Redshank's Warning

Jillies #1

by Malcolm Saville

Redshank’s Warning is the first title in the Jillies series.

Redshank’s Warning introduces us to the Jillions – Mandy, Prue and Tim – and the Standings – Guy and Mark. The scene is Blakeney in Norfolk with its wild salt flats. When the Jillies meet Guy and Mark, they are expecting some happy bird watching but they never guessed what else they would be watching. What was Miss Harvey plotting? Who was the villain, Mr Sandrock or Mr Martin? And what was the meaning of the Redshank’s warning?

Genres: British Literature, Mystery

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1948

About the author

Leonard Malcolm Saville was an English author best known for the Lone Pine series of children's books, many of which are set in Shropshire. His work emphasises location; the books include many vivid descriptions of English countryside, villages and sometimes towns.

(wikipedia)

Reviews

[Shauna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really disliked 'The Jillies' as a family. The children are precocious and insufferably smug and the father is neglectful and annoying. I much prefer the Lone Pine series although Dickie and Mary in those books are also pretty irritating.
My paperback copy is signed by the author. I only discovered this when I opened the first page. I bought it for only £2 a few years ago so I presume the bookshop in Hay-on-Wye didn't realise or the cost would have been well into double figures!

[Alison Toon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is set in the 1940's (if I remember correctly), in one of the most beautiful parts of England: North Norfolk. An adventure story for children, along the lines of Enid Blyton's "Adventure" series, it now gives an insight into another age, beginning with a child in quarantine at home, and then the long drive from London to Blakeney in a rattly old car, at a time when having a car was still a luxury for many families, and a seaside vacation was something that families scraped and saved all year for.

Then the adventure really begins.

I first read this book when I was quite small, and already in love with this part of the world. The place hasn't really changed all that much; the hotel is still there, and the redshank still delivers a warning, should you stray into the marshes. It's just we human beings who have changed our expectations of a teenager's behaviour and words. (In response to an earlier review.)

[Deborah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another one from the 'Books to go' shelf. Unusually for MS, the location doesn't come across particularly strongly; more usually, the dastardly plot is a bit rubbish, and the characters are downright irritating. JD, the Jillies' dad, takes his children to Norfolk in an unreliable car without ensuring that they will have accommodation once they arrive. His eldest daughter Mandy is petulant, bossy, and generally far too big for her boots. 'Strong-willed' is the kindest way of putting it. I quite like Prue and Tim, and Guy and Mark Standing, but JD and Mandy are the two who put me off the Jillies books.

But this was a different age - perhaps Mandy's behaviour was considered attractive at the time, who knows? You can tell it's a different age because when, near the start, they are all going out for a meal, Mandy requests they go to a restaurant that serves that wholly exotic dish, spaghetti.

The dastardly plot is the theft and smuggling of valuable pictures, using a local church as a drop-off point (all elements which MS used in the Lone Pine series, although possibly not in the same combination). The Jillies and the Standings are enlisted by a Scotland Yard detective to help in the uncovering of this plot, not something which would happen today and something which I suspect was pretty unlikely to happen then. It's not a strong start to the series. If the rest of the books hit a higher mark it's possible I will keep Redshanks' Warning to make up the set, but I'm not optimistic.

[Mike Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

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