More musings on Swallows and Amazons
I played around with creating a second generation of Swallows and Amazons characters, although now I have thought about it a bit more, actually writing their adventures (at any length anyway) would be a bit of an imposition on any fanfiction reader. I also suspect that when the second generation look back on their childhood adventures, they will be remembering more things that they did with their parents and fewer things they did by themselves. It might make for happy childhoods and happy family life, but it doesn’t obey the traditional first rule of children’s story writing - “get rid of the parents”. Nor does it obey the more modern rule “make the parents the problem”.
So I’ll write about the next generations here.
Walkers
At this point the only small Walkers I have imagined are John and Nancy’s children. All three are very much wanted and loved. (Although in Jane's case, not exactly planned exactly then.) After their experiences in Baltic adventure, I think John and Nancy were very much aware of how vulnerable a small baby could be in a war situation, but even without the outbreak of World War 2 happening within a week of their wedding, I don’t think the plan was really to start a family straight away. As it is, Jane isn’t born until March 1945 and Nancy has had quite an interesting time with the Wrens before having to resign.
Jane Walker’s name is a nod to some of Ransome’s ideas for the proto-Amazons, but also suits both Nancy and John’s ideas on names - plain, simple, not “frilly”. It’s also a female version of John. Jane is normally a good-natured and even-tempered child, very keen to please both parents. She has quite a mature and responsible attitude for her age. She is most often the leader of the second generation, and not just by virtue of being the oldest. She is generally kind and fair-minded, with compassion for the underdog (or soon-to-be-eaten rabbit - not that it stops her from enjoying rabbit stew.) She is good at getting other people involved in her ideas and is generally competent and practically minded with a tendency to plan ahead. She can be very determined (or stubborn depending how you look at it.)
Julia Walker, astonishingly to those who know her, generally follows Jane’s leadership, especially when the adults aren’t about. Adults who don’t know them very well see Jane as the “easy to manage” child and Julia as the more awkward one. Julia is quite opinionated and sometimes anxious to be seen as older than she is. Both girls are competitive in their own way, but Julia cares more about winning in terms of beating the opposition and Jane thinks more in terms of how well she played, sailed, swum etc. Julia can be surprisingly generous and encouraging to younger cousins and brother, providing they are suitably aware of the fact that they are younger.
Jane and Julia are very close in age, with only 15 months between them, this is mainly due to Nancy’s determination not to risk Jane having the loneliness of an older child. (I know many only children don’t see their position as unfortunate at all, but perhaps Nancy is seeing this more in terms of how she would feel without having Peggy as a sister.)
As teenagers, Jane is the one who is “Very good, really” and “No trouble at all” so far as most people are concerned. Julia is the one who pushes the parental boundaries. There is a great deal of “You’re not going out dressed like that, young lady.” from John, who is very much against his daughter’s mini-skirt wearing tendencies. Most people are rather surprised that by their mid-twenties, Julia has married an eminently suitable nice young man and settled down to produce and bring up 2.4 kids (not 0.4 really, but they do have a pet rabbit) in a comfortable suburban setting. Nancy and John never criticized (except possibly very privately to each other) the choices their adult daughters made, but Nancy always feels somewhat unsettled by Julia’s life of determined conventionality, and both Nancy and John feel annoyed when acquaintances express sympathetic censure “You must be so worried…” about Jane’s less than conventional personal life and very varied career. Nancy’s annoyance is more likely to be expressed verbally.
I haven’t made up as much about Robert Walker. He is three years younger than Julia. One thing I can be sure about, though, is that as a adult he never has any problems with taking orders from a woman.
So I’ll write about the next generations here.
Walkers
At this point the only small Walkers I have imagined are John and Nancy’s children. All three are very much wanted and loved. (Although in Jane's case, not exactly planned exactly then.) After their experiences in Baltic adventure, I think John and Nancy were very much aware of how vulnerable a small baby could be in a war situation, but even without the outbreak of World War 2 happening within a week of their wedding, I don’t think the plan was really to start a family straight away. As it is, Jane isn’t born until March 1945 and Nancy has had quite an interesting time with the Wrens before having to resign.
Jane Walker’s name is a nod to some of Ransome’s ideas for the proto-Amazons, but also suits both Nancy and John’s ideas on names - plain, simple, not “frilly”. It’s also a female version of John. Jane is normally a good-natured and even-tempered child, very keen to please both parents. She has quite a mature and responsible attitude for her age. She is most often the leader of the second generation, and not just by virtue of being the oldest. She is generally kind and fair-minded, with compassion for the underdog (or soon-to-be-eaten rabbit - not that it stops her from enjoying rabbit stew.) She is good at getting other people involved in her ideas and is generally competent and practically minded with a tendency to plan ahead. She can be very determined (or stubborn depending how you look at it.)
Julia Walker, astonishingly to those who know her, generally follows Jane’s leadership, especially when the adults aren’t about. Adults who don’t know them very well see Jane as the “easy to manage” child and Julia as the more awkward one. Julia is quite opinionated and sometimes anxious to be seen as older than she is. Both girls are competitive in their own way, but Julia cares more about winning in terms of beating the opposition and Jane thinks more in terms of how well she played, sailed, swum etc. Julia can be surprisingly generous and encouraging to younger cousins and brother, providing they are suitably aware of the fact that they are younger.
Jane and Julia are very close in age, with only 15 months between them, this is mainly due to Nancy’s determination not to risk Jane having the loneliness of an older child. (I know many only children don’t see their position as unfortunate at all, but perhaps Nancy is seeing this more in terms of how she would feel without having Peggy as a sister.)
As teenagers, Jane is the one who is “Very good, really” and “No trouble at all” so far as most people are concerned. Julia is the one who pushes the parental boundaries. There is a great deal of “You’re not going out dressed like that, young lady.” from John, who is very much against his daughter’s mini-skirt wearing tendencies. Most people are rather surprised that by their mid-twenties, Julia has married an eminently suitable nice young man and settled down to produce and bring up 2.4 kids (not 0.4 really, but they do have a pet rabbit) in a comfortable suburban setting. Nancy and John never criticized (except possibly very privately to each other) the choices their adult daughters made, but Nancy always feels somewhat unsettled by Julia’s life of determined conventionality, and both Nancy and John feel annoyed when acquaintances express sympathetic censure “You must be so worried…” about Jane’s less than conventional personal life and very varied career. Nancy’s annoyance is more likely to be expressed verbally.
I haven’t made up as much about Robert Walker. He is three years younger than Julia. One thing I can be sure about, though, is that as a adult he never has any problems with taking orders from a woman.