehow doesn't seem so bad.