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Catherine Cookston is well known for her adult books but she has also written a few very good books for children. That they are not better known is yet more proof of the low esteem in which children's books are held. A point which is often repeated by that established children's writer, Jill Paton Walsh.
Personally I prefer Catherine Cookston's children's books to her adult books - which perhaps shows why I am reviewing children's books.
Rory's Fortune was first published in 1972. It is the kind of book which I really like. It is a good, old fashioned smuggling story. The time is 1851. Fifteen year old Rory McAllister is an apprentice wheelwright. He is also trying to support his family. Every two years his master, John Cornwallis, makes the long journey from Durham to Devon to see his mother. One year Mr Cornwallis has an accident and Rory is sent in his place.
Rory finds that he is sent not to his master's mother but to the mysterious Ma Bluett. Then he makes a boat trip across to Jersey. What is the "blue baccy?" What is the secret from Mr Cornwallis's past? And how does the goat Scape come into all this?
We learn all the answers but not before Rory has had many adventures.
A gripping, enthralling story. I wish more books like this were being published to-day.
10+
Twelve-year-old Reuben lives with his family in a little hovel on the shore on the Channel coast. Poverty stricken they survive as best as possible. Reuben goes climbing on the cliffs trying to catch and kill seabirds. His father and elder brother go fishing. And there is always smuggling to fall back on.
One night a ship is wrecked. All the members of the village swarm down to the beach to see what they can salvage. He sees a survivor from the wreck struggling in the waves and pulls him ashore and saves him. The rest of the villagers are horrified. Reuben has defied a local superstition. You did not try to cheat the sea. You certainly never rescued a stranger. For if you did the sea would take you or one of your family in place of the one you had saved.
The rescued boy turns out to be a London urchin who goes by the name of Pin. In trouble with the law he had stowed aboard the ship. The other villagers will have nothing to do with him but Reuben befriends him.
Then there are several instances when the smugglers are surprised by Lieutenant Cade and the coastguards. The lieutenant must have been warned. Who could betraying the smugglers? Suspicion falls on the boy from London –– Pin.
Later the Lieutenant finds that there could be something more serious than smuggling involved. This is the time of the Napoleonic Wars and a letter to a French society is found in one of the fishing boats. So there is treason as well as smuggling involved.
Finally Reuben’s elder brother Daniel is accused of murder. If the case is taken to court he will almost certainly be condemned to death. But Reuben is determined to prove his innocence. And he has Pin to help him. Moreover, despite everything, Lieutenant Cade is a fair and just man. Can Reuben and Pin succeed?
This book shows in detail how the smugglers operated. How they brought the goods ashore, how they hid them and later distributed them. It also brings out the part played by the wealthier members of society who lent their tacit support by buying from the smugglers. And it gives the added information about the superstitions of the fishermen –– as shown when some of the smugglers attempted to take a dreadful retribution on Reuben because he saved Pin from the sea.
An exciting story with a detailed background
9-13
Out of Print
Devon during the Napoleonic Wars.
The orphaned Jim Davis is sent to live with his aunt and uncle on the south coast of Devon. His aunt and uncle have no children of their own and do not care for children in general and Jim often feels very lonely. Then when he is twelve years old Mrs Cottier and her son Hugh come to live with them. At once life becomes much better for Jim as Mrs Cottier is very kind to him. Then something happens which brings Jim and Mrs Cottier very close together.
Mrs Cottier drives into Salcombe to do her Christmas shopping. There is a snowstorm and she fails to return. Jim's uncle is in bed with sciatica and his aunt is afraid of the night so Jim says he will saddle the pony and go and look for Mrs Cottier. During his search he stumbles into a group of "night riders" or smugglers. They warn the frightened Jim never to breathe a word of what he has seen or his "Neck will go." As they leave one of the smugglers tells Jim he will find Mrs Cottier in a barn just up the road. Jim rides on and finds Mrs Cottier. The smugglers had "borrowed" her horse. Later the snow stops and Jim puts her on his pony and takes her home.
After this there is a special bond between Jim and Mrs Cottier. She tells Jim that she will never forget how he rode out to help her and she wants him to regard her as his mother and Hugh as his brother. What brings them even closer together is the fact that they have a common secret - the night riders. She does not want to get anyone into trouble and she does not tell Jim's aunt and uncle about the smugglers.
This is the beginning of Jim's involvement with the smugglers. A smuggler, Marah Gorsuch, who is also half gipsy, befriends Jim and Hugh and teaches them how to tie knots and how to rig a toy ship.
Then Jim stumbles on the smugglers' hideout - a large cave in the cliffs with a sea entrance for a lugger. The smugglers cannot take the risk of the preventive officers forcing Jim to betray them. So they decide to make Jim one of themselves. Marah forges his signature on their "articles." Jim is to make a couple of voyages with the smugglers and then they will let him go home because by that time he will be a smuggler himself and so they will be able to trust him.
Jim sails with them on two voyages to France but before they can release him the smugglers are surprised by the soldiers when they are unloading a cargo. There is a fight and at the end of it Jim finds himself wounded, alone and penniless. He just wants to get home but first he has to elude the soldiers and preventive officers and he knows he could be hanged if caught.
But this does not happen. We know this because the story is told in the first person by Jim. But how does he escape? Does he get home? And what happens to Marah?
I read and reread this book as a child. I particularly liked the first half. Jim's ride through the snowstorm, the smugglers' hideout in the hut among the gorse bushes, the sea cave, the smugglers' signal of the hoot of an owl - all this really caught my imagination.
No matter how many times I read this book I am always caught in its spell.
10+