I’m thoroughly enjoying re-reading Malcolm Saville’s ‘Lone Pine’ series now that I have them all in either hardback, or the more recently published ‘Girls Gone By’ edition. While I’m very thankful that Armada published these books inexpensively in the 1970s and 1980s, enabling me to read them regularly, I had no idea until fairly recently that some of them were quite significantly abridged.
I’m also a tad surprised to realise that it’s probably twenty-five years since I last read ‘Lone Pine London’, the tenth book in the series. I read the series in order about once per decade after I had moved beyond the teenage years, but apparently when I re-read them in around 2010, I missed out several of the books in the middle of the series. So I had totally forgotten the story when I picked it up to read a couple of days ago.
This book, as the title suggests, is set in London rather than the Shropshire hills or the Sussex coast. It involves the Morton family, who have just moved to a new area in London, and also Jon and Penny Warrender who are staying with them. This is the Christmas holidays, and it’s London of the 1950s, complete with ‘pea-souper’ fogs that can descend without warning.
The first chapter feels a little bleak: Jon, challenged by David, has gone to watch a football match. It’s not really his preferred way to spend an afternoon, but even he gets drawn into the atmosphere. Then he tries to find his way home, only to keep spotting a greasy-looking man with a foul-smelling cigar. And the man seems to recognise Jon, but doesn’t want to speak to him.
Coincidence, of course. The ‘Lone Piners’ fall into most of their adventures because they just happen to be in the same neighbourhood as some criminals, and meet people who turn out to be connected in some way with whatever is the latest excitement or mystery. But it really doesn’t matter; once swallowing the initial encounter, and Jon ‘just happening’ to ask for help in an antique shop with a friendly owner and Harriet, his twelve-year-old granddaughter, it’s an exciting and well-written book.
The characterisation is always an important part of these books, although some of the interactions were cut out in the Armada versions. Perhaps they don’t all add to the story as such, but they give a much more rounded understanding of all the relationships between the Lone Piners and the adults who relate to them. Harriet reminded me a little of a younger version of Jenny (in Shropshire, who does not appear in this adventure) but it didn’t much matter. Her grandfather is a delightful creation, and they add an extra dimension to the story in having local knowledge - and, of course, being inadvertently involved in the crime that’s come to the fore.
James Wilson, the journalist who was introduced in ‘The Elusive Grasshopper’ reappears again, after another slightly contrived coincidental meeting. James is now engaged to a young woman called Judith, who is another excellent addition to the cast. She feels entirely believable as she gets to know the Lone Piners, and particularly relates well to Penny. There’s also a glamorous American film star who gets involved, and is thrilled to do so.
The twins don’t get quite such a big role as they do in earlier books - if anything they come across as a bit annoying and whiny, which they’re not. But if I hadn’t already felt as if I knew them from the rest of the series, I might have felt about them as Jon sometimes does, that they’re courageous and bright, but intensely irritating. However the twins - who are ten - become friendly with Harriet and her grandfather, and are keen, after the adventure ends, to enrol Harriet in the club.
It’s a fast-paced and well-written story, with just the right amount of atmosphere and description to make it feel real, without becoming dull. While I knew everything would be all right in the end, I found some of the later chapters quite tense, and could also relate to the worries (and anger) of some of the adults who had no idea where their families had got to, and what danger they might be in.
I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this book, and would recommend it to anyone - older children, teenagers or nostalgic adults - but it’s definitely best to have read at least a few of the earlier books in the series first.
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