John Wyndham: 'The Kraken Wakes' Quiz

Answer: The Pink Nursery Book

Mike rejects Phyllis' choice as too long and out of key. Google cannot find the supposed author (Emily Pettifell) or 'The Pink Nursery Book', so I presume John Wyndham made them up, along with the lines quoted by Phyllis as apposite
'- But Mother, please tell me, what can those things be
That crawl up so stealthily out of the sea'.
If you know any differently, please let me know!

Answer: English Broadcasting Company

This was written by John Wyndham in the days when the BBC was the only broadcasting medium in Britain.

Answer: The Guinevere

The fireballs were the first indication that some thing strange was beginning to happen. All the wrong answers were ships sunk by the invaders in the book. Phyllis was particularly upset by the loss of 'The Queen Anne', as they had seen this apparently beautiful ship in Southampton.

Answer: Escondida

Escondida was an island in the Caribbean where the Watsons had gone with Bocker, who had compiled a probability list of where the next attack would come. Although Grand Cayman was attacked before Escondida, the 'sea-tanks' did come ashore at Smithtown, Escondida. The 'sea-tanks' did not attack England until much later. I made up Salvatina.

Answer: Leslie Bray and Muriel Flynn

The 'sea-tanks' extrude bubbles, which split open, deploying long, sticky cilia that drag anything animate in (Phyllis later describes it as 'shrimping'). Muriel was a technical assistant and Leslie a recordist and were both unlucky enough to be caught. Leslie was apparently killed by a broken neck in the fall when the cilia got him, but Muriel was crying in terror. Mike's nightmares replace Muriel with Phyllis.

Answer: An outside toilet

Phyllis, who is more long-sighted than Mike, bought a lot of food and, having taught herself bricklaying, stored it both in her new 'arbour' and also bricked up half the cellar. She did not tell Mike what she had done, as she was worried he might take high moral tone about black-market food.

She told Mike the arbour was for working in on a warm day. Mike thinks she's built an outside toilet (privy)!

Answer: Rose Cottage

It is a grey-stone, five-roomed cottage bought with a legacy from Phyllis's Aunt Helen and is approximately 279 miles from London. There are no roses at Rose Cottage and Mike explains that in Cornwall 'rose' does not mean rose, but heath. If any Cornish speakers can confirm or deny this, I would be very interested. Rose Cottage is apparently the second most popular house name in the UK, beaten only by 'The Cottage'.

Answer: Harrogate, North Yorkshire

The government moved out of Westminster (which is right on the Thames) to the charming spa town of Harrogate.

Answer: The Midge

They find the drifting boat with a dead woman and use it to get to their cottage in Cornwall. London is deserted and it sounds as if civil war had broken out in Harrogate.

Answer: Pneumonia

'Not much food...no resistance, no medical services, no drugs and three hellish winters'. John Wyndham mentions that this was approximately the population at the time of the first Elizabethans - but the UK counted then, so the book ends on an optimistic note. I hope you enjoyed the quiz.