Would you let your children befriend Barney?

[Bertie]

But where did they use the toilets? Put the toilet paper?

Surely, Bertie, you must know that Blyton characters neither use nor need toilets.

[dsr]

     Well... that certainly does prick the bubble of my illusion about Barney - yet somehow rings true.
     And yet... Barney might be able to take at least some steps to keep himself, if not clean, then at least not too rank: buy used (clean) cIothes from charity shops in towns or villages, always keep toilet paper handy, and maybe wash clothes in streams as he encountered them. (Did coin laundries exist in those days? I have a feeling not.)
     And he would probably make an extra effort to make himself clean before visiting people who were not circus or fair folk.
     Well, I'm trying to cling to at least some idea that he could remain somewhat respectable.... I think the monkey might actually be the biggest problem.

Regards, Michael.

Bear in mind that in those days even quite posh people had a bath and changed their clothes only once a week. (Not just the wroking classes. Arthur Marshall's book about girls' boarding schools, "Giggling in the Shrubbery", confirms that that's how it was there as well.) Barney wasn't targeting modern shower-every-day standard.

I think the monkey problem might be because he didn't have a second monkey to pick (and eat!) the first monkey's fleas. Maybe they used flea powder like you would on a dog?

Toilet paper - dock leaves are the standard. Avoid the nettles!

[Courtenay]

Toilet paper - dock leaves are the standard. Avoid the nettles!

At least if you picked up nettle leaves with your bare hands, you'd know about it immediately, well before you wiped your — ooer, that doesn't bear thinking about...

[MJE]

I think the monkey problem might be because he didn't have a second monkey to pick (and eat!) the first monkey's fleas. Maybe they used flea powder like you would on a dog?

     I wasn't thinking about fleas there so much, but the fact (highly inconvenient from the point of view of having a pet monkey) that monkeys tend to use their faeces to mark their territory. And apparently you almost can't house-train them either. And by "almost", I mean that, with some monkeys, you might manage to house-train them, sort of, but it will be difficult, and they will never be entirely reliable anyway. (I once researched the matter because I was considering writing a story with a character who had a monkey, and, after I concluded my research, I decided to give up on the idea, not sure I could convincingly portray the monkey as acceptably clean.)
     As for fleas, I wonder whether, if you had a monkey that didn't very often meet other monkeys and you got rid of the fleas, they may not pick them up again any more than a pet dog or cat does, and, while dog or cat owners don't exactly like them having fleas, it doesn't seem to be a huge problem, and certainly not one to make us decide we can't keep our pet any longer - we deal with it the best we can, and it mostly works out okay, thanks to flea powders and such.

Toilet paper [...] Avoid the nettles!

     Very useful advice. If you neglected this, you might then find out what the phrase "ring of fire" really means!
     (True story, I believe: Johnny Cash kept getting pestered by manufacturers of haemorrhoid remedies who wanted to use his song "Ring of Fire" in their advertising. He always refused permission, presumably feeling that he didn't want that association to grow around the song, no matter how much money it might bring him - which I doubt he needed, anyway.)

Regards, Michael.