Teachers World Letters 1942

[Anita Bensoussane]

Book-binding for me too, Kate!

Some attractions tried to remain open (or at least partially open) during the war as a morale-booster and act of defiance. In September 1940, a bomb demolished the cinema at Madame Tussaud's and destroyed 352 head moulds, as well as scattering waxwork figures from their places. Madame Tussaud's reopened fairly quickly (minus the cinema), at the end of 1940:

http://www.westendatwar.org.uk/page_id__193.aspx

[Anita Bensoussane]

I share Enid Blyton's love of hollyhocks, delphiniums and other "tall and spire-like" flowers, and I like the sound of the hollyhocks she planted at Old Thatch:

We used to have an old-fashioned cottage before we moved here, and all round the foot of the walls I planted hollyhocks, so that in the summer-time the stately flowers grew almost to the thatched roof. They were such a picture to see. I like most flowers that grow tall and spire-like - the dreaming foxgloves with their deep pink bells, the lupins in the early summer, and the deep blue delphiniums whose petals shine almost like enamel.

It's fascinating to read of Mr. Hemmerde, King's Counsel, who decided that four boys found guilty of "shop-breaking" in Liverpool should not be sent to an approved school because society had let down the younger generation by failing to honour promises made during the last war. Too many children were growing up in inadequate housing and receiving inadequate schooling, and "The fact that children were rather difficult in this country was largely our own fault..."

That kind of thinking seems to have informed Enid Blyton's The Six Bad Boys, published in 1951.

Mr. Hemmerde recommends looking to the industriousness of the Russians, who managed to bring bands of unruly children under control after the Russian Revolution!

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=1899

[Kate Mary]

It’s interesting that Enid refers to “big fields set with shocks of golden corn”, shocks or stooks are never seen nowadays. And I sympathise about the wasps, I visited the RHS garden at Hyde Hall in Essex yesterday, the gardens were beautiful but the wasps wouldn’t let us eat our lunch in peace, there were at least half a dozen buzzing around at any one time and we didn’t even have any jam!

[Anita Bensoussane]

Poor Bobs, trying to stay "as cool as a cucumber" in the hot weather!

I'm rather nervous about the two newly-hatched doves. I remember that some of Enid's doves died because she was unable to obtain enough of the right kind of food for them with it being wartime, and she says of these, "I only wish I had more food to feed them on, but, like the rest of us, pet animals and birds have to be rationed."

What a terrible pity to hear of cherries going unpicked owing to the shortage of fruit-pickers. Reading these letters reminds us just how much daily life was affected by the war, even for families who didn't have to evacuate their children and who were well-off financially.

It's interesting that Enid Blyton is going to Sutton to talk at the National Book Council's Children's Week, and to tell some of her stories. Events like that must have been extra special during the war, making life a little brighter. She also mentions that she's loving working on The Children's Life of Christ.

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=1900

[Boodi 2]

I was interested to read Enid's comment that one good shower of rain is better than a dozen waterings! However, I expect that the heat and drought in 1942 was not as bad as what we are experiencing today.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Sad news already about the new doves.

I've seen plenty of goldfinches too, though not as many butterflies as usual this year. Yesterday I was watching some bees on some snapdragons, though I didn't spot a pirate bee (in fact, I hadn't heard of a "pirate bee" before).

It's lovely to read about Gillian's baby newts. Last week my uncle showed me some photos of baby newts in his garden pond.

Reading about Cosy and the cook's bed made me think that if I had a job which involved sleeping on the premises, I'd have a lock on the door of my room!

Bobs' confusion is amusing!

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=1901

[Courtenay]

Another lovely lively letter, though very sad news about the baby doves. I've noticed, though, over the years that we've been reading Enid's children's columns on this site, that she does quite often report sad news about animals, whether her own pets or creatures in the wild — it's simply not true that she always glossed over horrible things such as death and she only ever gave a sugar-coated view of the world. Well, she did, of course, conceal the fact that Bobs was writing from beyond the grave, but I suppose his letters had been such a fun part of her column for so long that she couldn't bear to stop writing them for him. She probably also realised her young audience would be far more devastated by the death of an animal they "knew", through his celebrity status, than by the deaths of assorted minor characters such as her doves.

I love the mention of "dancing red poppies" at the start — where I used to live in Kent, there were fields nearby that would be red with poppies at this time of year. I don't think I've ever seen yellow toadflax, which I've just looked up — terrible name for quite a pretty wildflower. I prefer the alternative name given in Wikipedia, "butter-and-eggs"! Looking up purple knapweed, though, I'm sure I've seen that before and assumed it was a sort of small thistle.

And yes, an amusing confusion over the butterflies' names with Bobs and Topsy. I know what red admiral and peacock butterflies look like — I've often seen them since I moved to the UK — but I don't know if I would recognise a tortoiseshell butterfly. I've just looked it up too and I've probably seen some around, but they're quite similar to a few other butterflies, including the painted lady. I'll have to keep an eye out and see if I can work out which one's which if I do spot them!

[Anita Bensoussane]

Yes, Enid Blyton addresses death and the sad or tough things of life more than she's given credit for. I agree that it's not surprising Bobs was kept alive on the Teachers World page, however, as he'd become such a personality and children loved him. Killing the letter-writing Bobs would be like killing Rupert Bear, Basil Brush or Skippy the Bush Kangaroo (although Enid Blyton did refer to the death of Brer Rabbit in The Adventures of Binkle and Flip!)

[Courtenay]

Killing the letter-writing Bobs would be like killing Rupert Bear, Basil Brush or Skippy the Bush Kangaroo...

Tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk...

(although Enid Blyton did refer to the death of Brer Rabbit in The Adventures of Binkle and Flip!)

True, although one could argue she was simply struggling for a rhyme in her poetic prelude!

[Anita Bensoussane]

Enid Blyton could easily be talking about 2023 when she begins, "I haven't thought very much of the summer weather we have had since June, have you?" Like her, I've admired rowan berries and ripening apples over the last couple of weeks.

Even today, people often remark that a hard winter is in the offing when there are lots of berries on the trees and bushes. Enid Blyton explains that that's a myth - "It shows that at the time of blossom we had a good spring. Trees don't fruit according to the winter that is coming, but because of the spring that is past."

We're reminded of the war when Enid talks of having few scraps to spare for the birds, and of having run out of bottles when bottling fruit and making jam, and being unable to buy any more. We're also reminded of the more rigid gender roles of the past (though the war was helping to break those down as women took on jobs which had traditionally been the preserve of men):

"I hope you girls will learn such things as jam-making and bottling because those are things all women should know - just as boys should know how to do such things as mend a fence or cure a dripping tap."

I tend to agree with her next remark:

"Book-learning is good, but without learning the practical things of life it isn't much use."

Regarding going mushrooming, I wonder how many people still do that? I'd be scared of picking the wrong thing!

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=1902

[Courtenay]

Another lovely letter with some very interesting observations. I'd never heard it said that lots of berries mean a hard winter is coming (perhaps because I didn't grow up in this country), but Enid's correction to that idea certainly makes a lot more sense! She was a brilliant nature study teacher and I must get back to reading some of her books on that topic that I have in my collection and haven't read all the way through, including Round the Year with Enid Blyton and Enid Blyton's Book of the Year. Maybe next year I'll start reading that one month by month from January! I think that'd be a lovely thing to do.

As I know I've mentioned quite a lot of times, I did have The Adventures of Pip (the Dean edition that includes the original two volumes) when I was little, and picked up a lot of facts from it about British wildlife and plants that have kept coming back to me ever since I moved to this country. Enid's mention of how the swifts had left at the time she was writing, but the swallows hadn't yet, reminded me immediately of how Pip wanted to fly south with the swallows one year, but he wasn't around on the night when they all left and he missed their departure! I was so disappointed for him on first reading that story as a 9-year-old. It would have been fascinating if his adventures had gone international — in this case, all the way to Africa! But I suppose Enid needed him to stay in England where he could keep on experiencing the natural environment familiar to most of her readers — and to her as the writer.

I don't think I've ever seen swifts in the wild, at least not for certain. I did see some swallows flying about recently, over a beach — I now forget whether it was in South Devon or South Wales!! (I've had several trips away in the last 6 weeks.) I always like to see swallows. We have them in Australia too — not quite the same species as over here, but very closely related and almost identical, except Aussie swallows don't have a dark band under their chins. They also don't migrate quite as far. We see them in the south (where I grew up) during summer, and then they fly north for the winter, but I think they only go as far as northern Australia and Indonesia, in the tropics.

Regarding going mushrooming, I wonder how many people still do that? I'd be scared of picking the wrong thing!

Definitely not recommended if you don't know what you're doing! I know how to identify a field mushroom and I have picked and eaten them — again back in Australia — and when I was little, my family used to also collect and eat saffron milk-caps, which grow under pine trees. They're very distinctive when you know what to look for, and they don't look edible — sort of orangey-coloured (hence "saffron"), and the gills turn greenish if you bruise them — but they're completely safe to eat. But I certainly grew up knowing NOT to touch, let alone eat, any mushroom if we weren't absolutely sure what it was. Just a few weeks ago in our area — in a town only 15 miles from my hometown, where my parents still live — there was a really strange incident where four people fell ill after a lunch gathering, and three of them died in hospital and one remains in a critical condition, with symptoms exactly consistent with death cap mushroom poisoning. The person who served them the meal insists she is innocent, and that the mushrooms in the dish she made for them came from the local supermarket and from an Asian grocery in Melbourne. But there have been no other poisonings reported from either locally grown or imported mushrooms, and food standards in Australia are strict enough that there's no way death caps could have got into the supply chain, and yet they definitely did get into that meal... and the casualties just happened to be this woman's ex in-laws (her former husband's parents and aunt and uncle), so the entire case is looking distinctly suspicious... (Investigations are ongoing — it even made BBC News recently, I noticed, which stories from rural Australia almost never do!)

[Anita Bensoussane]

I read about that mushroom-poisoning case in the news. It does sound suspicious as the woman and her children apparently ate something different for their own lunch, even though they had guests.

I love Enid Blyton's nature writing. As an adult I'm sometimes left wanting to know more, which is fine because it's easy to look things up in these days of the internet. A remark or reference by Enid Blyton can lead to some interesting research.

[Courtenay]

I read about that mushroom-poisoning case in the news. It does sound suspicious as the woman and her children apparently ate something different for their own lunch, even though they had guests.

Yep, that's the one. Shocking, as Leongatha is a really nice unassuming country town (as is neighbouring Korumburra, where the four casualties came from) — as I said, it's less than half an hour's drive from where I grew up and things like this just don't normally happen there... There are lots of suspicious claims and counter-claims being made, which I won't go into here, but it looks like the police are keeping quiet until enough evidence has been gathered for them to make any accusations. Mum and Dad have kept me posted with updates, but there hasn't been any new news about it for a week or two! Hopefully the truth will come out eventually.

In the meantime, I'm glad no-one ever gets poisoned in Enid Blyton books without there being an effective antidote! I'm remembering one of her cautionary short stories, "The Wrong Berries", in which an older girl saves two young children who've been casually eating poisonous berries outdoors — they both fall ill and she quickly gets medical attention for them, with a stern warning for Enid's audience never to eat berries if you don't know they're safe. I know I got that message drummed into me by my parents — about berries and all other plants, and mushrooms too, of course — as soon as I was old enough to start walking about outside!

[Boodi 2]

I heard about that mushroom poisoning case in Australia too! Picking mushrooms is very popular here and I have become very fond of them. However, although my husband and I went on a mushroom picking expedition a few years ago and picked many delicious mushrooms, we are very aware of the risks involved (i.e. picking poisonous ones by accident), with the result that although I was keen to go again and pick more mushrooms he refused, as he said that the stress of trying to decide whether or not they were safe was just too great. I should explain that he took a guide to mushrooms with him and consulted it each time we found an unfamiliar looking mushroom, plus we also divided the mushrooms into small portions and only ate a small portion of them at a time in the hope that if there was a rogue mushroom among them the small amount would not kill us! Needless to say, we suffered no ill effects but unfortunately although he loves mushrooms even more than I do my husband was not keen to repeat the exercise and I have to admit that without his feedback I would be a bit dubious about picking them on my own!

[Anita Bensoussane]

I fully understand your husband's caution, Boodi, though mushroom-picking does sound fun.

Courtenay, I used to love stories like 'The Wrong Berries' too. 'The Poisonous Berries' was another good one. My favourite "poisoning" story was 'The Packet of Sweets', in which a boy finds a packet of sweets (so he thinks) lying in the road and takes it to school. Several children eat or suck a sweet or two, not realising that the "sweets" are prescription tablets, very dangerous for healthy youngsters. Chilling tales, but they make a great impact.