AR Birthday Lunch, HPYC, Levington Marina, Saturday, January 20th, 2007 40 members, including three juniors, sat down to a splendid lunch, under the TARS burgee flying at the Lightship signal hoist

After lunch, we had a fascinating talk from Victor Watson, Assistant Director of Research, Homerton College, University of Cambridge, editor of the Cambridge Guide to Children's Books in English and author of Reading Series Fiction.

Victor outlined how AR's books fitted in to the genre of series fiction.  While many books exploited the "camping and tramping" theme, this died out thanks to the CAP (!) and Dr Beeching destroying easy access to safe countryside. Then why did AR's books continue in their popularity? AR's incorporation of realism: bird-watching, camping, sailing and exploring into his stories still interest  modern children; furthermore, AR looked forward in his stories to the development of adulthood rather than as in many post first-world war books, the demise of idyllic childhood.  Childhood was not doomed.

(Photographs courtesy of Graham Wadeson)