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callmemadamIn the final book of the series, Home to Witchend, Saville tried to draw together the threads from all the stories and bring in almost every character who’d ever appeared. The story is centred around Peter’s eighteenth birthday, which is to be very special. David is a poor letter writer and yet again, Peter is feeling neglected. She wants him to put her first and show his feelings; ah, the cry of woman down the ages. As mentioned in part one of these Lone Pine posts, Peter has thought David ‘wonderful’ from the moment she met him. She is a very attractive girl. In Mystery at Witchend, some men in the Home Guard want to ask her about the stranger she’s seen about. ‘Good morning, Juliet,’ said one. ‘Speak to me from your window, I pray thee.’ In Seven White Gates, ‘a good-looking soldier with a kit bag on his shoulder grinned at her and called ‘Going for a hike on your bike, beautiful?’ Peter flicked he fair plaits disdainfully …’ One of their journalist friends always greets her with, ‘Hello, gorgeous!’.
Almost from the start of the series, it seems taken for granted, even by their parents, that Peter and David will be a couple. The twins are particularly obnoxious with their loud hints on the subject. It’s bound to be a difficult relationship as they can meet so seldom and when they do, some hand-holding and kissing goes on. At one point during the series, Saville started writing in his introductions that his characters were beginning to know ‘what they mean to each other’, i.e. they are falling in love. While Peter was annoyed with him, David was frantically busy organising the big surprise for her birthday. That won’t be the only celebration. They go off to Shrewsbury and come back looking pleased with themselves because they’ve bought an engagement ring. They are only eighteen, yet David calls Peter ‘Darling’, ‘sweetie’ and ‘love’ as if they’d been married for twenty years.
Excitable chatterbox Jenny has a dull life with no friends her own age until she meets the Lone Piners and spends much of her time reading romances, which I imagine to be those little magazine booklets you used to get. Once she’s fallen for Tom, she makes no secret of the fact and treasures trinkets he buys her, surprising him once by kissing him ‘thank you’ for some pretty beads. She drives everyone mad in Man with Three Fingers when Tom goes missing (but she’s the one who rescues him). Again, in Where’s My Girl? she’s frantic when Tom is concussed and briefly loses his memory after the combine harvester he’s driving tips over. Her hysteria makes her useless in the crisis and nice Mr Ingles has to be very firm with her. She’s always saying, ‘I’m your girl, aren’t I, Tom?’ There’s a happy ending, though, at Peter’s birthday party, when Jenny, too, proudly produces a ring.
What of the third obvious couple, Penny and Jon? At some stage Saville adds to his character sketch of Penny, saying that she would follow Jon to the ends of the earth. Like Peter, she finds the relationship difficult. Jon is vague, teasing, annoying. In Mystery Moor, she and Jon have just arrived in Yorkshire when Jon and David decide to go for a tramp by themselves. Penny must have felt like getting the next train back to Rye. Yet, at the beginning of Home to Witchend, she goes to meet Jon’s train as usual and ‘he kissed her as never before.’ Cor! But nothing comes of this apparently romantic moment, so there’s no third engagement announcement. Just as well, as Jon is still at university and Penny is training to run The Gay Dolphin. I’ve read somewhere that, as first cousins, Jon and Penny regretfully decided they didn’t have a future together. I can’t find any such reference in the texts, so I wonder where it came from?
Could there be yet another romance in the future? Harriet Sparrow hasn’t featured in my posts so far, although she’s a club member. The Mortons meet her in Lone Pine London when she’s helping her grandfather in his antique shop. Her character doesn’t develop much until Strangers at Witchend, when she befriends a very unfortunate boy called Kevin. Goodness knows how David managed to track him down and get him to the party but once there, Harriet will not be parted from him. Hmm. She’s only the same age as the twins.
Before the wonderful reunion at Seven White Gates, there has to be an adventure and so Saville brings back villains who have featured before: Miss Ballinger, her ‘niece’ Val and the man they once called ‘Slinky’ Grandon. David is very foolhardy, gets knocked about and locked up (what else?) until Peter rescues him. When everyone is assembled for the party, Peter has a sort of ‘This is Your Life’ event, as people they’ve met during their adventures appear. And who is this frail old lady? None other than Agnes, not forgotten after all.
I felt sorry when I’d finished the very last book.
Almost from the start of the series, it seems taken for granted, even by their parents, that Peter and David will be a couple. The twins are particularly obnoxious with their loud hints on the subject. It’s bound to be a difficult relationship as they can meet so seldom and when they do, some hand-holding and kissing goes on. At one point during the series, Saville started writing in his introductions that his characters were beginning to know ‘what they mean to each other’, i.e. they are falling in love. While Peter was annoyed with him, David was frantically busy organising the big surprise for her birthday. That won’t be the only celebration. They go off to Shrewsbury and come back looking pleased with themselves because they’ve bought an engagement ring. They are only eighteen, yet David calls Peter ‘Darling’, ‘sweetie’ and ‘love’ as if they’d been married for twenty years.
Excitable chatterbox Jenny has a dull life with no friends her own age until she meets the Lone Piners and spends much of her time reading romances, which I imagine to be those little magazine booklets you used to get. Once she’s fallen for Tom, she makes no secret of the fact and treasures trinkets he buys her, surprising him once by kissing him ‘thank you’ for some pretty beads. She drives everyone mad in Man with Three Fingers when Tom goes missing (but she’s the one who rescues him). Again, in Where’s My Girl? she’s frantic when Tom is concussed and briefly loses his memory after the combine harvester he’s driving tips over. Her hysteria makes her useless in the crisis and nice Mr Ingles has to be very firm with her. She’s always saying, ‘I’m your girl, aren’t I, Tom?’ There’s a happy ending, though, at Peter’s birthday party, when Jenny, too, proudly produces a ring.
What of the third obvious couple, Penny and Jon? At some stage Saville adds to his character sketch of Penny, saying that she would follow Jon to the ends of the earth. Like Peter, she finds the relationship difficult. Jon is vague, teasing, annoying. In Mystery Moor, she and Jon have just arrived in Yorkshire when Jon and David decide to go for a tramp by themselves. Penny must have felt like getting the next train back to Rye. Yet, at the beginning of Home to Witchend, she goes to meet Jon’s train as usual and ‘he kissed her as never before.’ Cor! But nothing comes of this apparently romantic moment, so there’s no third engagement announcement. Just as well, as Jon is still at university and Penny is training to run The Gay Dolphin. I’ve read somewhere that, as first cousins, Jon and Penny regretfully decided they didn’t have a future together. I can’t find any such reference in the texts, so I wonder where it came from?
Could there be yet another romance in the future? Harriet Sparrow hasn’t featured in my posts so far, although she’s a club member. The Mortons meet her in Lone Pine London when she’s helping her grandfather in his antique shop. Her character doesn’t develop much until Strangers at Witchend, when she befriends a very unfortunate boy called Kevin. Goodness knows how David managed to track him down and get him to the party but once there, Harriet will not be parted from him. Hmm. She’s only the same age as the twins.
Before the wonderful reunion at Seven White Gates, there has to be an adventure and so Saville brings back villains who have featured before: Miss Ballinger, her ‘niece’ Val and the man they once called ‘Slinky’ Grandon. David is very foolhardy, gets knocked about and locked up (what else?) until Peter rescues him. When everyone is assembled for the party, Peter has a sort of ‘This is Your Life’ event, as people they’ve met during their adventures appear. And who is this frail old lady? None other than Agnes, not forgotten after all.
I felt sorry when I’d finished the very last book.
