English school holidays issued with a penalty notice whenever they take their children on holiday during term time without getting authorisation from the school. Penalty notices can be issued by local councils, headteachers (including deputy and assistant heads authorised by them) and the police. Generally, schools will agree to no more than 10 school days of absence in any school year. The Swallows and Amazons series of children’s novels by Arthur Ransome are all set in the school holidays, generally the long (August) summer holidays although some are set in Easter or winter. For example, in "Pigeon Post", he wrote: "Term time was
Swallows and Amazons series Broads before moving to the lake in the north. "We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea" and "Secret Water" are set in coastal Suffolk and Essex, with the former involving a voyage to Flushing, Netherlands and the latter the exploration of the islands of Hamford Water near Walton-on-the-Naze. The books "Peter Duck" and "Missee Lee" involve voyages of the schooner "Wild Cat" to the Caribbean and the South China Sea. These stories appear to be metafictional in relation to the rest of the series, and were originally planned by Ransome (see below) as stories written by the children. The final