Adventure Down Under

by Jill Paton Walsh, Juliette Palmer (Illustrator)

Genres: Fiction

116 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Jill Paton Walsh was born Gillian Bliss in London on April 29th, 1937. She was educated at St. Michael's Convent, North Finchley, and at St. Anne's College, Oxford. From 1959 to 1962 she taught English at Enfield Girls' Grammar School.

Jill Paton Walsh has won the Book World Festival Award, 1970, for Fireweed; the Whitbread Prize, 1974 (for a Children's novel) for The Emperor's Winding Sheet; The Boston Globe-Horn Book Award 1976 for Unleaving; The Universe Prize, 1984 for A Parcel of Patterns; and the Smarties Grand Prix, 1984, for Gaffer Samson's Luck.

Series:
* Imogen Quy
* Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane

Reviews

[Emmkay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Continuing my enjoyment of things narrowboat-related, and of older children’s books. I remember reading some books by Jill Paton Walsh as a child, but not I think this one - perhaps unfortunately named for modern ears. It’s a nice story about an eleven year-old girl in the 1880s, Harry (as told in young adulthood to her now eleven-year-old cousin, the narrator), who is upset and lonely after moving to a new home. It’s on a canal, and Harry impulsively runs away and joins a pair of young siblings who are piloting a narrowboat down the river. The description of canal boat life in the nineteenth century is detailed, cozy, and interesting, though the ending was a bit abrupt. FYI, a ‘butty boat’ is a smaller boat towed behind a canal boat.

[James Lark]

Living a stone's throw from the Grand Union Canal, and what with the last year having provided plenty of opportunities for long walks (if not much else), lately I have spent quite a bit of time trudging along towpaths and contemplating the glimpse they afford us of a different era. It seems to me that canals give us a more authentic view of the past than almost anything else we can visit in the 21st century - so much of our history has to be seen from the context of the modernity that surrounds or inhabits it, and even, say, a heritage steam line is artificial by its very nature, those gleaming engines about as far from the thrilling dirt and smell of a working railway as a Merchant Ivory film is from the grimy reality of early 20th century England.

Canals, on the other hand, remain unspoiled and, for the most part, unchanged since their construction, and although they're not the veins of the industrial era they once were, they remain in use, a miracle of engineering still operating on the same principles on which it was conceived - a living piece of history around which time somehow seems to move at a slower pace, as if imitating the speed at which it is designed to operate.

And yet... for all that part of the pleasure of a canal walk is to cross into a preserved slice of history, it is a fading one all the same, no longer a busy, essential network feeding a furious industry, but a shadow of its former glory. The urgency and sweat of barge work has been replaced by the ubiquitous narrowboat break, a brutal trade repackaged for middle class holidaymakers.

What Jill Paton Walsh does so brilliantly in The Butty Boy is bring to life the realities of that era; meticulously researched (as her writing invariably is), we get to see just how tough a life it was, we sense the urgency that accompanied the trade and which we're unlikely to associate with a leisurely stroll along a towpath. The exact time is not specified, but the story seems to be set towards the end of the 18th century, certainly before the age of rail or the advent of steamboats. So as well as the more familiar mechanics of locks, the story shows the complexity of horse-drawn canal work and the attendant problems it brought. There is also an impressively visceral section that shows the hellish scenes of industry that loomed over sections of canal.

The book also captures the beauty of canals, and in the brilliant image of a narrowboat appearing to glide along in a field, instantly communicates the reason for the canal's draw - in this case, for a young girl from a background that ordinarily wouldn't allow her into this world. What follows is a fairly straightforward account of a runaway encountering a whole different way of life. Not to mention a different class, a point which is not laboured but does lead to a dramatic moment of self-realisation towards the end of the book, no less powerful for being so understated.

All of these qualities pack a great deal into a slim volume and make for an engrossing, haunting read. But although I apparently did read (or was read) at least some of the book as a child I have no recollection of any of it, and if my mother remembers correctly I didn't make it to the end. And actually, it's not hard to see why: although the language is perfectly accessible, there is something adult about this description-heavy prose and slightly distanced style (framed as a story-within-a-story it feels slightly removed from the kind of intimacy one perhaps expects from a children's novel). There are memorable characters here, but it takes time to really discover them, because of the social mores informing their interactions. And although the story has plenty of incident, it unfolds at the pace of a journey along a canal, which I think would have been difficult at an age when I was much more likely to be satisfied by a heritage steam line.

So how you get on with this book will likely depend on how you feel about the idea of a narrowboat holiday: if the prospect of a beautiful meander through a bygone age with occasional bouts of activity leaves you cold, it probably isn't for you. For this reader, having now developed a little patience, it was a vivid and memorable journey, and one that I can see myself repeating.

[scarlettraces · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4.5)