Having discovered, as she suspected, that the writing she enjoyed most was for children, Enid had begun to study her own young charges to gauge their reactions to the poems and stories she used in her lessons. She found that the boys favoured tales of bravery and loyalty, while girls liked fairy stories. Both, however, shared a taste for adventure, animal stories and bits of nonsense that made them laugh. So certain was she that most children would react in the same way that she decided to send a selection of her most popular items to the educational weeklies.
Miss Hilda Russell-Cruise, the assistant editor of Teachers’ World, had no hesitation in picking out Enid’s contributions from a batch of stories and poems passed on to her by the editor, Mr E.H. Allen. They seemed to stand out immediately for their freshness and originality. The stories were full of humour, well-constructed, contained plenty of dialogue and, like the poems that accompanied them, were infinitely better than those usually received from freelance writers. All were accepted and the first to be published was a fairy story about a broken magic dish – ‘Peronel and his Pot of Glue’—which appeared on 15 February 1922, with illustrations by Phyllis Chase. From then on, both became regular contributors to the magazine and Enid’s happy working association with Evans Brothers was to continue for many years.
But it was the small, twenty-four-page book of verse, published by J. Saville and Company in the summer of 1922, illustrated again by Phyllis Chase, that first brought Enid’s name before the general public. Child Whispers was dedicated to the Thompson boys: ‘four little brothers, David, Brian, Peter and John’ and had the following preface:
The children of nowadays are different in many of their likes and dislikes, from the children of ten years ago. This change of attitude is noticeable as much in the world of children’s poetry as it is in other things. In my experience of teaching I have found the children delight in two distinct types of verses. These are the humorous type and the imaginative poetical type – but the humour must be from the child’s point of view and not from the ‘grown up’s’ – a very different thing. And the imagination in the second type of poem must be clear and whimsical, otherwise the appeal fails and the child does not respond.
As I found a lack of suitable poems of the types I wanted, I began to write them myself for the children under my supervision, taking, in many cases, the ideas, humorous or whimsical, of the children themselves, as the theme of the poems! Finding them to be successful, I continued until the suggestion was made to me that many children other than those in my own school might enjoy hearing and learning the poems. Accordingly this collection of verses is put forward in the hope that it will be a source of sincere enjoyment to the little people of the world.
Enid Blyton, N.F.U.
By all accounts, it was also enjoyed by the reviewers:
… light, lilting, happy tales, told with a charming simplicity of thought and language that should give them an irresistible appeal to all young readers…
was the comment of The Bookman. The Children’s Newspaper wrote:
A book of real rhymes … written in the language of a child, and with the thoughts that any child might have …
This reviewer might well have been referring to Put to Bed – verses about a small boy sent to his room on a sunny day because he had been drawing pictures over the walls with an orange pencil. He had just started on a giant’s head when he was discovered:
When Nurse came in so cross and red
It made me feel afraid.
It ended:
There’s nothing here that’s nice at all –
‘Cept for Granny’s patchwork quilt.
The Schoolmistress commented: ‘Witches, fairies, goblins, flowers, little folk, butterflies and other delights all live between its pages …’ Enid’s readers were to become increasingly familiar with all these subjects in the years that followed, for she was to choose them many times for her stories and verse.
The following year the same publishing house brought out her second book of poems – Real Fairies – which was again very well received. The Morning Post was moved to comment, rather whimsically:
In Real Fairies, children have received a new educational charter restoring their right divine to believe in fairies.
The Yorkshire Post wrote:
To get a just estimate we left the judgement of Miss Blyton’s work to a parliament of children. The children loved her work and asked for more.
Her ability to ‘move into a child’s world of fancy’ (the Daily Chronicle) and to understand ‘things dear to the heart of childhood’ (The Schoolmistress), were phrases often used by the reviewers of this fifty-five page book of poems. Although most of the verses were about fairies, Enid’s ability to write from a child’s viewpoint is again evident in poems like The Open Window:
I’m here all alone in the schoolroom
And the others have gone long ago.
I’m kept in because of my writing,
I’ve really been awfully slow.
You see my desk’s right by the window
And I simply can’t help looking out,
And watching the bees in the flowers,
And the butterflies sailing about.
There’s buttercup fields in the distance,
And hills that look purple and blue
It’s ever so hard to remember,
I’ve got any writing to do.
I never shall finish my writing
With all of these things going on,
I’ll have to wait here till the evening
And do it when everything’s gone.
By this time her output of literary work was becoming so prolific that she began to keep an account book. This shows that during 1923 alone, her writing earned her well over £300 – the price of a small, suburban house at that time. In addition to Real Fairies, a small booklet, Responsive Singing Games, was published by J. Saville in March and this was followed by a series of story-books for Birn Brothers. During that same year no fewer than a hundred and twenty other items – stories, verses, book reviews and short plays – were also brought out under her name. Eighty-eight of these appeared in Teachers’ World, fourteen meriting full pages, and five of her poems were used in a special Poetry and Song edition which also included contributions by such noted poets as John Drinkwater, John Masefield, Sir Henry Newbolt, Walter de la Mare and Rudyard Kipling. Her poem, ‘January’, appeared on the first page of the supplement and her ‘Teachers’ Prayer’ on the last. On 4 July came the first of a long series of weekly articles for the magazine – From my Window (see Appendix 3) – a full column or more on a variety of subjects, which told something of her life and thoughts at that time.
Such a programme of work would keep many a writer fully occupied during the year, but Enid somehow continued throughout to teach, single-handed, her small class at Southernhay and from all accounts her pupils still progressed satisfactorily. They were proud of their teacher’s ability to write most of the plays, songs and poems used in their lessons and they, in turn, unwittingly provided her with plenty of material for her writing. Sometimes she used a situation or happening connected with them for From my Window – ‘A Dinner in Lilliput’ being one example. This was an account of a party for the Thompson children just before Christmas when all the courses of the meal were provided on a miniature scale – even the puddings, jellies and tarts ‘the size of a shilling’. This successful ‘dinner’ was conceived by Enid herself, though she did not mention this fact in her article.
John Thompson was the subject of another From my Window in August – ‘On Being Like Oneself’:
I have in my care a young, serious, and most profound philosopher. His mind grinds slowly, but it grinds exceedingly small, and he reduces everything and everyone to their lowest common factors. Consequently he occasionally utters observations which, while on the surface appearing superficial, betray a perception and a reasoning which are astonishing …
One of his observations that ‘people are so
“zackly” like them selves’, was explained by her:
… He wanted to say that our outward bodies reflected our inner souls and reflected them so astonishingly correctly that even he was able to recognise the fact …
The Thompsons remember Enid writing in her diary and she often spoke of having kept one each year from an early age, but there are few remaining today. Those that do remain cover only a decade or so of her life and consist of little more than pencilled jottings. The earliest is for 1924 and, though incomplete, shows something of the general pattern of her life at that time and of how established a writer she had already become during her four years at Southernhay. According to this diary, there was no easing up on her work even through her Christmas holiday at Oakwood Avenue with Mabel.
Her first entry on 1 January records that she wrote ‘all morning’ before going out to shop and have tea with Mabel and her sister. The following day she ‘Copied out Bimbo and Podge booklets [Birn Brothers] until supper …’ Her entry for 3 January was:
To London. Saw Dr. Wilson at Nelson’s. It’s definitely decided I’m to do 36 books for them! [This was a series of readers.] To Birns. Gave me a cheque for £38 17s …
She mentioned having tea with Alec Rowley and his sister and of how the composer played the settings to her lyrics – no doubt for one of the many songs for children the pair wrote together for Teachers’ World, and later brought out in book form. On 10 January, she recorded going once more to London to see Birn Brothers:
… They want me to do a jolly decent book to be brought out regardless of expense. To Cassells … No difficulty about copyright [this probably refers to one of her stories that she wanted to use elsewhere] … To Teachers’ World, talked over new ideas for poems etc …
There appears to have been no day of her holiday when she did not spend some time at work in connection with her writing and she seems to have retained her boundless energy throughout. She never failed to get all of her weekly contributions into Teachers’ World on time and even provided Miss Russell-Cruise – by return post and written to the required length, seemingly without effort – extra poems or stories needed at the last minute for the children’s page.
There was little time left for relaxation in this busy life and even the occasional visits to the theatre or cinema were apparently used as material for her writings. When she took two of her pupils to a London theatre at the beginning of January, she noted their reactions to the play and the visit was later recorded in her weekly column as ‘Only Just Us at the Windmill Man’. An afternoon at the Crystal Palace circus was similarly treated in another From my Window article.
Most of her weekends at home with the Attenboroughs were spent in writing but she usually made a point of accompanying Mabel to church on Sunday evenings – although her early allegiance to the Baptists had by this time slackened and when she was away from home other matters invariably took precedence over church attendance. During holiday time, she knew it also pleased Mabel if she helped her with the crèche she ran for mothers from the East End of London attending Monday afternoon meetings at the Walworth Road Baptist Church, but she refused to join in most of the other social activities around the church at Beckenham and showed no interest in any of the young men she met there.
Most of the men who visited the Thompsons and Attenboroughs were married and older than herself, as were the majority of the publishers she met in the course of her writing, but she appears to have had little inclination, or allowed herself the time, to meet others elsewhere. Her happiness with the children at Southernhay, Mabel’s deep affection and, above all, her writing, seemed to provide her with everything she needed – until she met Major Hugh Alexander Pollock.
4
Hugh Pollock had joined the publishing firm of George Newnes as editor of the book department in 1923, after a notable army career. Born and brought up in Ayr, where his father had for many years been an antique bookseller and much respected elder of the Church, Hugh had joined the Royal Scots Fusiliers on the outbreak of war and fought in most of the major battles, eventually being awarded the DSO in 1919. A handsome, fair-haired man with striking blue eyes, he was in his middle thirties when he came to Newnes, after a short post-war service with the Indian Army. With his glamorous background, air of quiet authority and sophisticated manner, he charmed the twenty-six-year-old, emotionally very immature Enid from the start, while her childlike naïvety and zest for life drew the war-weary ex-soldier to her from their first meeting.
There is no exact record of this encounter but it is likely that she began submitting stories to Newnes during Hugh’s first year with the company and probably discussed some of these with him personally. Whether she knew from the beginning that he was already married, his wife having left him for someone else during the war, can only be a matter for conjecture. It is not so much what she writes about him in her diary of 1924 that intrigues, but what is left unwritten.
Her first mention of him was on January 10th:
Pollock wrote and asked if I’d collaborate with him. It was a lovely letter.
She evidently agreed to see him to discuss his proposition for on 1 February she called at his office:
Pollock wanted to know if I’d do a child’s book of the Zoo. He asked me to meet him at Victoria tomorrow … I said I would.
Her diary for the following day shows that a startlingly rapid progress had been made in their relationship:
Met Hugh at two. Went to the Zoo and looked round. Taxied to Piccadilly Restaurant and had tea and talked till six! He was very nice. We’re going to try and be real friends and not fall in love! – not yet at any rate. We are going to meet again tomorrow.
They met as arranged, walked in the park, had tea and talked again on a very personal level:
We’re going to have a purely platonic friendship for three months and then see how we stand! Oh dear.
Obviously this was not to Enid’s liking and neither was the letter she received two days later:
He says he is fond of me in a big brotherly sort of way!!!??? I’ll small sister him.
She lost no time in writing a ‘long letter’ to him –
… telling him exactly what I think. Guess he won’t like it much, but he’s got to fall in love if he hasn’t already. I want him for mine.
Such diary entries, all written within the space of a week, would no doubt have surprised the majority of people who only knew Enid at that time as the outwardly naïve young nursery governess, but here was the other Enid who, having determined upon something, was setting about gaining exactly what she wanted.
Her candid letter brought a telephone call from Hugh the next day and they arranged to meet on the following Saturday. After describing how they had lunched at Rules restaurant near Covent Garden, seen a Western film and dined at Victoria, she wrote:
I know he loves me, but I’m not going to say I love him till he has proved himself.
By ‘prove’ does she mean ‘shown his love’ – or is there a deeper meaning relating to his, as yet, undivorced state? There is no way of knowing, but subsequent entries in the diary, after further meetings in London, show that she proceeded to play him as carefully as any fisherman with a potentially valuable catch:
… He told me he loved me and asked if I loved him yet. I said I thought I did, just a little.
On 16 February, following another day in each other’s company with ‘lots of talking, of course’ and a theatre visit she wrote:
… He’s not going to ask properly for my love till Easter. He has got something to tell me first.
Could this be that he would then be free to marry her? Or simply that he was already married? If Enid guessed, she made no mention of it.
The courtship continued with express letters or telephone calls from Hugh on the days between meetings and by the end of February she was writing:
Hugh made me say I loved him and he gave me first of all ‘six incontrovertible reasons’ to prove that whatever I might say, I did love him
.
Evidently this declaration of love did not satisfy him for, after a bombardment of letters and telephone calls, she met him a few days later at the Strand Hotel for dinner where –
… he told me that unless I could give him my real love we must say goodbye after Friday … So I told him I did love him, of course. He then gave me his medal miniatures all beribboned and polished up.
The first token, perhaps, of a possible engagement?
That she had not, up to that time, had much of a social life is clear from the excitement with which she writes of their outings together. Her ‘first ever’ dance was with Hugh on Leap Year night at Prince’s Restaurant in Piccadilly. Felix, Phyllis’s husband, had given her a few dancing lessons the previous week and ‘Hugh and I danced well. It was such fun.’ She wore her newly bought ‘silver tissue dress, grey velvet cloak with shoes and stockings to match’ and the evening was a great success: ‘I loved it and loved it.’
Although she did not get back to Beckenham until early the next morning, she was in London again within a few hours to meet Hugh again. They walked by the river and later had their first argument:
Enid Blyton Page 5