Pigeon Post

Pigeon Post is the sixth book in Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of children's books, published in 1936. It won the first Carnegie Medal awarded for children's literature.

This book is one of the few Swallows and Amazons books that does not feature sailing. All the action takes place on and under the fells surrounding the Lake. Ransome made use of the mining and prospecting knowledge and experience of his friend Oscar Gnosspelius who features in the book as a character known as Squashy Hat.

Plot summary

The Swallows, Amazons and Ds are camping in the Blackett family's garden at Beckfoot. The Swallow is not available for sailing. James Turner (Captain Flint) has sent word that he is returning from an expedition to South America prospecting for gold, and has sent Timothy ahead. As he can be let loose in the study, they deduce that Timothy is an armadillo and make a box for him, but he does not arrive. Slater Bob, an old slate miner, tells them a story about a lost gold seam in the fells. As Captain Flint has been unsuccessful in his prospecting trip, plans are made to prospect for gold on High Topps instead.

They are allowed to move camp to Tyson's Farm, up near the fells, to be closer to the prospecting grounds, after proving that they can stay in touch with home using the homing pigeons that give the book its name. But when they get there, they find this little improvement as Mrs Tyson does not allow them to cook over a campfire because of the drought conditions and her fear of fires. Titty eventually finds a spring by dowsing and they move closer to the Topps. To keep in touch with Beckfoot, they send one of the homing pigeons with a daily message. As Nancy says (Chapter IV), A pigeon a day keeps the natives away.

While exploring the ground, they notice a rival they call Squashy Hat who is prospecting too. After days of prospecting, a seam of gold-coloured mineral is found in a cave made by the old miners, and they mine and crush enough to melt down into an ingot in a charcoal furnace. Unfortunately it disappears when the crucible breaks and Dick Callum has only a small amount to test with aqua regia.

Captain Flint returns, and finds Dick doing chemical tests on the putative gold in his study. While he explains to Dick that aqua regia dissolves everything (and that gold doesn't dissolve in anything else) and that they have found copper ore not gold, a pigeon arrives with an urgent message FIRE HELP QUICK from Titty. Captain Flint rings Colonel Jolys who musters his volunteer fire fighters, and they all rush to help save the Topps.

The fire on the fells is extinguished. Squashy Hat is revealed as Captain Flint's friend Timothy, who has been too shy to introduce himself to the children. Captain Flint is pleased to find copper, as he had talked with Timothy above Pernambuco in South America about new ways of prospecting for copper on the fells, and in fact prospecting for copper, not gold, had been the true purpose of the expedition to South America in the first place - "But it's copper we were looking for," said Captain Flint.