ID: MIS_1990_058

Mistral. Journal of the Mersea Island Society. January 1990. Page 41.

Another Local Novel

I have been reading Three Came Unarmed, by E. Arnot Robertson, published in 1929. It is set on Mersea Island and there are residents who remember the writer living here before the war. Victoria Sackvill-West wrote, ".... there are three children, two boys and a girl, of a Norwegian mother and an English # Missionary who has died of drink on some vague island of the Malayan Archipelago. They have grown up as savages, creatures of instint, beautiful in body and untutored in mind ... after their father's death they are suddenly precipitated into English provincial society ... a rich opportunity for comedy and satire."

E. Arnot Robertson Born circa 1903

Mafalda Tapp writes ......

She worked in London as a journalist, and contributed several articles to the Yachting Monthly magazine, whose editor found her a great talker with a strident voice. She was a strongly opinionated young woman, red haired, slender, almost scraggy proportions, very argumentative and unconventional - a modern "woman's Libber", to put it mildly.

In her novel "Three Came Unarmed" (1929), Mersea featured strongly with an accurate description of The Hard, and Coast Road with its fresh running spring water.

One local recalls having "Litle Old Ginger", was she was called, to tea on board their yacht Marjorie, moored in Thornfleet. On leaving she said, "Thank you so much, I've got a lot of copy today".

James Clarke, father of Ben Clarke who had a boat yard in The Lane, built a sailing dinghy for Miss Robertson in Rowhedge.

It appears she had many boy-friends, one of whom was an artist. She married Charles Turner (who worked in the City), but she called him Henry, having an aversion to the name Charles. The novel is dedicated to him.

She and her husband sailed in a Payn Clark designed yacht, Lona IV, and another novel, Four Frightened People, evolved featuring Pinmill.

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