Nancy Blackett’s appearance at the Maritime Woodbridge Festival this weekend (11th-12th September) coincides with an important anniversary in her long career.
It will be exactly seventy-five years ago on Sunday that Arthur Ransome purchased her in Poole Harbour, for £525, and immediately changed her name from the previous owner’s choice, Electron, to Nancy Blackett,
“But for Nancy, [the heroine of his ‘Swallows and Amazons’ books] ~I would never have been able to afford her.”
Nancy, the boat, inspired his next book, ‘We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea’, and appears in it as the Goblin.
She will be open to the public at Woodbridge, Suffolk, all day on both Saturday and Sunday, most probably tied up in front of the historic Tide Mill, though for operational reasons she may be moved to another location nearby. The Nancy Blackett Trust stall will be located as usual in the former Whisstock’s Boat Shed, and will be able to help with directions.