Unexpected Blyton

[Judith Crabb]

I don't remember being given many sets of books as a child. Accumulating a whole series was a long process involving pocket money and gifts, and as far as I remember I never completed any. Even the Faraway books. I used to go into Rigby's book shop and point to 'Up the Faraway Tree' on a list of publications to stop being told that it didn't exist. (Now if you are on a very large income you can buy an early copy in dust-jacket on the internet). A cousin tried to give me his Arthur Mee which I used to eye greedily. He said that he never read it, but he was stopped by a bossy older sister.
However, I do remember a three-volume set which was published by Odhams in the late 1940s, with dust-jackets as bright and enticing as jam tin labels, 'The Children's Wonder Book in Colour'. I found to my amazement that it included contributions by favourite authors, in particular, two stories by Enid Blyton. In the second volume was 'A Country Walk in England' which made England seem to me, growing up in the driest state in the driest continent on earth, quite magical. The illustrations were alluring, some in full-colour. The other, 'An Unexpected Adventure', a circus story, was equally vivid, and had about it a long summer holiday joy. From then on I was on the look-out for Blyton in unexpected places, and I found her, in cereal packets and the Children's pages of my mother's magazines. Modern life is wonderful, but how can it re-create such bliss?

[pete9012S]

I don't remember being given many sets of books as a child. Accumulating a whole series was a long process involving pocket money and gifts..

I can really identify with those happy, exciting times!

Modern life is wonderful, but how can it re-create such bliss?

Subscribe to The Enid Blyton Journal!!

[Jack400]

I don't remember Enid Blyton's work being given away in cereal packets- I'd have changed cereal if I'd known!
ps a belated welcome to the forums, Judith.

[pete9012S]

I think that was in Australia, Jack. But I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

[Rob Houghton]

I don't remember being given many sets of books as a child. Accumulating a whole series was a long process involving pocket money and gifts..

I can really identify with those happy, exciting times!

I'm another who can really identify with this! Books were so exciting then, particularly Enid Blyton books! Our local post office on 'The Green' Kings Norton, always sold many Dean books and some paperbacks. As a child, my mom would occasionally buy me one as a treat - but not every week, I hasten to add! There were so many to choose from, and of course I wanted them all...but I had to pick and choose carefully. I could either have a book, a matchbox car, or a Britains farm animal...such choices!!

When I chose a book, I had ones such as The Book of Brownies, Fireside Tales, and Round the Clock Stories.

Later I had some paperback Find-Outer books - with the Mary Gernat covers - my favourite covers of hers being The Mystery of Tally Ho Cottage' and 'The Mystery of Holly Lane'. I also started collecting The Secret Seven (though I hated the photo covers, which appeared when I was a boy). My sister had around 8 Secret Seven books with the wonderful Derek Lucas covers, but I had to make do with the photo covers. Even so, I never got round to collecting them all, and I never collected the whole Find-Outer series either. In fact I didn't read half of them until I was an adult.

A few bargains were picked up at my primary school's various jumble sales and 'Spring Fairs' - as I've mentioned before - a copy of the 1960's paperback version of 'The Mystery of the Missing Necklace' - with lose pages taped together and the last few pages missing - or a very good dust-wrapper version of The Rilloby Fair Mystery - from 1953 - for 10p. That remains my 'bargain buy' to this day - and gave me a lifelong love of The Rilloby Fair Mystery' - in my opinion one of Enid's very best books.

Another way to get books was birthdays and Christmas...Enid Blytons Bedtime annuals when I was very small, and then two Famous Five annuals, from school friends, when I had a birthday party...and also a Dean copy of 'Hurrah For the Circus'. I can still remember the friends who gave me these books - which just goes to show what a highlight receiving an Enid Blyton book was when I was a child.

[Tony Summerfield]

I think that was in Australia, Jack. But I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

It was in Australia, Pete, and Judith already is a Journal subscriber now. If you look in the Journal 69 thread you can see her post about it.

[Jack400]

So I was " upside-down" when collecting from cereal packets!