Winter Holiday

September, 2024

This book is my second favorite, which brings us to three "top fives". Or at least it used to be, we'll see when I finish this read-through if I feel the same (I did). As a kid, at least, this was one of the ones that I could actually -do- the most, in terms of re-enacting the sorts of adventures they had. As well, we are introduced to Dick and Dorothea, and while to my mind Dorothea (Dot) is mostly a bit of a more grounded version of Titty, Dick as a scientist and Dot as a writer bring the value of academic knowledge into the stories. Nancy, while awesome, does not strike me as the type to sit down and read a treatise on smelting, which is sometimes what is required. Actually until Dick and Dot, none of the characters seem to consider formal education to be particularly important or attractive. A sign of the times, perhaps. John and Roger would go into the navy, and the girls would all be housewives?

In 1895 Windermere froze completely, a real life event which Ransome recalled, and which Mrs. Dixon mentions on page 197 (Red Fox). In 1929 it froze over again for a few weeks, which is probably what inspired the novel.

The mumps have an incubation period of 2-3 weeks, so Nancy likely caught it before leaving school. This is also why the quarantine period for the others has to be so long.

Winter Holiday takes place over the winter holidays (duh) after Swallowdale, being the winter of 1931-1932, and is extended considerably due to the mumps. Dick says "Get the chapter on the January sky" (p18) on the night of the first day so Susan's birthday, New Year's, has just past. I've seen Jan 11 quoted as the start date of the novel, but I don't find a reliable source for that and that seems late to me based on typical winter holiday dates I researched. We can assume that the Walkers and Becketts had a couple of weeks together before the Callums arrived. Very likely some of the kids had birthdays since summer holidays, but we don't know which ones, only that it was not Susan or John. Susan has had hers, so will be incremented a year ahead of Swallowdale's ages.

Growing up in Nova Scotia, we had regular, heavy snowfalls. Building igloos didn't require stones, there was enough sticky snow to make them from snow alone. At my elementary school a bunch of us hollowed out the hill made by clearing the parking lot of snow and about a dozen kids could fit into it, before the school administration had it knocked down with a backhoe out of fear it might collapse and suffocate us all. Being able to build with snow was good, because my attempt to build a stone one with roundish stones was not only a failure but would likely have been extremely dangerous had it grown more than a foot high. Skating on lakes was perfectly normal, and I had drawn up plans for an ice-racer and gone as far as building the gaff-rigged mast/boom/gaff and sail assembly before I ran into problems finding something that would work as metal runners for a sled. I was pretty young at the time. A work mate of my father's did have an actual iceboat with the three skate blades, and tore around our lake on it every winter. Also, as the Swallows found out, a sail that went out to either side on something that had nothing to prevent it tipping was bad design. The D's sail was square-rigged, and made much more sense, although neither of them could tack like a modern iceboat can, with the extremely wide-spread rear skates.

Introducing both morse code and semaphores added long-distance communication to the stories, as well as a primitive form of 'encryption' to get around native post for secret dispatches. As Commander Walker said in Secret Water 

"Right under your very nose," he said.  "We ought to have that young woman to teach signalling to naval cadets". (p9)

Captain Flint really shows here why he is truly the best uncle. This book really has no antagonist (e.g. Captain Flint in Swallows and Amazons, the Great Aunt in Swallowdale, or Black Jake), the mumps are a blessing rather than a hinderance, and the challenge to overcome is the journey to the North Pole itself. There is a misunderstanding, but it's benign with no real victims, and the tale is just about triumph over natural adversity. It's a very wholesome book.

While I do love Nancy, it was really nice to see Peggy become more of a character rather than just Nancy's shadow. I find that I grow to like Peggy more and more as the series progresses. I feel that she is torn between being Nancy-like and being Susan-like, and naturally is more Susan-esque than a Nancy, but is a nice balance rather than being such archetypes ('wild' and 'responsible') that we see with Nancy and Susan, mostly. I really appreciate how John defers to Peggy when she's acting in the role of expedition leader.

The Dixons' reaction to the rescue of the sheep always makes my eyes mist up a little. Dixons don't have much, and it's easy to see that the sheep rescue means a huge amount to both of them. Dick was brave, as he often is actually, and we really get to see Mr Dixon open up as a character, which is nice, because he's an extremely kind hearted man, and one of the few adult males that interacts with the adventurers in a positive way throughout the series.

On page 108, Titty says "We shan't be here another year," "Not in winter."
I'm not sure why she is so certain of this, unless it's because it's extremely rare for their family to not be together in the south at winter holidays, with this year being an exception because Mother was off to take Bridget to see Father.

"Dorothea and Dick had come to stay at the farm for the last week of winter holidays." (p1)

"they had been staying at Holly Howe ever since Christmas." (p33)
(we can assume that holidays didn't start at Christmas, rather that Mrs. Walker waited until Christmas to take Bridget to see their father)

Day Major events Night spent at
1 Dick and Dot arrived the night before
Ds explore
SAs visit Wild Cat
Signaling to Mars		 Beckfoot/HH/Dixon's
2 SADs meet
Igloo visit		 Beckfoot/HH/Dixon's
3 Skating and signals Beckfoot/HH/Dixon's
4 Snow
"Only three more days"		 Beckfoot/HH/Dixon's
5 Ice on the lake
Mumps diagnosis
"another month of holidays."
"twenty-eight days, the doctor says" (p116)		 Beckfoot(N)/HH(P)/Dixon's
6-8 Doing without Nancy
Arctic training		 Beckfoot(N)/HH(P)/Dixon's
9 Lake frozen across
Signaling to Nancy		 Beckfoot(N)/HH(P)/Dixon's
10 Greenland
Cragfast sheep		 Beckfoot(N)/HH(P)/Dixon's
11 Blacksmith visit
Spitzbergen by ice		 Beckfoot(N)/HH(P)/Dixon's
12 [undocumented] Beckfoot(N)/HH(P)/Dixon's
13 Despatch from nancy
Airing the Fram		 Beckfoot(N)/HH(P)/Dixon's
14-15 Airing the Fram Beckfoot(N)/HH(P)/Dixon's
"and for many days" (16-18) Fram: expedition headquarters
Making fur clothes
Training
Furthest north: Cache island, 28th of Jan		 Beckfoot(N)/HH(P)/Dixon's
"Many days" + 1 (19) They see an ice-yacht Beckfoot(N)/HH(P)/Dixon's
"Many days" + 2 (20) Sailing Beckfoot's sledge Beckfoot(N)/HH(P)/Dixon's
"Many days" + 3 (21) Who is sleeping in the Fram?
Aborted Fram sleepover attempt #1		 Beckfoot(N)/HH(P)/Dixon's
"Many days" + 4 (22) Aborted Fram sleepover attempt #2
Captain Flint returns		 Beckfoot(N)/HH(P)/Dixon's
"Many days" + 5 (23) Everyone meets Flint again
Doctor has promised Nancy one more week
"another ten days before going back to school."		 Beckfoot(N)/HH(P)/Dixon's
Another vague number of days (24-29) Captain Flint visits the igloo
and does astronomy
and works with Nancy
and helps with the sledge sailplan
"Every day he skated over to Beckfoot."
"Doctor promising her freedom in very few more days"		 Beckfoot(N)/HH(P)/Dixon's
"And then one morning..." (30) Captain Flint takes supplies to the North Pole
Dick works on the sail
Captain Flint tells the Swallows and Peggy the plan re: flag		 Beckfoot(N)/HH(P)/Dixon's
"one morning" + 1 (31) Dick sees the flag; The Ds start for the pole
Dick and Dot add to the Cache island note, "10th February"
Snow
Flint and Swallows and Peggy lunch at the Fram
Nancy disinfects
Captain Flint searches for the Ds
John sees the North Pole signal, the relief expedition sets out
Ds arrive at the Pole
Nancy sees 'NP' signal; sets out for the Pole
Nancy arrives at the Pole
Swallows and Peggy arrive at the Pole
Captain Flint and Mrs Beckett arrive at the Pole		 North Pole

Some analysis, as Winter Holiday was the reason I wanted to document the days in the first place. On day 5 they have another 28 days, which means they go back to school on day 33. On day "Many + 5" they have 10 days left, so it must be day 23. Counting back we can see that the undocumented "many days" is actually only three days.

We also know the last of the "many days" was 28th Jan, and the trek to the Pole is the 10th February due to the Cache Island notes. That's 13 days elapsed. Thus since 28th Jan was day 18 and we have 13 days elapsed, it must now be day 31, which seems reasonable since they go back to school on day 33 and they were worried whether or not Nancy would be able to get to the Pole. This means our "vague number of days" in which Captain Flint was with the expedition was 6 days.

Closing thoughts.

One really begins to feel for Nancy's mother. Nancy is a handful! I like how she speaks to adults as an equal rather than with deference, although she defers to Susan on the leaving of the Ds mugs in the igloo. It's pretty clear that none of the Swallows or Amazons have ever been to the observatory before. Odd too that Mrs Dixon refers to the first summer when talking to the kids, because surely they also lived on Wild Cat Island for a week after the end of Swallowdale.

The Swallows and Amazons taking the Callums under their wing and adding them to the Polar Expedition, despite zero knowledge of any subject that they consider 'important' such as knots, sailing, morse code, camping, etc, speaks volumes about how truly nice all of these kids are. There is a great feedback loop of mentoring in both directions, with the skating and the fact that only the Ds actually sailed to the pole. While I love Nancy, it was great to see her acting in the role of distanced conductor and watching as the rest of the kids worked out what she wanted, and you could really appreciate how important it was to them that Nancy, stuck in bed, could feel happy living vicariously through the endeavors of the others.

I wish more of the kids I grew up around were like John and Peggy, rather than more closely resembling George Owdon.