I have heard this book, the first of a series, referred to in discussions of classical British children’s lit for years, but had never read it. I assumed it would be something along the lines of Enid Blyton’s Five series, which I adored as a child, but was surprised to find it predates that by a good fifteen years, written in 1930. Well, I may be a little late to the party, but I am absolutely ready to dive in.
The protagonists are four siblings, spending the summer holidays in the Lake District. Their father is stationed overseas, and the rest of the household consists of their mother, the baby known as Fat Vicky for her resemblance to the late monarch, and Nurse. The four have received permission to take their small sailboat, and camp out on a uninhabited island in the lake for the rest of their holidays, and Mother, with the usual blithe handwave of well-to-do parents in this time and genre, stitches up some tents and makes arrangements for the children to sail to a nearby farm on a daily basis to pick up milk for tea. After all, she was raised on an Australian ostrich ranch. They are meant to be explorers (AKA Swallows) but soon encounter two sisters from the other end of the lake, who also camp from time to time on the island. They are the Amazons (or pirates) and there is a certain amount of debate as to whose island it really is.
There are imaginative shenanigans, sailing terms galore (all a mystery to landlubber me) and even some actual buried treasure and a pet parrot. And as the female native (or Mother) says as she leaves them after an occasional visit, “Goodbye, palefaces. . .Drool is the word, isn’t it? Drool. Drool.” Drool indeed.