Rye Royal (by Malcolm Saville)

(Amazon UK link)

I’m so glad I decided to re-read Malcolm Saville’s ‘Lone Pine’ series. I discovered it first in my teens, acquired most of the books in Amazon paperback form, and re-read them avidly at least once a decade. In the past few years I replaced many of my falling-apart paperbacks with new ‘Girls Gone By’ editions that have the added advantage of using the original full text. I had not realised, until fairly recently, that most of the Armada versions were abridged.

That’s not the case, however, with ‘Rye Royal’, seventeenth in the series. It was not abridged so my GGBP edition has the same text as my elderly Armada. It was a tad disappointing to discover this, as I’ve loved discovering the extra characterisation and conversations that were removed from the earlier Armada books. However, it’s nearly twelve years since I last read this book, so I had managed to forget quite a lot of what happened.

The book is set in Rye, and the Lone Piners involved are Jon and Penny (who live there, though both are now at college during term time), David Morton and his twin siblings Richard and Mary, and Peter (Petronella) Sterling who has not previously visited Rye. Peter is very much a country girl and even the busy-ness of small-town Rye is rather overwhelming to her. But she knows she’s going to spend her life with David… and in this book she starts to come to terms with what that might mean.

The most interesting new character, however, is the elderly Mrs Flowerdew who lives next door to Jon’s mother’s hotel. Most of the story takes place after she has been widowed. Her whole life has been spent looking after her husband. He was an academic historian with a huge library, who barely seemed to acknowledge her existence. She’s seen as somewhat eccentric by her neighbours, but in part this is because her husband was rather anti-social and expected her to be at his beck and call.

Mrs Flowerdew is persuaded to take in some overflow guests from the hotel over Christmas, in particular most of the Lone Piners who are gathering there. While they’re there she discovers something significant, and much of the plot revolves around it.

Naturally there are some bad guys too, and an unpleasant abduction, and there’s also an intriguing character called Roy Royal who runs an antiquarian bookshop in Rye, with a teenage coffee cellar in the basement. Penny likes him, and Jon respects his knowledge… but we discover fairly early on that he has a somewhat dodgy past, and is thus vulnerable to blackmail.

I remembered liking this book very much, and was not disappointed on re-reading it. It was written nearly sixty years ago, so inevitably the technology is dated - Jon has to run to a call-box rather than pulling out a mobile phone when he needs to call the police, and there are no computers or GPS devices. But it doesn’t matter; the people feel real and believable, and the story is exciting without being too tense. And, as ever in Saville’s books, there’s a lot of family interaction and conversations. The twins are growing up a little, more sensitive and mature than they used to be, and the older Lone Piners are now well-established in couples.

The writing is good, written for teenagers of the era. although these books are now mostly read by middle-aged and older folk like me, who recall them fondly from our own teenage years. They mostly feature happy family life with solid marriages, unlike much of today’s literature.

But there’s more than a hint of a stressful life in Mrs Flowerdew’s situation. I found a couple of scenes quite moving, despite having read  the book many times in the past. I hope a new generation of teens will read the books; the values may seem old-fashioned, but the series presents several good cameos of social history. This one also has some intriguing descriptions of customs and traditions associated with the town of Rye.

Definitely recommended to fans of the series - or possibly even as a starting point for teenagers looking for a good adventure story with a bit of low-key romance. Unfortunately the GGBP books go out of print regularly. They can sometimes be found second-hand, but usually at huge prices. Since the Armada version is not abridged, that is also worth looking for. 

Review copyright 2022 Sue's Book Reviews