Coot Club (Godine Storyteller) (vuoden 1990 painos)

I would probably like it just as much as Swallows and Amazons, if only the Hullabaloos weren't so revolting (or else, appearing less often; as far as I'm concerned, their noisiness alone was making them repulsive enough), and then I was a bit overwhelmed by all those placenames (the Kindle edition does have the maps, but the very nature of the medium means one can't simply have a quick look at them every now and then the way one would with a printed book). Still, I'll quite likely enjoy reading the book again one day.

(Read it again a few months later, finding the maps online, and making a point of checking them every now and then, which did make me enjoy the book even more and increase my rating by half a star.) ( )

The first of the 'Swallows and Amazons' series not to feature the Swallows or Amazons, Coot Club, nonetheless, is another Ransome classic. The setting is Norfolk and the protagonists are Dick and Dorothea (from Winter Holiday) who learn to sail with help from a cast of new characters. The writing, as ever, crackles with infectious enthusiasm. ( )

One of his best. Brilliant plotting, adventures, everything excellent! ( )

Coot Club was a trip of nostalgia, since it is one of Arthur Ransome's Swallows & Amazons books, but this time set in Norfolk, where I live. It was published 1934, but between then and the late 60s little had changed, other than the luxury of a fridge on board the wooden sailing boats. Ten years later most of these boats had been fitted with diesel engines so that quant poles (for pushing the boat along on windless days) were consigned to history. The story is wrapped around the tension arising between the locals in the form of the Coot Club, Tom and his friends, who sail the rivers and lakes and protect wildlife, and the "foreigners", who rent boats for holidays and tear up and down regardless of the courtesies of the rules of the road – which are there both for wildlife and other boaters. It's exciting, funny and with wonderful characters.

A couple of years back my brother hired a boat for a week’s holiday and I joined them for a day and did the exact sail that is described in the first part of the story – and nothing has changed. Ranworth and its wildlife, Horning and its races, holidaymakers in cruisers being flummoxed by sailing boats criss-crossing in front of them, the coots and moorhens nesting at the side of the river, the boom of the bitterns… the stuck-up cruiser sailors with their yachting caps (and in the 60s, their cravats!) and the women with strangely gaudy unsuitable clothing and loud voices. Oh, it’s all still there! I’d add that the main change which could stop this adventure happening now is the ubiquity of mobile phones, but given we’re in Norfolk, and only one network works at my house, I suspect that reception is patchy over the Broads, so maybe you could still have this rollicking adventure of the local boy protecting the wildlife, arousing the ire of the foreigners, who pursue him all over the Broads, causing havoc wherever they go. Maybe today’s kids wouldn’t be able to hitch a lift on a passing wherry, although you do still see the occasional one, but not a working one taking goods up the Yare to Norwich or down to Lowestoft.

Should it best be viewed as a historical novel for today’s kids? I suspect so. I had no trouble doing the same with Princess and the Goblin, or even Professor Branestawm. It’s a cracking story that rips along and got me thoroughly engrossed in it. I’m just not sure today’s youngsters would enjoy it unless they have a keen interest in wildlife or sailing. And that’s the only reason I wouldn’t give it five stars. Oh hang it, it's brilliant and I loved it – I’ll give it five stars! ( )

Excellent copy apart from some pencilling on map