Enid’s habit of coining nicknames for herself and her close acquaintances and then acting out small fantasies with them was something that exasperated the practical, down-to-earth Ida, now engaged to be married to a young soldier she had known since childhood. But Enid continued to call her friend ‘Cap’n’ and herself ‘cabin-boy’, or ‘Richard’, and on walks together she would often act out the part, whistling noisily, plunging her hands deeply into her pockets and putting on a boyish swagger to keep up the pretence. Ida felt this behaviour extremely childish and not in keeping with a trainee teacher who would soon be responsible for young children herself. Only Mabel, it seemed, understood her young friend’s need for these occasional escapes from reality and would laugh over her nonsense, continuing to handle Enid, in her late teens and early twenties, like an irrepressible, lovable child.
During her final year at Ipswich, Enid had another poem accepted by Nash’s Magazine. ‘Do You – ?’, published in September 1918, again had sentimental rhyming verses and a wistful air. This time no one took up her question poetically in a later edition of the magazine. Another poem, written about the same time but in a different mood, was in praise of her landlady’s date pudding, over which she had enthused at dinner one evening, but this was not to be published until many years later in one of her children’s magazines.
With a full programme of assistant teaching in the mornings, lectures each afternoon and private study in the evenings, time passed quickly. Enid took Part I of her National Froebel Union Higher Certificate during her first year, gaining first-class passes in geography, botany, handwork (including drawing) and a distinction in zoology. Surprisingly, she only gained a second-class pass in literature, though her other second-class pass – in mathematics – was not so unexpected, for she had never found this subject easy. By December 1918, she had completed her course with first-class passes in the practice of education, child hygiene, history of education and class teaching of children (between the ages of seven and fourteen) and was awarded a distinction for her paper on the principles of education.
She was now twenty-one years of age, a fully-fledged Froebel teacher and free to go her own way without reference to anyone, but she still welcomed the guiding hand of Mabel. Through her she heard of a junior teacher’s post at a new boys’ preparatory school at Bickley in Kent. She applied and was accepted. After making her farewells to the staff at the High School and the Hunts, she left Ipswich and closed a chapter of her life that she rarely mentioned again. Except for occasional references to a Froebel training, in later life she told no one, not even her daughters, anything of the people she met during that period or of Seckford Hall and the Hunts. Yet the testimonial given her on leaving by the Head Mistress, Miss M. Gale, was glowing:
Miss Enid Blyton has been a student in the Kindergarten Department of this school for the last two years. She has very good ability, is both musical and artistic and has shown teaching capacity of a high order. Enthusiasm and energy are marked characteristics. She has a real love of children and handles them well. Discipline is good, and she has an unusual power of interesting children. She has some literary gift herself and dramatic sense.
Miss Blyton has a high sense of duty, is reliable and thorough in all she undertakes, and her influence on children is very good.
As one of the best students we have had for some years, I can recommend her warmly for a responsible post.
M. GALE, Head Mistress
After spending Christmas with Mabel and her parents – ‘Grandpa’ and ‘Grandma’ Attenborough, as she was to call them from then on – she began teaching at Bickley Park School in January 1919.
In those days there were about twenty boys at the school, which was run from a small house in Page Heath Lane, Bickley. The Headmaster, Richard Brandram, had not long left the army and was a tall, good-looking man in his thirties, of whom Enid was always rather in awe. She was allotted a bed-sitting room but took her meals with the Headmaster, his wife Maud, their two young children – Dick and Joyce – and the only other member of staff, a Miss Hutson. Enid was now close enough to Beckenham for her to visit Mabel most weekends and she enjoyed the happy, relaxed atmosphere within the school.
This was her first opportunity to try out her teaching ideas on receptive young minds and her skill in handling the children was soon apparent. She had charge of half a dozen boys, aged between six and eight years of age, to whom she taught most general subjects, in addition to taking English classes with the senior boys, and her pupils have happy memories of their enthusiastic young teacher who made her lessons into games and told them such fascinating stories. To those whose work merited special recognition she awarded ribbons, similar to army decorations but worn on the arms, and different colours were used for the varying degrees of progress. When her pupils had reached the ‘peak of excellence’, as she termed it, they were made ‘knights’. Her lessons were equally inventive and she had no difficulty in holding the attention of her classes. She took the children on nature walks, played games and swam with them in the local baths.
Most of her spare time was spent in writing, but with the exception of a poem in The Poetry Review, she had no further success with publication. This poem – ‘The Poet’ – looked at the child who gave his own view of the world through his natural poetry (See Appendix 1). By the end of the year, Richard Brandram was well pleased at the progress his young pupils had made under her care, but by then Enid had told him that she would be leaving as she had been offered another post. Once again she took with her a written testimonial which highlighted the ability and flair she was never to lose:
Miss E. M. Blyton held a post on my staff from January to December 1919. During that period she had charge of my lowest form and took English subjects with the other forms also. She left me at her own desire to manage a small preparatory school elsewhere.
I was exceedingly sorry to lose her valuable assistance. She inspired her pupils with a real interest in whatever work they were engaged and consequently maintained discipline without any effort. Further, she was at great pains to instill into their minds high ideals of behaviour and manners, with eminently satisfactory results. To be able to lead small boys and to understand their ways is a gift given to few, but Miss Blyton has the secret.
R.A. BRANDRAM, M.A.(Cant.), Headmaster.
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Mabel Attenborough had spent her summer holiday of 1919 in Cornwall, helping to look after the four young sons of her second cousin, Horace Thompson, whose wife, Gertrude, had been seriously ill. As David, the eldest boy, was recovering from diphtheria and had missed a considerable amount of schooling, Mabel had been helping the eight-year-old with his studies and it occurred to her that Enid would be an ideal tutor to continue with these lessons once he returned home. Her suggestion was enthusiastically taken up by the Thompsons and Enid was subsequently engaged to join the family in January 1920, as nursery governess to all four children.
Horace Thompson was an architect and chartered surveyor and he and his wife had lived at Southernhay – a pleasant, yellow-brick Victorian house in Hook Road, Surbiton – since their marriage. Surbiton in the ’twenties was not the Surrey town of large housing estates and busy roads that it has become today but a quiet, semi-rural suburb, and Hook Road itself was surrounded by fields and country lanes – something that pleased Enid greatly. She was given a small room at the back of the house with a large window overlooking the garden and it was here that she was to spend a great deal of her spare time over the next few years, writing. As she had once done at Elm Road, she took to locking her door, but this time it was to shut herself away for a while from her affectionate pupils, who never seemed to tire of her company.
She took her first classes with David and his seven-year-old brother, Brian, in the old day nursery at the side of the house and, when the summer came, lessons were conducted in the garden or on the verandah. After a while, the boys were joined by their young twin brothers, Peter and John, and Mollie Sayer, the daughter
of a neighbour. Enid’s success with her young pupils, and the shortage of schools in the area, soon resulted in several other parents who lived nearby asking if their children could also be included in the classes. Much to her employers’ amusement and Enid’s delight, a small ‘school’ soon developed at Southernhay, with twelve boys and girls being taught at one time or another during the four very happy and eventful years she was to spend with the family.
With ages ranging from four to ten years, lessons had to be conducted with care, but it says much for the skill of her teaching that she was able to handle these so successfully that her pupils progressed remarkably well. She taught every subject herself and meticulously wrote full reports on every child at the end of each term. For the younger members the subjects were Reading, Writing, Numbers, Singing, Painting, Handwork, Games (cricket in the summer, football in the winter) and Acting. Additional subjects for those aged seven and upwards were: Arithmetic, History, Geography, French, English, Music (including piano tuition) and Nature Study. Her General Remarks were always written with care and at length and these old reports show something of the character of her pupils and her own sense of humour. She described one child’s singing voice as ‘a buzzing sound somewhere in his boots’, and wrote of another ‘…Most things come easily to him, and so more difficult things seem sometimes insuperable.’ She was quick to praise and give encouragement during her lessons but did not hesitate to wield her authority or reprimand firmly those who misbehaved.
All the Thompsons have happy memories of their teacher, whose ‘deep, throaty laugh’ could often be heard in and out of the schoolroom. It was her sense of fun which is particularly remembered by them today. One incident which kept the family entertained for many months occurred some two years after her arrival at Southernhay. Horace Thompson was holding a business dinner party and just before the guests were due to arrive, the parlourmaid fell ill. Without hesitation, and to the Thompsons’ amusement, the young nursery governess volunteered to deputise. Donning the maid’s cap and apron, she assumed what she considered to be the correct air of deference and carried off the whole evening superbly, waiting at table and attending to every need, without the subterfuge ever being discovered by the guests.
Although she was always willing to join in the children’s games she was, as Brian Thompson recalls, ‘an essentially practical teacher’ and even leisure hours were instructive. She would write small plays for the children to act, poems for them to recite and songs for them to sing and twice a year these would be incorporated into a concert for parents and friends. With Enid’s help, the children made the costumes, drew up the invitations and programmes, took the pennies at the door and made up the accounts, eventually sending the proceeds to Dr Barnardo’s Homes.
Enid’s method of teaching, which was built upon her Froebel training, her knowledge of the Montessori system imparted by Miss Flear and her own creative flair, constantly prodded the young minds to expand in all directions. David and John Thompson both claim that their interest in plant life, instilled into them by Enid’s enthusiastic ‘nature walks’ around Southernhay, led to their becoming nursery gardeners in adult life, and for the other members of the class these happy rambles through the woods and meadows were as enjoyable as they were instructive. She encouraged the children to catch pond life and read up everything they could about it, to collect butterflies and moths and follow up the full life-cycle of each specimen. Notes would be made on what the caterpillar fed upon, the time of year caterpillar and butterfly were to be found and the part of the country where they were most common. One summer, she gathered the children around her while she made a large, hot air balloon out of paper and, before it lifted skywards, over a methylated spirit pad, she attached a label giving Southernhay’s address. She was as excited as the children when the balloon’s label was subsequently returned from Belgium. This led to an interesting geography lesson in which maps were produced and the children were shown the balloon’s route and told something of the places over which it had passed and where it had finally landed.
Being always alert to possible teaching aids, her attention was drawn one day at a London tube station to several brightly coloured posters displayed on the platform. Thinking how much the subjects chosen would appeal to her class, she tracked down the sales office and bought a selection. These she duly took back to Southernhay and from then on, the child who reached the top of the class each week had the privilege of choosing the picture to be hung on the wall for the following five days.
Handwork for the boys and girls usually consisted of cane and basket-work or threading dried and coloured melon seeds into necklaces and bracelets – an occupation often accompanied by the reading or telling of one of her own stories, which for many was the highlight of their day.
Enid was happier than she had been for many years. She enjoyed the teaching and really felt herself to be a member of a loving family. ‘Uncle Horace’ and ‘Aunt Gertrude’ were always there to give encouragement and to the children ‘Auntie Enid’, as she was known from the beginning, was someone very special. Undoubtedly this background of affection helped the young governess when, during her first summer at Southernhay, she received some news from her uncle that must have come as a great shock – her father had died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of fifty, while out fishing on the Thames at Sunbury.
His brother, Charles, was the first to be informed and he quickly notified the rest of the family and then arranged for the funeral to take place at Beckenham for, despite having lived with another woman for the past ten years, suburban proprieties dictated that as Thomas was still Theresa’s legal husband he must be buried as such.
Enid had never lost touch with her father over the years, even though she was estranged from the rest of her family. She never visited him in his new home, but she would often call to see him at his office in the City and they would talk and laugh over things together, almost like the old days, for nothing that had happened in the past could completely obliterate the deep bond of affection that still existed between them. All the more curious, then, that she did not attend his funeral.
Hanly thinks there may have been two reasons for this. Firstly, she was not to know that the ‘other woman’, whom she had never been able to accept, would not be present. Secondly, and perhaps more probably, after four years away it would have been painful and embarrassing for her to return to her family at such a time and make her explanations. Her pupils at Southernhay have no recollection of any mention being made of the death by Enid or their parents – either at the time or in later years – so her feelings on hearing the news and reasons for not being present at the funeral can only be a matter for speculation. Maybe the Enid, who was able to shelve so many other unpleasant aspects of her life, decided to put away the almost unbearable truth that she would never again see her father. If she had attended his burial, she would have been forced into an acceptance of this reality.
Thomas left small bequests to Theresa, Enid and her brothers and due to this some slight contact was re-established between them. Carey had decided to join the Royal Air Force for a seven-year engagement but Hanly remained at home with his mother at Westfield Road and took over the management of his father’s business, where he had been working since his war-time service overseas with the army. As there was still great antipathy between mother and daughter, meetings between Hanly and Enid usually took place at his London office and there was never time for long conversations. They rarely spoke of their personal affairs and he was to learn nothing of his sister’s movements since she had left home in 1916. He knew that at the time of their father’s death she was a nursery governess in Surrey, but she never told him of her training at Ipswich or of the Hunt family and Seckford Hall. It is therefore not surprising that he assumed Enid had been with the Thompson family ever since her ‘disastrous’ service in the Land Army so often referred to by his mother.
Home for Enid was now with Mabel Attenborough and her parents at Oakwood Ave
nue and it was here that she spent most of her weekends and holidays – far enough away from the Westfield Road area of Beckenham for her to avoid painful encounters with her mother. It was at a garden party at Oakwood Avenue in the late summer of 1920 that she renewed the acquaintance of an old friend from St Christopher’s – Phyllis Chase. The two had known each other since their early days at the school, had played in the lacrosse team together and joined in most of the senior activities, but Phyllis had left first and the pair had then lost touch. Phyllis had always been a good artist and was now beginning to sell some of her illustrations, so it seemed inevitable that before the day was out, the two should decide to try and submit work together. Their first joint sale, early in the following year, was a children’s fairy story to one of Cassells’ weekly magazines and this was the beginning of a partnership that was to last for several years.
Enid was as determined as ever to achieve success as a writer and during her first year with the Thompsons had been aiming mostly for the adult periodical market but, apart from a small poem for a Presbyterian church magazine – The Messenger – everything had been rejected. Her meeting with Phyllis Chase and the acceptance of her story by Cassells seemed to be a turning point. Soon afterwards she won a competition in the Saturday Westminster Review of 19 February 1921 with, according to the magazine editor’s comment at the time, ‘a pointed piece of nonsense’ entitled ‘On the Popular Fallacy that to the Pure All Things are Pure’ (see Appendix 2). Later in the year came acceptances by The Londoner and The Bystander of two short humorous pieces and of a romantic story for Home Weekly entitled ‘The Man She Trusted’. More stories were accepted by The Bystander and Passing Show during 1922 and she and Phyllis took on a variety of other commissions together. They tackled everything from illustrated rhymes for newspaper advertisements to Christmas and Easter cards for children and adults, Enid writing the verse and Phyllis designing the covers. They also worked on numerous illustrated poems and stories for children – the majority of which were accepted by Teachers’ World, an educational weekly published by Evans Brothers.
Enid Blyton Page 4