Enid Blyton

by Barbara Stoney

  Michael Rouse left shortly after its formation to concentrate on editing his Green Hedges Magazine, a publication which ran for many years before its closure in 2002. The call for material for the first Enid Blyton Society Journal in 1996 met with an amazing response and from its first thirty-two-page issue it has continued to flourish and nowadays has full-colour covers and is sixty pages long. The annual Enid Blyton Society Day is also very popular, with a large attendance and an interesting range of speakers. Among these have been Sir Tim Rice, his daughter Eva, Gyles Brandreth, Ken Howard, Mary Cadogan, Sheila Ray, David Rudd, Helen Cresswell and Anne Digby. Gillian, Imogen and I attend regularly and in 2003 all three of us were asked to become official Patrons to the Society.

  11 August 1997 marked the centenary of Enid’s birth and the celebrations were launched, in October of the previous year, with a reception at the Victoria and Albert Museum, during which a plan was announced to give an annual award, bearing Enid’s name, to the person judged to have contributed outstanding service to children during the preceding year. This is in the form of a silver statuette of a child reading – a miniature replica of a stone figure that once stood in the garden of Green Hedges. London’s Regent Street celebrated the event that Christmas by including her well-known signature in its decorations and ‘Noddy’ led the parade for the switching-on ceremony.

  A replica of Green Hedges was installed in April at Bekonscot, the model village at Beaconsfield, to commemorate the house that was Enid’s home during some of the major years of her writing career. In August, to mark another of her former homes, there was a party in the garden and a blue plaque was placed on the former Elfin Cottage – 83 Shortlands Road, Beckenham. Also in Beckenham, St Christopher’s school marked the occasion with a party during the month of their old pupil’s birth and Gillian unveiled a plaque at Southernhay, the Thompson’s home at Hook in Surrey, where Enid had run her small nursery classes in the early 1920s.

  The media gave considerable coverage to the centenary and her publishers at home and overseas launched promotional editions of her best-known series, with full-colour replica dustwrappers and line drawings of the original illustrations. The Royal Mail issued a special set of five postage stamps, each denomination depicting a different one of her various series and other limited editions of First Day Covers, some printed with van der Beek-style illustrations of Noddy and Big Ears.

  In 2003 Beaconsfield commemorated Enid’s connection with the town by incorporating a coloured replica of Noddy and Big Ears on one of the illustrated ironwork screens surrounding a small corner of a newly landscaped garden at the front of the Town Hall. On an accompanying plaque describing various aspects of the town’s history, Enid is mentioned as having written some of her best known stories during her residence in Beaconsfield.

  Such reminders of Enid and her writings certainly give an indication of how much she has become part of so many people’s lives over the years. It now seems unusual for a day to pass without a reference, somewhere in the world, being made to either her name or the characters in her books. This is generally in derisory or affectionate terms but more often these days with friendly amusement and nostalgia because, for many, her name and the stories she created still conjure up happy memories of their childhood reading.

  I have not changed my original assessment of Enid. I still believe she was a talented, hard-working writer for children who, behind the public image she guarded so carefully, was an insecure, complex and often difficult childlike woman whose life was at times far removed from the sunny world she created for herself in her highly successful writings. Emotionally she never matured beyond the unhappy little girl from Beckenham who was not to tell anyone that her beloved father had deserted her for someone who appeared to mean more to him than herself. But this probably led to one of the most important factors in her success – her ability to relate so closely to her child readers.

  Barbara Stoney, May 2006

  APPENDICES

  1 Enid Blyton’s Poems: The Poet, Things I Won’t Forget, To Hang or Not To Hang and April Day

  2 ‘On the Popular Fallacy that to the Pure All Things are Pure’ (Saturday Westminster Review)

  3 ‘From My Window’: Enid Blyton’s weekly talk in Teachers’ World

  First column, July 4th, 1923

  ‘On Pretending’, February 27th, 1924

  ‘Letters from Teachers’, January 6th, 1926

  ‘Things I Don’t Like’, February 24th, 1926.

  4 ‘A Country Letter from Enid Blyton’ (The Nature Lover, September 1935)

  5 Enid Blyton Magazine: last issue, September 9th, 1959

  6 ‘Enid Blyton on Children’s Reading Taste’ (The Library Association Record, September 1949)

  7 The Summer Storm (Play): The Characters

  8 Correspondence with Peter McKellar, 1953–1957

  9 The Blyton Line: a psychologist’s view by Michael Woods (LINES, Autumn 1969)

  10 Books by Enid Blyton, 1922–1968

  APPENDIX 1

  The Poet

  by Enid Blyton

  (The Poetry Review [Poetry of Today] 1919)

  A CHILD

  Whose eyes at times see God

  And all his angels,

  Hid in some sunset cloud

  Wherein we see

  But shapes.

  And lo,

  Around and thro’ the stars

  He hears the song

  Weaved from the rolling worlds – While we but hear

  The wind.

  A love

  He bears to all the world,

  And to his God.

  Beauty in all he sees.

  Beauty we find

  In him.

  Dear heart

  And soul of a child, Sing on!

  Things I Won’t Forget

  by Enid Blyton

  (From Silver and Gold, 1925)

  When I’m grown up I won’t forget the things I think today –

  I won’t forget the sort of things I like to do and say;

  I won’t be like the folk I know, who seem so very old,

  And quite forget the things they did when they were eight years old.

  There’s lots of other things, of course, that I’ll remember too;

  And then when I’m grown up I’ll know what children like to do.

  I’ll know the things they’re frightened of, I’ll know the things they hate –

  And oh! I hope they’ll love me, though they’ll know I’m long past eight!

  To Hang – or Not to Hang – that is the Question!

  Two Points of View

  (Poem written during Government discussion on the Abolition of Capital Punishment, [1950])

  What – you’d have them hung –

  not give them a chance!

  Poor fellows, they’re mentally ill!

  They need kindly treatment –

  reforming, you know –

  And first-rate psychiatrist’s skill!.

  I’m told they’re unhappy, and warped in their minds,

  We’ve no right, to let a man swing

  Simply because he has strangled a child

  And raped her – yes, poor little thing,

  I grant you it’s shocking – but I think it’s wrong

  To hang that poor man till he’s dead –

  Reform him! He’ll make a good citizen yet –

  This hanging – it makes me see red!

  Then I said, ‘Well, mothers can see red at times –

  The red of a little girl’s blood,

  And loud in our ears we can hear the weak cries

  Of a child with her cheek in the mud.

  She sobs for her father, and maybe to God,

  But only the nightwind sighs

  As a monster rapes and strangles and gloats,

  Then carries away his prize

  To dump in a ditch, or under a hedge –

  And see him when morning’s here

  As he reads of the crime and tut-tu
ts to his wife,

  ‘Another sex-murder, my dear!’

  No – don’t interrupt me – and DON’T say again

  That Death is too hard for this man;

  Was Death then so easy for that little girl,

  Whose few years were so short a span?

  You’ve pity to spare for the raper, who knows

  That in lust he would murder again,

  But you’ve none for the child, and little for those

  Who mourn her in horror and pain.

  And you ask me WHY I would hang this man!

  Though you know it’s our only hope

  To stop any fiend who would rape and kill –

  He’s a coward – and he fears the rope!

  You’re not quite sure if I’m right – or not?

  You’ll think about it – alone?

  Well, if you’re doubtful, I’m certain of this –

  You haven’t a child of your own!’

  April Day

  (Enid Blyton’s last known poem)

  There is a copse I know on Purbeck Hills

  That holds the April sun to its green breast;

  Where daffodils

  Are wild and small and shy,

  And celandines in polished gold are drest.

  Here windflowers dance a ballet full of grace,

  And speedwell blue

  Looks on with brilliant eye.

  There, innocent of face,

  The daisies grow,

  And yellow primroses like children press

  In little crowds together all day through.

  Be silent, velvet bee,

  And let me brood

  At peace in this enchanted loneliness.

  Chaffinch, take your merry song, and go

  To some more distant tree.

  ‘Tis not my mood

  To have this silence stirred

  By wing of bee

  Or voice of bird.

  Now, let me stand and gaze –

  But ah, so lavishly is beauty spread

  These April days,

  There is no place to tread.

  Then must I choose

  To put away my shoes

  And kneel instead.

  APPENDIX 2

  On the Popular Fallacy that to the Pure All Things Are Pure

  (Saturday Westminster Review, February 19th, 1921)

  The Pure, I have found out from the thirty-three people I have met since last Friday, means the ‘Really Good People’. The definitions varied in detail, but in the main tended towards those three words I myself give no meaning; having been swamped by other people’s opinions – but I do know that I feel relieved. The reason is this: I used to think with sorrow that I did not belong to the ranks of the Pure, being firmly convinced that margarine is not pure, nor our new silver. Therefore it followed that I also was not pure, not one of the ‘Really Good People’.

  It is with joy that I realise (helped by the Saturday Westminster) that I may still attain Heaven. On studying the subject further I find that those to whom all things are pure must be either extremely undiscerning or hypocritical. This is a very grave decision, as I myself possess several relatives who profess to trust everybody, .nd to find no fault with anything. ‘Everything’, according to them, ‘has some good in it’, and ‘Evil cannot touch those who do not believe in it’, Of course there really is something in that – but it may lead to Christian Science, which is quite all right outside the family, but very uncomfortable in. Aunt Maria did not believe in measles herself, even when she had it, so that I thought it most unkind of her to pass it on to people who did believe in it. However, she could never see my point –she may do now that I am in the ‘Really Good People’ set.

  A difficult point has come into my thoughts. How can we distinguish the Pure People, for the Impure also can often discern the difference between good and bad things? Of course, before we found out that the subject of our essay was a fallacy, it was so easy to point out the Pure. We cannot say ‘To the Pure all things are pure if they are, and impure if they are not’. For one thing, it sounds silly, and for another, as I said before, it applies also to those who are not the Pure. Neither can we rewrite the saying, ‘To the Undiscerning and Hypocrites all things are pure’, since it is certain most of my relations (and yours) would rise in indignation and drive us from their doors.

  How did this fallacious saying of Paul’s become accepted? Is it possible that the thousands of people go about believing in it, and so cheerfully resign their claims to goodness, because they know they turn up their noses at the smell of cabbage cooking? Surely some thing deeper lies below – some hidden meaning I have missed; perhaps ‘pure’ could be replaced by a better word? But, no; our Problems Editor should know – he who separates the wheat from the chaff so many times a year. It would be so dangerous to find the fallacy fallacious. He would have to give prizes to everybody…

  ENID BLYTON

  (N.B. – This essay is not really obscure in meaning.)

  APPENDIX 3

  ‘From My Window’

  (Enid Blyton’s weekly talk in Teachers’ World)

  July 4th, 1923

  FIRST COLUMN

  Here am I embarked on the first column, and what shall it be about? Books? No. Nature? No. Children? Yes, because I have been with them all day, and my mind is full of them.

  It has often struck me how like a child’s mind is in its way of working to the mind of a genius. A compliment to children some will say. I think it is a compliment to genius. A child’s mind is wonderful in its simplicity, directness, and sensitiveness. The younger a child is, the more clearly these characteristics show. The older he gets, the more he learns to hide his mind from others, and in doing so, he loses in simplicity and naturalness.

  I have been reading some lives of men and women of genius. Their characteristic attitude of mind was a questioning one. Why? How? When and where? they were continually asking. Just the words I have heard the children say to me all day. And then, too, like the genius, the child is always delightedly finding things which resemble each other. ‘Oh, isn’t that piece of sorrel like a small red poplar tree!’

  The genius works in the same way. The poet uses his lucid and beautiful similes, the scientist reasons by analogy, and a Linnaeus minutely records the similar characteristics of a host of plants.

  A young child is intensely original. He has not learnt to think as others think, nor does he know enough to realise he is ignorant. He thinks for himself, he imagines, he observes with a curiously thorough and penetrating eye, often with comical or embarrassing results. Genius also is tremendously original and independent, and observes with a child’s own absorbed concentration.

  And at last of all, as Froebel knew, a child is always seeking to express himself – to give out what he has taken in – and through the same need of expression, genius has given our greatest treasures.

  The questioning, wondering mind, that analyses and puts together, that observes and records for itself, and that finally bursts out into an expression of the many impressions – there is a description equally applicable to mature genius, or to immature childhood. What is the explanation of the curious similarity? Why does it in all but a few cases cease as the child grows? Is it some fault of our education, that has not recognised the real trend of a child’s mind, which is, surely, genius-ward in its simplicity and need for expression?

  I do not think genius is a mysterious something with which one must be born. I think it is the natural result of using one’s mind to the fullest extent, of loving beauty in any form and of directly expressing the powerful spiritual effects which clamour for release. If only we could train our children in the way that geniuses perforce have to train themselves, we should get a wonderful type of ordinary men and women.

  I may be entirely wrong in my surmises, but the question is an intensely interesting one, and I, in common, I suspect, with many other teachers, would dearly love to hear the modern psychologist’s reasoned solution of
the problem.

  February 27th, 1924

  ON PRETENDING

  I love children who pretend. I love grown-ups who pretend. I love pretending myself. There is no doubt about it, it is a distinct gift, and one to be used and cherished and developed. It is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to hide and put away with other childish things. But though I think this with all my might, I am sometimes powerless to prevent myself feeling extremely foolish and babyish when I am accidentally caught by one of those admirable, practical, commonsensical people, who seem to pop up anywhere when one is doing something rather odd and unusual!

  I think the ‘pretends’ I like best are those I enjoy in the company of children. There is one rule about pretending which must never be broken – you must be absolutely serious about it. If you break this rule you can neither pretend yourself, nor will the children pretend in front of you.

  Last week was quite a red-letter week. I had in the garden, at 11.15 every morning, two or three policemen, a frightfully bold and audacious burglar, one Indian, a Canadian express train, a goods train, two motor-buses who had the exciting gift of changing into their own conductor and driver at will, and last, but not least, a galloping horse, who said ‘Gee-up’ and smacked himself at short intervals. He invited me for a ride, but (fortunately) I happened to be a stern Bedouin of the desert at the moment and therefore preferred camels for riding. The horse, before my eyes, began to change into a suitable camel, but the school-bell rang before the metamorphosis was complete.

  But I love pretending by myself, too. That is one reason why I love London so much. You can wander about in London pretending anything in the world that you wish to pretend, and no one is a penny the wiser.