Author's note

[pisica.livejournal.com]

I just finished The Marlows and the Traitor and wondered if anyone knew the answer to the riddle that is the author's note - that the book takes place between 1946 and 1949, which you'll get if you know some piece of esoteric information that has to do with Peter. I don't know it. Does anyone here? My best guess is that after 1949 you couldn't be training for the navy if you were however young he was.

Comments

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I believe it's Dartmouth changing its rules so that it only took cadets from the age of eighteen, so yes, you were right. :)

[pisica.livejournal.com]

Woot!

[oursin.livejournal.com]

In my Faber Fanfare edition of The Thuggery Affair there is an introductory note, dated 13th September 1964 'Only For Those Who, Like The Author, Prefer Accuracy If They Can Get It', which mentions that the first Marlow story was written in 1947:

In 1947, naval cadets did still enter The Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, at the age of 13. Since then, after various changes of mind, Their Lordships of the Admiralty have settled for 18. Short of expelling Peter Marlow from Dartmouth (something which is unlikely to happen) the only other way of coping with this seems to be to say that the fictional time in which the Marlows exist is in the period called Since the War; and that anything true during that time can be true and happening "now" in the books I write about them.

[pisica.livejournal.com]

Cheers, thanks. I saw an excerpt from this note on the AF webpage but the part about cadets wasn't included!