I think my difficulty with Catkin - whom we know cost somewhere under eighty-seven pounds fifteen shillings and eightpence, though how much less is open to doubt, likewise the purchasing power of eighty-seven pounds fifteen shillings and eightpence in either 1948 or 1959 (depending on whether the Legatts held to their original selling price between End of Term and Peter's Room) - is not the not lending him around bit (it strikes me as quite clear that none of the younger children with the possible exception of Lawrie is remotely capable of riding him) but that given he represents a fair percentage of the Last Ditch, and the Last Ditch is by definition a one-off, that there is no possibility of any of the other children having a present remotely equal to him in lavishness.
That, actually, always has bothered me; it does look like favoritism because it's a whopping expenditure which - so far as one can tell- simply can't be replicated for any of the other children, and I do wonder why. And I do wonder if in some respects it's because Mrs Marlow is seeing something in Ginty which she recognises in herself; the pretty party girl with all the dance dresses who stays up all night to dance and is off to the Hunt looking fabulous the next day on an hour and a half's sleep (and, better than Pam ever managed, Madame Orly actually approves of Ginty!). No-one suggests, for example, that Nicola ought to have a dinghy, or Ann a grand-piano or even a superior upright.
I think Mrs Marlow was quite right to buy Chocbar for herself, but I do wonder why Ginty gets this big splashy present which is out of line with anything we ever hear of any of the other children getting - or of its being possible for them to get.
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That, actually, always has bothered me; it does look like favoritism because it's a whopping expenditure which - so far as one can tell- simply can't be replicated for any of the other children, and I do wonder why. And I do wonder if in some respects it's because Mrs Marlow is seeing something in Ginty which she recognises in herself; the pretty party girl with all the dance dresses who stays up all night to dance and is off to the Hunt looking fabulous the next day on an hour and a half's sleep (and, better than Pam ever managed, Madame Orly actually approves of Ginty!). No-one suggests, for example, that Nicola ought to have a dinghy, or Ann a grand-piano or even a superior upright.
I think Mrs Marlow was quite right to buy Chocbar for herself, but I do wonder why Ginty gets this big splashy present which is out of line with anything we ever hear of any of the other children getting - or of its being possible for them to get.