Teachers World Letters 1942

[Anita Bensoussane]

I believe we have all the Teachers World letters for 1942 up on the website (thanks, David Chambers and Tony!) so I thought I'd take a look at them week by week.

In the first, published on January 7th 1942, Enid Blyton talks about the Christmas tree she's had for ten years. Gillian, also ten years old, is going to a pantomime for the first time as a reward for passing her music examination "very well". The Christmas pudding party at Imogen's kindergarten sounds delightful.

Bobs mentions hazel catkins, which I saw today for the first time this year. Winter jasmine is also in bloom where I live, along with a few primulas and even daffodils. As Bobs says, "Spring is coming, boys and girls!"

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=1861

[Moonraker]

A delightful article. I like the old-fashioned way Enid writes - "lighted the candles" - I have noticed in her books, she never writes "lit the candles."

It also seems odd to use a German word for a nursery school in wartime - kindergarten (children's garden). I too went to a kindergarten up to the age of five - never realising it was a foreign word!

[Anita Bensoussane]

I assume the word "kindergarten" had been used by the school before war broke out, so it was natural to carry on using it. The word also appears in The Naughtiest Girl in the School, which was published in book form in 1940 after having been serialised in Sunny Stories earlier the same year. The Froebel teaching method (begun by German educator Friedrich Froebel) was popular in Britain (often combined with other methods), which perhaps explains why the term "kindergarten" was adopted by some schools. Enid herself had undergone Froebel training at Ipswich during the First World War, of course. A war is a temporary situation (hopefully!) and doesn't mean that good things that came from the enemy country have to be discarded. Incidentally, Imogen tells us in A Childhood at Green Hedges that the school was called High March and was "just round the corner from Green Hedges".

I like "lighted" too, Nigel. It sounds softer and more romantic than "lit".

[Courtenay]

I must admit I didn't know the word "kindergarten" was used here in the UK at all! I haven't heard it here — not that I currently know anyone with children of that age, but I live next door to a preparatory school, and its section for children of below school age is called the "nursery school", I'm pretty sure. Back in Australia we do have kindergartens — mine was officially known as Inverloch and District Preschool, but we all called it "kindergarten", and there are others that do have it in the name. Aussies being what they are, it occasionally gets shortened to "kindy"!

[Moonraker]

You could well be right, Anita. The school was definitely operation pre-war. I also like 'lighted'. It is romantic and evocative of a gentler time gone by.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Imogen was six when the Teachers World letter was written, so maybe her "kindergarten" equated to what is often called "infant school" (where the youngest children would be four and the oldest would be seven).

Edit: Imogen had joined Gillian at High March in the summer of 1940. Imogen would have been four at the time, and Gillian had presumably started at High March in 1938 when the family moved to Green Hedges. The school was founded in 1926 by Miss Warr and Miss Perkins, and the two Headmistresses continued running it until 1948 (see link below). It's interesting that The Naughtiest Girl in the School, published in 1940, is also run by two Headmistresses, Miss Belle and Miss Best.

https://highmarch.co.uk/our-school/about-high-march/

[Anita Bensoussane]

Enid Blyton is still waiting for her first indoor daffodil to flower, but I've already seen some outdoor daffodils in full bloom here (in sheltered spots). Of course, the Teachers World letters would have been written a couple of weeks in advance of publication.

I've also seen hazel catkins, winter jasmine and a few primroses.

The Borneo questions on the same page are interesting, although they're nothing to do with Enid Blyton.

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=1869

[Anita Bensoussane]

Enid Blyton waxes lyrical about the dawn and Topsy has an adventure involving a balloon.

It's sad to hear that yet more of Enid Blyton's pigeons have died. She says, "I am afraid it is because I cannot get the grain to feed them on," reminding us how much animals as well as people suffered during the war.

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=1870

[Moonraker]

I've also seen hazel catkins, winter jasmine and a few primroses.

So have we. However, be careful with catkins. My wife pick some to put in a vase of flowers. Within a few days, it looked as if saffron had been shaken on our hearth. It took some cleaning to get rid of the orange stain!

[Barnard]

Re kindergartens.
Fatty also went to a kindergarten.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Thanks for the tip about the catkins, Nigel.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Funnily enough, Enid Blyton mentions the pollen from hazel catkins in this week's letter, Nigel:

I brought some tight hazel catkins into my warm room the other day - and now they have grown long and wriggly, and every time I brush against them, bright yellow pollen is left on my sleeve - as bright as mustard.

Gillian and Imogen (and Topsy!) are excited by the snow, reminding me how thrilled I used to be as a child when the snow was falling thickly. It made everything feel magical and I couldn't wait to go outside and enjoy it.

Again, we see how the war affected even the littlest things when Enid remarks that all her bulbs are daffodils and narcissi, and that she looks forward to being able to get tulips and hyacinths again after the war.

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=1871

[timv]

The first school which I went to in the mid-1960s was referred to as a 'kindergarten', probably in its official name and certainly in the useage by both teachers and parents, and I was aware of this word from an early age and assumed it was that in general use for the first stage of schooling. It took children from the age of four rather than the more usual five but the four-year-olds were taught separately from the older ones and we spent most of our time at what would now be called 'play' activities - toys and games, plus singing, dance, and being read to. I had learnt to read before I joined, but as far as I remember those who could not read yet were taught in this class and the rest of us improved our skills - the main 'teaching materials' in this were the Ladybird books, eg those featuring nursery rhymes.

The Headmistress and school co-owner was a Froebel-trained teacher, and as the school ad its building (a converted Victorian house) were her property when she retired she needed the money from its sale to fund her retirement and sold it. Pupils were only taught to the age of eight. These small private schools were fairly common in the 1950s and 1960s, and were scattered across the counties of Hampshire and Sussex where I was brought up, and my mother had previously taught
in one in Dorchester, Dorset for the four to eight year old age-group too. But it was a matter of luck as to availability of staff and buildings as to where they were - most seem to have been in converted larger houses that had once been owned by big families but had been sold off as too expensive in the mid-C20th. They were fee-paying too, though at that age I was unware of that and did not think of the difference between them and the local state junior schools: I moved between the two types of school as we moved house for my father's job, depending on which type had the best reputation locally. One of my other independent junior schools also had a 'kindergarten' dept separate from the main school - in a converted summerhouse / garden equipment storeroom in the garden.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Gillian and Imogen are still enjoying the snow, going tobogganing every day on a nearby hill. As for Bobs, the snow has enabled him to concoct a crafty plan to get extra biscuits!

Reading Enid's letter reminds me that I haven't seen any proper snow (i.e. anything more than a very light dusting) since 2018.

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=1872

[Anita Bensoussane]

Enid Blyton is pleased that she has plenty of wood from her garden to burn in the fireplace, including logs from a large medlar tree that had to be cut down. Although she states that it's still January at the time of writing, she has already seen thrushes and rooks building their nests (or repairing old ones), and newborn lambs.

Towards the end of her letter she says, "I think most of you know that Gillian wears the kilt very often, because she is a little Scot. Well, Imogen is now wearing one too, so when they go out together, both in their tartan kilts, their little green doublets and their balmorals, they look fine. You are sure to know them when you meet them, for they both have golden plaits of hair, and blue eyes."

I wish we had a photo of Gillian and Imogen in their Scottish attire, which sounds lovely! Their father, Hugh Pollock, was Scottish, and it's rather poignant to reflect that, just months after this piece was published, the girls were to wave goodbye to him for the last time (in June 1942) and were never to see him again. Enid had already been seeing Kenneth for almost a year when this letter was published, and Hugh was seeing Ida. Hugh and Enid's divorce would be finalised in December 1942.

Incidentally, looking at black-and-white photos I'd always thought that Gillian had dark hair as a child! It may have been lighter when she was a toddler, but at the beginning of 1942 she was ten.

Bobs is a wag as always, with his "Spitfire"!

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=1873