trennels | Time and the Marlows

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Time and the Marlows

I have now read all the modern-day Marlow books I can lay my hands on, which is all but The Marlows and the Traitor (which I remember quite well from when I was 11 or so) and The Thuggery Affair (which I gather is no great loss).

I love these books and mourn the lack of any more. In fact: sorrow! I will probably read the Player ones on the strength of them. The characters are so well drawn and well understood and not always likeable either, which makes them feel very real (except for Giles whom I dislike for being so arrogant and full of himself--and unkind in Autumn Term; I hope he never marries) and I also like how we see a part of their lives with so much more having happened and about to. We'll never know what happened between Nicola and Esther when she went back to school, or how Judith recovered from Edward running away, or how Kay coped with her family, and after all, RL is untidy like that too.

Does anyone know whether AF had any plans for future books and what would have happened in them?

The one thing I find jarring in the books is the very obvious placement of each in a different time and often decade. Why did AF feel it was necessary? The mention of the war in the earlier ones is part of them and places them, as does Ginty having to go through an operator to phone London, but apart from that a reader could, if allowed to, imagine the books to be set in their own era; country life and boarding school haven't changed much. Kingscote in the 50s wasn't much different to my school decades later. So I find gratuitous references to the Beatles, Up Pompeii, punks, Morecombe and Wise etc not just jarring but unnecessary to the story and Pastede On. If the Marlows were watching TV without the programme being mentioned, I would just keep reading, but mention a specific programme for no reason and I stop in my tracks, disconcerted.

The deliberate insertion of current slang feels odd too, or is it just because it's no longer current? Did people really call clothes 'gear' back in the 70s? OTOH I do love what I assume is specifically Marlow family slang like natch, trimmensely (both of which I used as a kid), and sorrow. Come to think of it though, 'sorrow' can't be a Marlowism because Patrick says it too.

I'm curious about Peter's dreadful nickname of Binks. How do you get that from Peter? Is it a baby name they keep on calling him? I'm totally with him on his objections to it, but the others persist in using it. Is it some sort of common baby name in England that might stick? My mother had a friend called Bunty and I could never understand how she put up with it. [shudders]

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Were 'natch' and 'trimmensely' 50s slang or Marlows-only? I thought they might be the latter because they do appear in all the books.

If it was necessary to communicate, everybody used whatever was standard for their families.

That's what I'd have thought, and besides I can't imagine Patrick and the rather upper-class Marlows using it. Their own special words now, that would be different, like the odd nicknames used only at home. Gilly for Giles? Ha, he deserves that.

I think it's true that pop culture among the young transcended social class less at the time than now, if only because it was (obviously) a much newer thing. But if you read contemporary literature and newspapers/magazines that were likely to get paranoid over such changes and cater for people who were even more so (e.g. the Telegraph or Spectator) it's obvious than in the mid-late 60s / early 70s large numbers of young people from traditionally upper-class backgrounds were already using slang terms, adopting modes of dress etc. that may be more instantly associated with the lower classes. They were quite widespread, even then.

"it's obvious than" = "it's obvious *that*"

Thanks! That's interesting, It jars with me, I suppose, because it doesn't seem to go with their otherwise very correct English and therefore feels tacked on. But as I'm not English... :-)

I think a lot of people at the time *did* use slang words while otherwise speaking in very RP accents (far more traditionally RP than today) - that's one of the most interesting things about seeing archive footage of middle-class young people in the 1960s/70s, the almost shapeshifting nature of their speech and mannerisms.

The headmaster of Marlborough College (one of the main fee-paying schools in the UK) commented about the changing accents and speech patterns of his pupils, and the drift towards a "classless" accent, as early as November 1965 (the same year as 'The Thuggery Affair'), and he significantly went on to comment that when they spoke to their elders they still used the traditional public school accent - they had effectively developed two languages, whereas only four years earlier, at the time of 'Peter's Room', they would probably still have used the older public school accent *all the time*, including amongst themselves.

I imagine that was the result of TV, and even more so now. Teenagers here in NZ don't use American accents, but they, girls especially, do use the intonation (the husky fall at the end of the sentence) and slang. It's much more prevalent than UK slang now, and that must be TV.

I've still encountered dialect and vocabulary snobbery myself, being told by one woman on LJ that I was obviously lower class because I sit on a 'couch', which is the term here. :-(

I do also hear myself subtly changing my accent and style of speech to suit the people I'm with. :-P I know we also had words--and nicknames--we only ever used at school because they were invented there.

I can tell you that the US intonation is also often heard now among British teenagers: the dominant tone, even in my part of the south-west, seems to be half-Basildon (a new town in south-east England: google "Estuary English" for the full context), half-Southern California.

I do get the impression that the main trend in Aus/NZ/Canada in recent decades has been a breaking of ties with the UK and its replacement by the US as a cultural model for the new generations. I get the feeling that most young people in those countries probably now see the UK as a played-out fossil nation and, if they're of British descent, can't understand why their parents and grandparents still relate to it.

Economically, the ties were broken by the UK, not us, but I think the strong identification with the US is mostly because we have a lot more US programming on TV, and partly because a large part of the population here identifies with black Americans and their culture, music, and slang. And of course most films are from the US. We use their slang or our own rather than UK. E.g., we don't have chavs, but we do have westies (from West Aucklander) and hoodies who are much the same thing.

I don't think people see the UK as a fossil nation; it used to be the main place to get your OE (overseas experience) till you decided we were third world and won't let us live and work there. We'd still like to if you'd have us. :-) Now the only other places I can live are Australia and Israel.

If by the UK breaking the ties you mean our entry into what is now the EU 35 years ago, I must admit I support that and would regard myself as fundamentally European - though I would certainly not support restrictions on New Zealanders coming to the UK (I don't support restrictions on international travel unless I think there is a very good reason, and there isn't in this case).

"Fossil nation" was an exaggeration. That's more a US perception of Britain than a Commonwealth one, I suppose.

re. your eligibility to live in Israel: dare I ask how you view what has always struck me as AF's antipathy to her Jewish roots? (that is of course assuming that you have such roots as well: you may not)

I don't know exactly when it happened--I think it was more gradual--but there was once a commonwealth and we sold our products to it. My mother said that in her childhood no one was truly poor, but now we have a lot of unemployed adults and ill-fed children because we're not an industrial nation so can't really compete. However we do now have lots of imports and a much more interesting and varied society to live in than my parents did.

NZers can only live in and work in the UK if they have British parents, and even then there are restrictions. The rest of us are third world and not even welcome to visit. When I was there in 2004 for a conference and a 10-day holiday, we were both asked separately when we were leaving, just to check our stories.

Yes, I can live in Israel and almost became a citizen after a year there, but I am a coward. Not that here seems much less violent if you're a woman or a child. :-(

As for AF, I didn't even know she was Jewish till I read that on the Wiki. I'd assumed when I first read the books between 10 and 14, that she was huntin' fishin' shootin' English to the core! I'm afraid I don't know much about why she became a Catholic, and such an old-fashioned one too, but I don't think she had any actual antipathy, did she? I like her portrayal of Miranda, though her interest in the Christmas play/carols in two different books made me wonder if AF was writing a little of herself into her. I suppose Miranda didn't like being excluded (though that was shown as sensitivity to what her father would think) and wanted to be part of it all, but she shows an interest beyond that which may have been what AF herself felt: a desire to fit in, and a fascination with the mystery and the Latin. You probably know more about AF than I do, and of course I don't know what it was like to live in England when she was a child. There's almost no anti-Semitism here, but I doubt that was the case there and then.

I did find that I knew none of the songs they sang--or the Kipling poem--but that may well be due to not being English. Some of the other references pass me by too. :-)

As for Patrick, I assume a lot of his attitude was pride in his family's past and a feeling it was being betrayed. I'm not sure what was involved in Vatican 2 apart from having services in the local language, but I can see a very aloof English boy like him preferring tradition to the new. He's also an introvert and I can see him disliking the friendly masters and preferring his school to just teach academic subjects and leave him alone. OTOH I don't like him much because he acts superior to others, sneers at Nicola's riding, ignores her when he's besotted with Ginty, and seems a lot more proud of his roots than the Marlows are. They're just unselfconsciously themselves.

Off topic, but I hope Nicola remains unmarried, esp to him, and sails around the world getting different jobs in port, then joins the navy when they allow her equal status and opportunity. I know some people here think her boring, but I like her because 1) I'm named after her :-), 2) she's insecure and sometimes depressed (as when Tim doesn't like her, Patrick ignores her, and she doubts that Miranda likes her for more than her blondeness), yet 3) she hides it and goes on, not letting people know, 4) she loves the Navy while I loved the Air Force with equal passion, and 5) she loves to read. I think they're all great characters but I love her, Lawrie, Miranda, and Tim most of all.

And yes, I'd have given anything to be Nicola at school: blonde, blue-eyed, good at sport, popular with most, instead of the geek who came top of the class which was a very negative thing at me school.

Wow, you got me started.

>>>>I'm not sure what was involved in Vatican 2 apart from having services in the local language, but I can see a very aloof English boy like him preferring tradition to the new

Much more to it than that! For instance, one of the reasons that the "old Mass" was allowed was that Vatican 2 emphasized the importance of the bishops responding to the laity, and the Vatican responding to the bishops - hence the recent importance of the National Councils of Bishops and national Councils of Priests
Also, Second Vatican emphasized the special relationship between Jews, Muslims and Christians, which makes it very odd that a Jewish convert (AF) was so opposed to it. (A friend of a friend knew her, and has said and written that AF was very pre-Vatican 2. I haven't direct knowledge of that.)

So you're a Catholic yourself? Do you know why AF was so attracted? Was her family perhaps not very religious, but she wanted something deeply spiritual and maybe latched onto the religion of friends, or did she specifically choose Catholicism? I can see that she'd be attracted to the oldest version of Christianity (unless you go Greek or Russian Orthodox), being so conservative.

I have friended you. :-) I see you have Arthur Ransome, lighthouses, Asimov, have at least one cat, and are a friend of the lovely

glitterboy1! I really ought to add my favourite authors to my interests.

BTW, Richenda seems to me to be a very upper class English name. :-)

Yes, I'm Catholic, but not upper class!
My family (I'm the only survivor)was CPO/estate management, rather than Marlow (Navy commission/family farm, although there was once a family farm.
My name comes from the Quakers who founded a computer group in the 1970s, and my lifelong admiration of the Northrepps/Gurneys/Frys etc

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>>>sneers at Nicola's riding,

But does he sneer? Isn't that in his Rupert persona?
I know that he advises against her buying (is it Catkin in a previous book to the actual purchase for Ginty?) but isn't that simply realistic advice? We're told elsewhere that Lawrie's riding is better than Nicola's - by Lawrie herself, but I don't think that N argues the point
Also - my little bit of fantasy on this point - Hornblower doesn't ride well, and N admires him, so she might well make a point of not concentrating on her riding?

Haha, oh yes, she could!

I remember Patrick making snide remarks about Nicola being nervous, or not jumping well, though I don't own the books and can't quote. I know that after she clears the huge gap, she thinks that now he can't laugh at her jumping any more. It's odd, now I think of it, when Patrick is so shy and nervous himself about things like parties, but perhaps he just doesn't think when it comes to things he's good at, like falconry and riding.

Yes, when the UK joined the EEC, that had a significant impact on our export market. We sent meat and dairy products to Britain - it was what we'd always done, it was virtually why we existed in the first place, in a way. We practically beggared ourselves in WW2 sending food and supplies. We continued to send supplies to the UK post-war as well under 'Food for Britain' appeals which lasted until 1950. Until 1949-ish there was no such thing as a NZ nationality - you were British, even if you were born here. (Same went for Canada and Australia etc - they were 'British', too, by nationality.)

So the EEC thing with the UK was a huge mindset - and economic hurdle - to get over.

I suppose when you feel fundamentally 'European' the fact that people so far away felt that they had some sort of claim on the UK must seem odd.

>>>I imagine that was the result of TV, and even more so now

And radio - radio Luxembourg and then the pirate stations - e.g. East Anglian boarding schools/Radio Caroline
I don't know if the Radio Essex re-enaction of the pirate radio stations (2003?) is still up on their website, but that would give you a flavour of what people were listening to on their "trannies" - often smuggled' sometimes reluctantly peermitted

Not just East Anglian boarding-schools - at mine, in Hampshire, the common-room radios were permanently tuned to either Radio Caroline or, more usually, Radio London (another pirate ship moored off Frinton-on-Sea!). We were not allowed private trannies, but several people smuggled them in anyway.

>>>>the common-room radios were permanently tuned to either Radio Caroline or, more usually, Radio London (another pirate ship moored off Frinton-on-Sea!).

Thank you - yes, of course - I've muddled - it was Radio London, not Caroline that was off Frinton.
Day girls boasted of having been in one of the cars at Frinton that signalled to the ship
But caroliiiiiiiiiine was the song that everyone associated with the pirates.

They were both off Frinton at one stage; wasn't it Caroline who slipped her anchor on one famous occasion and had to be rescued by the Walton Lifeboat?

Radio London closed down when pirate radios became illegal in the late 1960s, but Radio Caroline is, as far as I know, still going, although not from a ship moored off Frinton.

Radio Essex recreated a pirate ship - they moored it off the Ha'penny pier in Harwich, and had much fun, with the former DJs doing stints in the same way that they used to - and being smuggles on and off the boat as used to happen in the old days.
One day a mobile phone went off by mistake on air, and they pretended that it was a musical birthday card

I didn't realize that you aren't English.
My thought is that the 1960s generation of boarding school teens was probably the first to feel pressure to fit in with day school teens, but I might be wrong. because in the late 1960s I was not working in a school context.
May I friend you? Il ike the way you think and write, and I very much approve of what you say about Prince Caspian in your LJ.

Really? Thank you! I'd be delighted!

I post Blake's 7 reviews and fiction quite often because I fell for it in 2001 when we had reruns here; be warned. ;-)

I think you're right to feel that way, simply because the 1960s was when the self-assertion of the mass over the elite (the single most important post-war change in Britain) really began.

Yes - plus children at boarding school had to "keep up" with extra passion, because they wanted to fit in when they went home, in a way that earlier generations didn't feel the need.

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