Teachers World Letters 1943

[Katharine]

Has anyone here had the experience of being fired at by a gorse bush? I can't say I ever have!

A bit late on this question, but yes I have been. Well maybe not fire at, but certainly gone for a walk and heard them popping as we walked by.

[Anita Bensoussane]

A detailed description of a swarm of bees this week, and interesting comments on "ringing" birds. Enid Blyton's letters are great fun to read - so full of bits and pieces of news.

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=1965

[Kate Mary]

The Teachers' World letters are certainly fun to read and a wonderful peep into a vanished world. And it's amazing to think the incident with the bees actually happened 79 years ago.

I wondered about Gillian's birthday cake, Enid must have saved up the sugar and egg ration etc.for weeks (she wouldn't have got the ingredients on the black market surely?!!) to have made a cake large enough for the family birthday tea and to have enough left over for Gillian to take back to school to share with her classmates. Pity there's not a photo of it.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Eggs probably weren't a problem as Enid Blyton kept hens. Perhaps family and friends helped out by donating some of their sugar ration?

[Boodi 2]

There are several bee-keepers in our area and about 20 years ago we had a similar experience to what Enid Blyton described when we noticed a large swarm of bees in our garden. We phoned the two bee-keepers who lived closest to us and one of them found that his bees had escaped and duly came to collect them, armed with a puffer and a large cigar. My son and I watched from a safe distance as he tried to get the queen bee into a box, after which all the drones followed her. He promised us a jar of honey, but then apparently forgot all about it!!! A friend of mine did a course on bee keeping and actually invested quite a lot of money on bees, hives etc. but gave up after about two years as she was not very successful, mainly because she was unable to overcome her fear of being stung.

[Anita Bensoussane]

It's interesting that you've seen a bee-keeper in action, Boodi.

Fruit-picking is in full swing at Green Hedges this week. I like the following comment from Enid:

I have a firm idea that one of the happiest and best things in the world is to create or to make something ourselves. That is why I love making stories - creating them - and that is also why I love gardening - creating something beautiful and useful, making flowers and vegetables and fruit grow all round me. I expect you feel the same.

I also like the fact that she encourages her older readers to help out on farms, as well as inspiring children of all ages to take an interest in nature.

Despite it being wartime, Enid Blyton says she has received "scores of letters" from readers asking for one of Topsy's puppies but adds that the puppies all have future homes to go to.

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=1966

[Anita Bensoussane]

It's nice to be looking at a Teachers World letter from an issue dated August 11th 1943, which was Enid Blyton's 46th birthday (though Enid would have written her page in advance, of course).

Like Enid, I love a magnificent thunderstorm - even if that particular storm did cause Bobs to think that there had been an invasion and his mistress might have been caught by the Germans!

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=1967

[John Pickup]

I love greengages that Enid mentioned. Whenever I see and hear a terrific thunderstorm I always think of the frightening storm in Castle of Adventure.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I think of that too, John - and the storm in Five on a Treasure Island which throws up the wreck.

Enid is about to go off on holiday for three weeks and mentions that a family with two children will be living at Green Hedges while she's away. I wonder who they were.

Topsy's three puppies have gone to their new homes and again we have an interesting piece of information - that one of them will be living with "a soldier who sometimes helps me in the garden." Enid must have been glad of casual help in the garden during wartime, when she was unable to have a full-time gardener.

Gillian and Imogen's discussion of which toys to take on holiday makes me think of when my sister and I were little and went to stay with our grandparents. We too only packed a few toys - usually a cuddly toy and a board game or card game each, though we always had colouring/activity books and felt tips as well. Luckily, we were allowed to take quite a pile of books. I'd have hated to be rationed as far as reading was concerned, though my mum's parents lived not far from a library so we each took out a temporary membership every summer and made good use of it.

These letters are fascinating - thanks so much to Tony and David Chambers for making them available.

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=1968

[Boodi 2]

Packing for holidays is always difficult, even as an adult, as I always tend to take either too much, too little or the wrong things! In that regard, we will be going on a short holiday to the east of France this day next week, so I can practice my packing then!!!

[Wolfgang]

Will you take the opportunity to buy Blyton books in French?

[Anita Bensoussane]

Another chatty and informative letter. Did Enid really sell some of her "fruit trees" to a man, I wonder, or did she only sell him the fruit?

Very interesting stuff about bees sometimes transferring pollen from a Canterbury bell to a foxglove, resulting in one or two of the seeds eventually becoming a freak flower - a foxglove spike bearing a Canterbury bell at the top! I've never seen that myself but I'll look out for it now!

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=1969

[Kate Mary]

Interesting that seaside holidays were taken in wartime (what about the posters "Is your journey really necessary?"), I thought the coast would be all barbed wire and Home Guard patrols, but perhaps by this stage of the war the threat of invasion had lessened and for the privileged few a seaside holiday was possible. Do we know where Enid went, Dorset perhaps?

[Boodi 2]

Will you take the opportunity to buy Blyton books in French?

No! I am very conservative (or else just plain lazy) and prefer to read books in the original where possible, hence tend to avoid translations. I also suspect that the translated books would differ slightly from the originals.

[Moonraker]

English language books now differ from the originals!