They catch fish to eat they build camp fires to cook they use knives and hatchets and tools. They camp on Wild Cat Island, doing all their own cooking. So, what happens in Swallows and Amazons? Well: not much. I remain forever grateful to her: the first book I brought was Swallows and Amazons. When my Grade One teacher realised I was unchallenged by “Janet and John” and “Dick and Dora” she suggested I should bring my own books to school. I was a precocious reader – I suspect it is meant for what we now call ‘tweens’, and intelligent tweens at that. And I took that message to heart, and it changed my life. I’ve kayaked in shark-infested waters (you haven’t lived until a shark longer than your kayak cruises slowly past and ignores you completely!) And I’ve lain on my back in the remote deserts of Australia and marvelled at the glories of the night sky.Īnd I’ve done them all safely and responsibly, and I seriously doubt I would have done any of them without Swallows and Amazons, simply because the book tells children “you can do exciting stuff – so long as you are sensible about how you do it”. And then surfing the massive waves of SW Australia. I’ve camped in the wild as a child, I’ve fished for my dinner, and aged 10 I was sailing high-performance racing dinghies.Ī little later I was doing serious rock-climbing and abseiling. It has profoundly affected my life – I’ve not done everything that happens in the book myself, but I’ve done a thousand similar things both as a child and as an adult that I attribute directly to the effect of this book. When I say ‘one novel’, I don’t mean ‘one children’s novel’.

It is a book I come back to, a book that bears repeated reading, a book that defines both me and how I view the world.

If I can think of one novel that has influenced me more than any other it is Swallows and Amazons.

The children are the active agents: they are the ones calling the shots and making the decisions. Adults exist in this book, but they are peripheral. Alone without adults to tell them what to do or how to do it. That his children can be trusted to act sensibly and to take responsibility for their own actions. A trust that his children are not ‘duffers’. That telegram is from their father, and it is a mark of trust. It is used under fair right provisions for educative purposes only.

Amazons and swallows