Book 15 - Great Northern?

Great Northern? By Arthur Ransome – first published in 1947 

This is the 12th and last completed novel in the Swallows and Amazons series.  I read the first book, which is also called Swallows and Amazons, as a child but didn’t enjoy it much, so never read any of the others.  I wasn’t interested in sailing and preferred stories about horses, boarding schools or land based adventures at the time.  I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago who has read all of them but who said she enjoyed them more as an adult than she had as a child.

The book features all the characters from the series – the Walkers (Swallows – John, Susan, Titty & Roger), the Blacketts (Amazons – Nancy and Peggy) and the Callums (Ds – Dick and Dorothea).  They are together for the first time since Pigeon Post (6^th in the series).   They have joined Captain Flint for a fortnight's cruise around the Hebrides.  As they prepare to return their pilot cutter, the Sea Bear, to her owner at the end of their holiday, they persuade Captain Flint to visit a deserted cove on an unnamed island in the Outer Hebrides. Their charts show that the Sea Bear's owner Mac once scrubbed her hull clean of barnacles etc there and they decide they would like to do the same as a thank you to Mac, for lending them the boat.

Nancy, Peggy, John, Susan and Captain Flint scrape the Sea Bear’s hull at low tide, having beached her at high tide.  While they are doing this Titty, Roger, Dick and Dorothea explore the island. Dick, who is a keen birdwatcher, sees a pair of birds nesting. He is sure they are great northern divers, but is confused because his books say that they do not nest in Britain.  He therefore seeks out a man, who he thinks is a fellow birdwatcher when their boats are both moored in the same harbour the next day.  However he says too much about the great northern divers before he realises that Mr Jemmerling is an egg collector rather than a birdwatcher. 

Dick is desperate to take a photograph of the great northern divers on their nest, as proof that they do nest in Britain.  The crew of the Sea Bear do their best to give Mr Jemmerling and his henchmen the slip but he follows them in his motor cruiser the Pterodactyl back to the cove.    The children set up decoy parties to throw Mr Jemmerling off the scent but in doing so they upset the Gaelic-speaking residents of the island, who think they are chasing the island’s deer.

The plot is a bit thin but the story is well written, the main characters are very likeable and the book has an exciting finish.  Considering the book was written 65 years ago it has stood the test of time well.  Taking wild bird eggs has only been illegal since 1954 according to the RSPB’s website, which may explain why the crew of the Sea Bear didn’t just call the police and let them deal with Mr Jemmerling.

Great Northern Divers do exists and 2,500 do visit the UK coast in winter but they don’t breed here.  Some non-breeding birds stay off the northern coasts of the UK in summer.   6/10