To mark the 90th birthday of Arthur Ransome’s yacht Nancy Blackett, her owner the Nancy Blackett Trust is offering free copies of Arthur Ransome’s We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea to local schools in Suffolk.

Nancy Blackett under full sail. Photo Bryan Bonser.

The book, part of his Swallows and Amazons series, features the Goblin, identical to the Nancy Blackett, and is set on the River Orwell, where he lived at the time of writing. The offer is to the first nine schools – one for each decade of Nancy’s life – to get in touch with the Trust, via our website here, to request a copy.

This story broke yesterday (April 13th) on the East Anglian Daily Times website, as well as on its Twitter feed and email update service, and within hours, the first school, Kelsale Primary, had been in touch.