Rereading: The Secret of Grey Walls
Feb. 16th, 2013 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllThe Secret of Grey Walls: Malcolm Saville Newnes (Seventh Impression 1972)
I haven't really written about the Lone Piners’ influence on me as a reader. Rationally, I know by now that the books and the characters' adventures don’t stand up well in comparison, but they were quite as influential on me as the Swallows and Amazons books growing up. I was probably reading them higgledy-piggeldy, along with various Enid Blyton books even before The Chalet School and before I was the twins’ age. I admired Peter tremendously, although I never wanted a pony of my own.
I owned an Armada paperback copy of The Secret of Grey Walls and bought this hardback edition to replace it at a reasonable enough price, because I heard that the Armada editions were abridged, which may or may not become a new habit. I found I didn’t remember much about the story – except it fits in with the pattern of the mysteries and adventures that Saville’s gangs of children happen across (I came across the Buckinghams later and the Jillies even later in life, which, along with their being smaller groups and having fewer books devoted to their adventures, made them less important to me than the Lone Pine Club,)
The Secret of Grey Walls is the fourth Lone Pine adventure and records how Jon and Penny Warrender officially join the club. While still set in Shropshire, it is actually set in Clun, close to the Welsh border, with Clawdd Offa/Offa’s Dyke featuring in the story. It’s a ‘holiday within a holiday’ as a series of events takes the Mortons, scooping up and bringing along, of course, Peter, Tom, Jenny and the Warrander cousins, to a guest house in the strange, quiet little town. Despite it being set during the post-Christmas part of the winter holidays, at one point the twins were wearing shorts!
Oh, those inimitable twins.
I will get to the adventure they all end up in the middle of in a second, but the emotional core of the story is about the expansion of the Club. The theme of loneliness is returned to in the book with the Mortons as the family that changed everything for the others. First and most importantly for Peter (short for Petronella) the founder and vice-captain of the club who lived an isolated life during holidays with her relatively old and fussy father and dependable pony; also for Tom, the evacuee from London turned future farmer; breathless romantic Jenny with her unkind stepmother; and even Jon and Penny, who clearly have each other and Mrs Warrender, but who live a strange life during their school holidays at the Gay Dolphin Hotel. Without the Mortons, there would be no link between the Rye-based Warrenders and the Shropshire-based trio.
The question is how strong that link will become.
Sight unseen, Peter has trusted David and the twins’ recommendation of their characters and suggested that Jon and Penny should join the Club. Now that the opportunity arises for them to do so, the motherless girl, who has had to be self-reliant for so long, is wondering if it’s such a good idea. Not only is she somewhat shy, she’s a little worried about how she’ll compare with vibrant and possibly more sophisticated Penny (especially in David Morton’s eyes). And Penny herself, although she’ll talk to anyone, has heard so much about the wonderful Peter. The question of whether they can be real and true friends and, by extension, of whether everyone else can be – Jon, the eldest, is, at times, very detached from the remarkable twins – is perhaps not as deeply examined as it might be in an equivalent book written today. The answer is ‘of course’, as the girls learn about each others’ bravery and loyalty (and Peter realises there’s no need to be jealous of Penny). We knew it would be from Peter’s uncanny dream early on in the book, where she foresees a desperate situation that she and Penny, still a mystery figure in the dream, face together.
And Saville is writing a very safe and comforting book. From the introduction, we’re told that the Lone Piners will not be growing up from the ages given when first we met them, despite the fact that the first book is set in a specific time and what happened in it and subsequent books are referred to as ‘two years ago’. Saville later pushed the characters forward incrementally, and plays with the twins’ maturity here – they are always resentful of being called and treated like kids, being sent to bed first, being kept out of ‘councils of war’, and sometimes show that they don’t deserve it either.
There’s also the surety that David and Peter are special friends, Tom is Jenny’s champion and Jon and Penny pair off quite naturally (she teases him, he doesn’t like her paying too much attention to strange young men etc. etc.) But it’s all rather innocent – there, but not dwelled on.
So, what is The Secret of Grey Walls? Well, from their journey to Clun onwards, the Lone Piners find adventure. On their train, Penny and Jon meet young sheep farmer Alan – Jon needn’t have worried, it was his sheepdog Lady that took gregarious Penny’s fancy – the Mortons, Tom and Jenny cycling to Clun cross paths again with gypsies and Peter has a nasty encounter with two men in a lorry. Sheep are being stolen from farms in the vicinity of Clun, the police seem to be doing little about it and a mysterious Mr Cantor is sharing the Lone Piners’ guesthouse. Straightforward Peter doesn’t like him, although Mackie and Penny are more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. The twins’ inimitable performance of ‘Aksherley, The Morton Twins Experience’ comes in handy as the Club happens across very strange things, people and places in the lonely countryside. The boys are a tad reckless, but every member of the club gets to show their mettle.
I enjoyed the first half in particular, probably because there’s the tension of what the Shropshire Three will make of the Warranders and vice versa, concentrated in Peter and Penny getting to know each other. The twins and their act are very entertaining. The adventure isn’t one of the best – for one thing, Grey Walls doesn’t materialise until well past the halfway mark - but I did enjoy revisiting a series that held great sway over me, starting to do so when being sixteen and going on seventeen seemed ever such a long way away.
I haven't really written about the Lone Piners’ influence on me as a reader. Rationally, I know by now that the books and the characters' adventures don’t stand up well in comparison, but they were quite as influential on me as the Swallows and Amazons books growing up. I was probably reading them higgledy-piggeldy, along with various Enid Blyton books even before The Chalet School and before I was the twins’ age. I admired Peter tremendously, although I never wanted a pony of my own.
I owned an Armada paperback copy of The Secret of Grey Walls and bought this hardback edition to replace it at a reasonable enough price, because I heard that the Armada editions were abridged, which may or may not become a new habit. I found I didn’t remember much about the story – except it fits in with the pattern of the mysteries and adventures that Saville’s gangs of children happen across (I came across the Buckinghams later and the Jillies even later in life, which, along with their being smaller groups and having fewer books devoted to their adventures, made them less important to me than the Lone Pine Club,)
The Secret of Grey Walls is the fourth Lone Pine adventure and records how Jon and Penny Warrender officially join the club. While still set in Shropshire, it is actually set in Clun, close to the Welsh border, with Clawdd Offa/Offa’s Dyke featuring in the story. It’s a ‘holiday within a holiday’ as a series of events takes the Mortons, scooping up and bringing along, of course, Peter, Tom, Jenny and the Warrander cousins, to a guest house in the strange, quiet little town. Despite it being set during the post-Christmas part of the winter holidays, at one point the twins were wearing shorts!
Oh, those inimitable twins.
I will get to the adventure they all end up in the middle of in a second, but the emotional core of the story is about the expansion of the Club. The theme of loneliness is returned to in the book with the Mortons as the family that changed everything for the others. First and most importantly for Peter (short for Petronella) the founder and vice-captain of the club who lived an isolated life during holidays with her relatively old and fussy father and dependable pony; also for Tom, the evacuee from London turned future farmer; breathless romantic Jenny with her unkind stepmother; and even Jon and Penny, who clearly have each other and Mrs Warrender, but who live a strange life during their school holidays at the Gay Dolphin Hotel. Without the Mortons, there would be no link between the Rye-based Warrenders and the Shropshire-based trio.
The question is how strong that link will become.
Sight unseen, Peter has trusted David and the twins’ recommendation of their characters and suggested that Jon and Penny should join the Club. Now that the opportunity arises for them to do so, the motherless girl, who has had to be self-reliant for so long, is wondering if it’s such a good idea. Not only is she somewhat shy, she’s a little worried about how she’ll compare with vibrant and possibly more sophisticated Penny (especially in David Morton’s eyes). And Penny herself, although she’ll talk to anyone, has heard so much about the wonderful Peter. The question of whether they can be real and true friends and, by extension, of whether everyone else can be – Jon, the eldest, is, at times, very detached from the remarkable twins – is perhaps not as deeply examined as it might be in an equivalent book written today. The answer is ‘of course’, as the girls learn about each others’ bravery and loyalty (and Peter realises there’s no need to be jealous of Penny). We knew it would be from Peter’s uncanny dream early on in the book, where she foresees a desperate situation that she and Penny, still a mystery figure in the dream, face together.
And Saville is writing a very safe and comforting book. From the introduction, we’re told that the Lone Piners will not be growing up from the ages given when first we met them, despite the fact that the first book is set in a specific time and what happened in it and subsequent books are referred to as ‘two years ago’. Saville later pushed the characters forward incrementally, and plays with the twins’ maturity here – they are always resentful of being called and treated like kids, being sent to bed first, being kept out of ‘councils of war’, and sometimes show that they don’t deserve it either.
There’s also the surety that David and Peter are special friends, Tom is Jenny’s champion and Jon and Penny pair off quite naturally (she teases him, he doesn’t like her paying too much attention to strange young men etc. etc.) But it’s all rather innocent – there, but not dwelled on.
So, what is The Secret of Grey Walls? Well, from their journey to Clun onwards, the Lone Piners find adventure. On their train, Penny and Jon meet young sheep farmer Alan – Jon needn’t have worried, it was his sheepdog Lady that took gregarious Penny’s fancy – the Mortons, Tom and Jenny cycling to Clun cross paths again with gypsies and Peter has a nasty encounter with two men in a lorry. Sheep are being stolen from farms in the vicinity of Clun, the police seem to be doing little about it and a mysterious Mr Cantor is sharing the Lone Piners’ guesthouse. Straightforward Peter doesn’t like him, although Mackie and Penny are more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. The twins’ inimitable performance of ‘Aksherley, The Morton Twins Experience’ comes in handy as the Club happens across very strange things, people and places in the lonely countryside. The boys are a tad reckless, but every member of the club gets to show their mettle.
I enjoyed the first half in particular, probably because there’s the tension of what the Shropshire Three will make of the Warranders and vice versa, concentrated in Peter and Penny getting to know each other. The twins and their act are very entertaining. The adventure isn’t one of the best – for one thing, Grey Walls doesn’t materialise until well past the halfway mark - but I did enjoy revisiting a series that held great sway over me, starting to do so when being sixteen and going on seventeen seemed ever such a long way away.
