Yarns Without Threads - Patrick Raymond

Patrick Raymond
	Daniel and Esther

First published by Hutchinson Children's Books 1989 August 3. Red Fox paperback published 1991 January 17, ISBN 0-099-67560-9. Published in the US 1990. The book has also been translated into French, German, Norwegian and Swedish.

This is another of the many books written for children which are just as satisfying and enjoyable for adult readers. Although the subject of adolescent love is clearly of particular interest to other youngsters, when the writing is as good as this it deserves to be given attention by older generations too.

To set the scene, I can't do better than quote the author's introductory note:

Dartington was a real school. In the 1930s, when this story takes place, it was one of the first to believe in freedom for young people, which seemed revolutionary at the time.

It is perhaps worth pointing out that, generally, the founders and the members of the staff are real people who have been given their own names; the children, however, are fictitious, though inevitably they have some ghostly forbears. The story of Daniel and Esther is not entirely untrue.

Swimming costumes were banned at Dartington, although nudity other than for bathing and swimming seems to have been unusual. The extracts illustrate the matter-of-fact approach to nudity of both staff and pupils, which continued until the school closed in 1987.

Naturists will not be surprised to find that Dartington's pupils suffered less from pubertal and adolescent angst because of their awareness of the bodies of others. Raymond also shows that everyday nudity does not prevent lust, nor is it a fully-effective immunisation against sexual experimentation. A clear benefit is that sex education can be free from the need to overcome barriers of embarrassment, and there is no implicit prurience over primary and secondary sexual characteristics.

Raymond is unsensational when referring to sex and nakedness, and these topics never dominate the story. He has more important matters to pursue, including the nature of vocation, the emotions and urges deriving from family and homeland, artistic integrity, and the cruel impact of global strife on individuals and their loved ones.

As far as I know, there is no sequel to this novel, although I am sure many readers would love to read one. Raymond is probably wise to leave the story where he does, since the reader has much more to ponder than if he had taken the characters through to the end and aftermath of World War II.

Another Yarns Without Threads author, Eva Ibbotson, was a pupil at Dartington from 1933 to 1941, so she and Raymond should have known one another. Sadly, I have been unable to find out anything more about Raymond, and searches for a picture have been equally fruitless. The only snippet which may be relevant is that one of the books I consulted about Dartington referred to "the novelist, Ernest Raymond" having been a parent of a pupil in the thirties. Apparently, Ernest Raymond (1888-1974) was a prolific writer, but not outstandingly successful, and known primarily for his murder story We, The Accused. This was rated "peculiarly sordid and convincing" by George Orwell. Additional information on either Raymond would be most welcome.

I can thoroughly recommend this book as an excellent novel for and about teenagers, as well as specifically being a story dealing sensibly with social nudity. It is a pity that the nicely-drawn cover image of the UK paperback is clearly of children from the time of publication, rather than from the time of the story.

An edited version of this review appeared in the 2005 December issue of H&E Naturist magazine.

Ratings:

Nudity	Naturist nudity	A good read?

Last updated 2005 November 5.

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Other content Copyright © author Tim Forcer

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