Patrick's future

[alliekiwi.livejournal.com]

I've started re-reading Falconer's Lure and came across the following snippet:

~*~*~

Patrick said suddenly, "Oh dear. I do wish it was six years from now."

"Six years?" said Nicola, who sometimes wished it was this time next week, but had never looked that far ahead.

"Yes. Well. In six years, I'll have finished school, I'll have done National Service, and if Dad's still M.P. I can come back here and look after things. And then Jon and I can keep hawkes properly.

pg 52/53 GGB edition

~*~*~

That made me wonder about how AF changed things to suit the times, yet retained some things that were already 'canon' despite them being 'out of time'.

For example, when the red uniforms came back in, the book they were mentioned in was written *past* the time rationing finished in the early 1950s in Real Life? That was Falconer's Lure as well, but haven't reached that bit in the book, yet. I know the book is set in 1948, and clothes rationing ended in 1949...but the book was written/published in 1955.

What I'm leading up to here is... will Patrick do his National Service, despite that going out before potential later books would have been written, and presumably set? Especially since it had already been mentioned that he was going to do it? Or would AF have just ignored that?

Comments

[antfan.livejournal.com]

in general, the weird timeline thing doesn't worry me - at least with the middle/later books. But going back recently to read the GGB editions of Falconer's Lure and Marlows and the Traitor - which I hadn't read for years and years - they did seem incredibly dated, to the extend that I didn't feel I recognised the characters. I mean, it's not references to national service or the blitz that bother me, but the Marlows seem such an upstanding, proper, stiff upper lip naval family. They just don't seem themselves somehow, and I don't know whether it's superficial - like them addressing Mrs Marlow very properly as Mother or Mummy instead of Mum/Ma - or whether it is more than that. Does anybody else feel the characters really do change throughout the books - I mean more than the fact they are obviously growing older? I feel they grow into their skins - become more nuanced somehow - in later books.

[alliekiwi.livejournal.com]

You know, I'd not really noticed the transition from Mummy/Mother to 'Ma' and 'Mum'. I've not read the books in chronological order for so long, I suppose I thought of it as the nicola et al growing up and not being so babyish.

However, the parents do appear to be far more old-fashioned in the early books, don't they?

[alliekiwi.livejournal.com]

I noticed today that Rowan and Peter call Mrs Marlow 'Mum' in FL whilst the younger ones say 'Mummy' (although, that being said, I need to go and see if I can find what Karen calls her), so maybe it is partially an age thing? Peter also says 'Dad' instead of Daddy.

[alliekiwi.livejournal.com]

Vis-à-vis Mummy versus Mum...

In the Marlows and the Traitor, Nicola and Lawrie are still calling Mrs Marlow 'Mummy', but Ginty is changing:


"You needn't worry, Momma," said Ginty calmly, "because I shan't want one. Wings! A Christmas tree fairy is exactly what I'd feel like."

"No, Ginty. Mum is you like and must, but Momma I won't have."

"All right, Mum. And actually I've just thought what I'll be," said Ginty who didn't like acting and wasn't especially keen on dressing up."

~*~*~

The bit that interests me, there, is 'Mum if you like and must'. Do you think Mrs Marlow, from that, prefers 'Mummy'?

pg 37 Faber paperback edition

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm sure she does. "Mummy" - all the way into adolescence and even adulthood - is the upperclass choice. I think Prince Charles addressed the Queen as "Mummy" in a speech at some public event - 80th birthday perhaps. I've had a couple of (posh) friends who used the term - in conversation to others, not just in addressing said parent. "Mummy says I must come home for the summer." Have you read any of Ruby Ferguson's Jill books? She always talks about "Mummy" - never Mum - all the way up to seventeen I think.

My own (Welsh, working-class) mum made it very clear that "mummy" had a definite sell by date!