To celebrate the release of a new Christmas jigsaw puzzle from Inspired by Lakeland, Paul Flint chronicles the great frosts of the late 19th century, as described by Arthur Ransome
Thanks, Jon, for your comment below. Weather events certainly punctuate and shape Arthur Ransome's story-lines. For some reason, in the long catalogue of British winters at the following link, 1895 does not feature as an extraordinary event.
Excellent. The conclusion about MacIver and Dodo as the source of AR's North Pole is new to me.
It's also striking that in his next book, 'Pigeon Post', we see a summer of heat and drought. Again everything is grounded in natural conditions, with the scarcity of water and the risk of fire being major plot-drivers.
As a sailor and angler, and a pretty decent amateur naturalist (as reflected in the character of Dick in the stories), Ransome was well in tune with the natural world. It's intriguing to speculate what he would have made of our current preoccupations with climate change, biodiversity loss, and so on.
Thanks, Jon, for your comment below. Weather events certainly punctuate and shape Arthur Ransome's story-lines. For some reason, in the long catalogue of British winters at the following link, 1895 does not feature as an extraordinary event.
https://www.netweather.tv/weather-forecasts/uk/winter/winter-history
Excellent. The conclusion about MacIver and Dodo as the source of AR's North Pole is new to me.
It's also striking that in his next book, 'Pigeon Post', we see a summer of heat and drought. Again everything is grounded in natural conditions, with the scarcity of water and the risk of fire being major plot-drivers.
As a sailor and angler, and a pretty decent amateur naturalist (as reflected in the character of Dick in the stories), Ransome was well in tune with the natural world. It's intriguing to speculate what he would have made of our current preoccupations with climate change, biodiversity loss, and so on.