"Tom R." wrote in message ...
I have not read the Dalton book and after reading this post I will not. Most
of the Jones books were good reads. Why would I want to diminish those fond
memories? I also enjoyed the Patrick O'Brian series. The fact that Mr.
O'Brian was not quite who he portrayed himself to be has not diminished the
enjoyment of his books. I suspect that Mr. Dalton did not have anything
better to do with his time.

well Tom, you may not have realized and Dalton's book does explain,
but Dalton was and probably still is a fan of Tristan's. He still I am
sure admires him as a sailor and writer, as Dalton is also. But as he
explains in his book, he set out to write a simply biography of one of
his favourite sailors and writers, unfortuntately what he discovered
was not as simply as that. He was therefore presumably left with the
decision, as all of us would have been in Dalton's position, should I
continue and get to the end regardless of the consequences or pull out
and let sleeping dogs lie.

That choice we all have of course in life, and now we know that Dalton
chose the former. Some would say he was a brave and honourable man,
others have said he was a 'hatchet man'. But those alternate
descriptions are our seperate choices.

If you haven't read the book, I think you should, otherwise others can
accuse you of 'living with your head in the sand' or 'viewing the
world through rose coloured spectacles'!

regards

andrew


"andrew" wrote in message
om...
Well having read all of his books and followed many debates about this
enigma of a man, I was wondering what thoughts any regular
rec.boats.cruising members had about the revelations provided by
Anthony Dalton in his new biography of Arthur (tristan) Jones, Wayward
Sailor.

If Anthony is to be believed, and I see no reason not to, then Tristan
despite being a simple mortal with many faults, was never the boy or
man he claimed he was, from his birth to his last adventure in
Thailand before his death.

I personally thoroughly enjoyed all his books, even Aka (which some
didn't). But now having read Anthony's account, the excitement has
dulled. Tristan had been the hero that Boys Own books are written for.
Yes, he sailed and wrote books, the evidence is there, but he also
deliberately lied about his many adventures. Many authors do that of
course, but Tristan tried to convince us that his adventures where
true.

But apart from that Anthony and others now paint a more unsavoury
picture of the man, who was a loner and often anti-social and above
all else was always determined to get his own way against anyone who
got in his way come hell or high water.

Yes I always believed he was an a bit of an incorrigible rough, but
this expose of the man leaves me feeling 'let down' not just for
myself but for the many youngsters that looked up to his spirit of
adventure and to those that admired his support of the disabled, that
now appears to be more talk than action!

Tristan may have often felt that the world had let him down in some
way, but I feel he let us down too in the process.

andrew