Mystery at Witchend

Lone Pine #1

by Malcolm Saville

When David, Peter, Mary, Dickie and Tom form the Lone Pine Club, they're determined to have lots of adventures. When they start bumping into strangers in the hills and the friendly Mrs Thurston begins acting oddly, they realize something mysterious is going on.

Genres: Childrens, Mystery, Fiction, British Literature, War

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1943

About the author

Leonard Malcolm Saville was an English author best known for the Lone Pine series of children's books, many of which are set in Shropshire. His work emphasises location; the books include many vivid descriptions of English countryside, villages and sometimes towns.

(wikipedia)

Reviews

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

First in the 'Lone Pine' series about a group of children who have adventures, mostly in Shropshire. This one is set in the war years; a family go to stay near the Long Mynd while their father is away, and get involved in a puzzling series of incidents.

A little dated, but very well written with good characterisation - I enjoyed it as a teenager, and enjoy it again as an adult - I re-read about every ten to twelve years. Delighted to have acquired a GGBP edition that holds the full text, after many re-reads of the abridged Armada edition.

Definitely recommended. Four and a half stars for the full version.

Longer review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/...

[Kath · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found these whilst tidying the attic and remembering how much I had enjoyed this series I thought I would read them again. Too innocent for today's children I think, with 15 year olds excited to create a secret club for adventures, nevertheless, like the Famous Five, it still holds its own in that genre, with warm characters and an exciting story.

[Louise Culmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

i never read Malcolm Saville as a child, mysteries did not appeal to me in those days. But having recently visited the Long Mynd in Shropshire, I thought it would be interesting to read a book set there. The story begins with the Morton family - teenage David, the twins Mary and Dickie who are younger, and their mother, arriving to stay at Witchend farm on the Long Mynd during WW2. They soon make friends with a girl called Peter (short for Petronella) and an evacuee boy called Tom, and decide to form a society called the Lone Pine Club, for the purposes of exploring and watching birds and animals and tracking strangers. THere are some intersting descriptions of the local countryside, and some of the places described in the story are real. the details of country living at that time are particularly interesting - water has to be hand pumped from a local spring, and firewood gathered, and the children are expected to help. The plot is a bit predictable, involving spies and sabotage, and Dickie and Mary frankly are a bit irritating. It is nice to read a story set in this very lovely part of England, and I will give the Lone Pine Club another go some time.

[Michael Fitzgerald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of in the vein of Swallows and Amazons with kids largely out on their own exploring a new area and meeting like-minded locals. There is much more involvement by adults than in the Ransome books - which is maybe more realistic. It has plenty of description of Shropshire and seems to give a good sense of the locale. The mystery is perhaps a bit far-fetched for modern readers, but remember that during WWII things were different, especially in England. The kid characters are pretty good, particularly Peter, but some of the twin stuff gets tired. The adult characters are not so interesting and seem more like caricatures.

This book differs from most fiction of its kind (e.g., Ransome, Blyton) in that there is some evidence of adolescent hormones. Apparently quite a bit of this was excised from subsequent editions. (For extensive coverage, see Reading Series Fiction: From Arthur Ransome to Gene Kemp .) I'm glad that the current version keeps it in. Also very welcome are two sets of illustrations (from the 1943 and 1945 editions) and additional commentary.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an English children’s book written in 1943. It is about the Morton family who evacuated from London into the country during WW II. The children, David, twins Dickie and Mary, were eager for adventure so they, along with another evacuee, Tom, and girl, Peter, that lived there, formed the Lone Pine Club, named for the camp’s location.
The Lone Piners, imaginative and brave, are determined to find out about their neighbour Mrs. Thurston, who seems nice but asks a lot of questions and secretly kicks their dog, MacBeth. Why are there so many strangers on the mountain, they wonder.
This is the first of a series. I liked that the conclusion to the mystery wasn’t obvious, at least not to me.

It looks like I have “cheap” Collins edition made in 1971. The ones with dust jackets look really nice and have more text.

[Connie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a blast from the past!

Think “The Famous Five” meet “Swallows and Amazon’s” and you’ve got yourself this innocent little series. It revolves around David and his twin siblings, Dickie and Mary, when they move to Shropshire to escape London during the war. They befriend the hard working Tom, and lonely Peter and the group decide to create a club: The Lone Pine Club.

This is the first of their adventures. If you’re looking for something light, laughable and refreshing then give this a read!

[Farseer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1943, in the middle of World War II.

The Mortons (mother, elder son David and 9-year-old twins Dickie and Mary) are evacuated to Shropshire during the war, while the father is on the front. The children explore the area, make new friends and form the Lone Pine Club, whose aim is "exploring and watching birds and animals and tracking strangers". Mysterious strangers, kidnappings and explosives are all part of this gripping tale.

This is the first Lone Pine book, a series of 20 novels published from 1943 to 1978. It's a story clearly influenced by other British authors of adventure works for children like Arthur Ransome ("Swallows and Amazons" series) and Enid Blyton ("Famous Five" and other series).

Like the adventure works of Ransome and Blyton, here we have a group of children enjoying their holidays playing outdoors and exploring with their friends. This story is perhaps not as gloriously idyllic as Swallows and Amazons, or as tightly plotted and exciting as many of Blyton's adventures, but at the beginning it features some very vivid descriptions of the Shropshire hills, enough to inspire the imagination and thirst for adventure of its young readers.

The story is about wartime spies and saboteurs. The children are involved but never have the full picture of what is going on, and only at the end they get the whole thing explained to them. That seems to me a weakness because, although it makes perhaps for a more realistic depiction of how children might get involved with something like that, it's not as exciting as stories where they knowingly defeat the bad guys. Oh, and the young twins are a bit annoying at times.

Still, a good read and a very nice children's adventure story, from a time when children still played outdoors all day instead of spending their time with the internet and social networks.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read many of the lone pine series of books when I was a tween/teenager, and loved them. That was a very long time ago. My partner bought be the whole set (second hand, as they are mainly out of print) for my recent significant birthday, and I am aiming to read them from the very first (I cheated and read the first one that was set in Rye - which is the third in the series - when we were there in March) - so this is the official first in the series.

What a joy it was to meet Peter, David, Tom, Mary, Dickie, Macbeth (dog), Sally (horse) and their families and adult friends again. This was a wartime adventure set in Shropshire - it captured the brooding landscape well, and was great fun. I’m looking forward to the second on the series.

[Rhiannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Long Mynd in the 40s, rife with upper class kids, bicycle rides, a reservoir, institutional sexism, a pony, some Nazis, fog, identical twins, a farm, a tree and a secret club.
The Lone Pine Club tells of the adventures of David, Dickie and Mary after they move out to Shropshire because of the second world war, and begin to explore the wilder countryside, meet some new friends and establish the Lone Pine Club, a secret society established to be suspicious of, and investigate, strangers. It was the war, so this was acceptable, as opposed to victimization of that couple that have only just moved in and keep themselves to themselves.

[Selaya Morton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't precisely know why it's taken me so long to get around to reading LP#1; maybe it's because my stepfather's own copy is a genuine 1943 First Edition and I am scared I might break it; or maybe, given the WWII setting, I wouldn't be able to identify with the characters and events depicted. Definitely a "Mystery!" However.....thanks to GGBP, I have now completed it and was quite pleasantly surprised. The first two or three chapters brought back memories of my grandmother talking to us about her experiences during those times. Evacuation of children & families from the big cities to avoid "them blitzes," as Tom puts it, to the country was, for them, normality. In her case, it was to a farm in Wiltshire. She described in vivid detail her experiences back then; right down to the distribution of jobs & chores expected of everyone - just like Mrs. Morton's (surname: Coincidental!) directives to the children upon their arrival at Witchend. Also rationing, black outs, Home Guards and a whole bunch of other requirements that were sacrosanct at the time. Things that we take for granted now are all thanks to what our antecedents put up with to beat the enemy back then. If only the world today could act more like The Lone-Pine Club instead of a pack of spoiled brats, we might be able to make this planet work right!

So: if you're like me and haven't got around to reading this yet, give it a shot. You might be as surprised as I was!

[Gavin Felgate · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first in Malcolm Saville's "Lone Pine" series, and is in a similar spirit to Enid Blyton's Famous Five series, in that it revolves around children who are on holiday.

So, at the start the central characters travel to the eponymous Witchend, in Shropshire, where their adventure starts. About half of the book seems to be about how they form the group, so the main plot is quite simple.

It mostly involves the mysterious and sinister Mrs. Thurston, and several parachutists who show up in the nearby countryside. Considering that this was written in 1943 during World War II, it is easy to guess that they are going to turn out to be German soldiers.

I enjoyed this a lot, mostly guessing what Mrs. Thurston was up to (she seemed almost like Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), and the intentions of the mysterious parachutists. Some of the most dramatic chapters took place after Mrs. Thurston seemingly took two of the children hostage in her house by forcing them to stay the night. The final chapter was mostly exposition, but it was very easy to follow.

I read this because I'm going to Shropshire later in the year, and I'm keen to read more books in this series.

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Lone Pine series lasted so long that my Mum got this book in 1944 while I was buying later installments as a tween in the early 1970s.
With Dad in the RAF, David Morton and identical twin siblings Dicky and Mary go with their Mum to Witchend in Shropshire, away from the bombs falling on London. They make friends, explore the beautiful, wild countryside and stumble upon a Nazi spy plot. Unlike a lot of children's fiction they don't stop the spies themselves—Saville stays realistic and lets the adults handle that.
The kids are fun, particularly the Mortons' tomboy friend Petronella, but the story is a little too laid back for me as an adult.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

As other reviewers have mentioned, there's a similar vibe to Arthur Ransome and Enid Blyton. It's set during the turbulent times of WW2 and involves the Lone Pine Club's entanglements with German spies but nevertheless I found it a cosy and nostalgic read! It reminded me of my countryside childhood when I roamed far and wide and just had to be home for tea. Exploration and secret clubs and adventures etc do not seem to be part of a modern childhood. Such a shame :(

[Sue Law · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of self indulgence over the break. I always wanted to read this series as a child and could never get most of them, so off to the online 2nd-hand bookshops...
It's WWII. Three children move to a cottage on the slopes of the Long Mynd in Shropshire to escape the London Blitz. They meet a couple of local children, including the daughter of the local reservoir keeper. Exploring the Long Mynd they start meeting strangers and then the youngest 2 children get lost.

[Greyscotty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though this was published in 1943 it never gets old. Maybe it's because I'm English and can remember some of the happenings described - bomb craters in South London, even in the late 1950's, come to mind - or perhaps the similarity to the Dam Buster raid I cannot say but I'll never get tired of this story!

[Selaya Morton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book! I've read it at least a dozen times and it never ceases to a amaze me. The first installment of a series of 20 books - and if you like kid-lit, this is for you! Check it out .





























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[Stephen Bigger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have to declare myself a fan and a scholar of Malcolm Saville's stories. This one written and set in wartime England (1943) on the Long Mynd, Shropshire.

[Helen Griffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great first book with the start of the Lone Pine Club with new friendships made. Good build up in plot and adventures while characters show courage and loyalty to one another.

[Poppy Flynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just adore the Lone Pine Series. These were the books that started my love affair with reading which led, eventually, to writing <3

[Gabriel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good start for the series, very much like Hardy Boys' stories. I enjoyed it but found some scenes overly descriptive, which made it a bit tedious. All the same, I will give this series a try.

[Catherine Jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun to revisit this book which I read as a child, over the bank holiday weekend. I now own a Scottie dog 🐾🐾

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pinch of salt required on the plot (very much of its time, and not really much of a mystery) but MS creates a great group of characters in this first book, and captures the sense of place very well. The twins are engaging rather than irritating, and the capable Peter is one of my favourite girl leads.

[Caroline Ham-longman · Rating 5 out of 5]

brilliant book good introduction to malcolm saville

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lovely trip down memory lane, when I first read this aged about nine it would have had given it five stars. A great adventure story.