Teachers World Letters, Jan 1930 - July 1934

[Rob Houghton]

I forgot to mention that Nigel and Anita both turned up in Noddy outfits...

[Courtenay]

I forgot to mention that Nigel and Anita both turned up in Noddy outfits...

[Anita Bensoussane]

Incidentally, watching one of those "Noddy Live" videos that his #1 fan Anita ( ) posted earlier, I note that one of the characters (unnamed as far as I watched) was a black girl, presumably supposed to be a doll. A nice way of introducing cultural diversity, but it just makes me sad that obviously a golliwog would be taboo. Is that suggesting one kind of dark-skinned character is OK, but another isn't?

I must admit I didn't watch the videos all the way through despite being a massive Noddy fan but maybe the girl was Dinah Doll, a character who was introduced in the 1990s. I suppose those who view golliwogs as caricatures of black people wanted to bring in a more realistic-looking black doll.

I forgot to mention that Nigel and Anita both turned up in Noddy outfits...

Pull the other one - it's got bells on!

[Anita Bensoussane]

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Enid Blyton seems to have been fond of thermometers!

A rare mention of "Gillian's Daddy" - and a midnight adventure!

Bobs' comment about seeds ("Isn't it funny to think that little dry brown specks grow up into nice green plants?") is the sort of thing that would have got me pondering as a child, making me ask questions and find out more about the process of germination. I suppose we could say that Enid Blyton is good at planting seeds in children's minds!

Quite an amusing little puzzle-poem.

Thanks as always for putting up these weekly letters, Tony. They make for fascinating reading.

[Moonraker]

The first line made me laugh!

[Rob Houghton]

The first line made me laugh!

The 'good old days' lol!

[Kate Mary]

I was pleased to see the temperatures in Fahrenheit it makes much more sense to me. Gillian Mary will certainly have plenty of eggs when the chicks grow up!

[Courtenay]

I particularly enjoyed Bobs' and Sandy's plan to grow biscuits by planting crumbs! Enid reused that idea in a short story, The Biscuit Tree (originally published in 1941), in which a poor brownie who loves biscuits gives his last few to a hungry beggar girl who comes to his door one night. She drops a few crumbs at his gate and they magically grow into a biscuit tree — implicitly as a reward for his generosity — so the brownie makes his fortune at last by selling the produce. I always liked that story.

There's also Well Done Noddy!, in which our hero plants a few sweets in the hope that they'll grow — but he's less fortunate with the results!

[Rob Houghton]

There's another Noddy story in 'The Big Noddy Book (number 1) called 'Noddy's Garden' Noddy decides to plant things because Mrs Tubby Bear tells him 'whatever you plant will grow into something' - so Noddy plants a kipper bone, a lump of sugar, biscuit and a bead. Luckily he labels what he plants, so Big Ears and Mrs Tubby take pity on him and they leave biscuits and kippers, some sugar lumps and a necklace of beads where he planted the things.

[Anita Bensoussane]

That'll backfire on them next year if Noddy decides to plant a chip of diamond, a silver thimble and some gold dust!

[Courtenay]

[Anita Bensoussane]

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Great letters from both Enid and Bobs. Enid Blyton was lucky to have such a close encounter with a family of Little Owls - though I'm surprised she let Bobs climb the tree as it's not a good idea to frighten nesting birds. I've seen wild owls in flight in the evening but I've never seen them sitting in a tree.

Amusing remarks from Bobs about the wagtail, and an enjoyably jaunty little poem on the same theme.

[John Pickup]

A lovely letter. I've seen a barn owl in flight at dusk and it appeared to be enormous. I've never seen an owl sitting in a tree though. There are plenty of pied wagtails where I live, they often fly on to the bowling green when we're playing with their tails wagging furiously up and down.

[Kate Mary]

I saw a little owl sitting on a fence post a few years ago, we stopped and stared at it and it stared back quite unperturbed until it got fed up with us looking at it and flew off. Does anyone know what type of owl Enid means when she refers to a screech owl? I've come across the term elsewhere in her writing and I don't know if she means a tawny or barn owl.

I didn't know dogs could climb trees. What a talented dog Bobs is, tree climbing and writes a newspaper column.

[Anita Bensoussane]

When Enid talks about a "screech owl" I think she means a barn owl.