The Enid Blyton Society

John Pickup wrote:I do recommend Strangers At Snowfell. I suggested this book to Nigel and he told me it is his favourite Jillies book too.

As far as I am concerned, it is Saville's masterpiece. I can't recommend this title strongly enough.

Rob wrote:Saville's books are so darn expensive! On eBay even paperbacks are £5+ for that title!

Daylight robbery, Rob. It makes a pint of Fosters seem really good value for money...

Snowfell is certainly one of MS's strongest books to me, largely because of the dominance of the setting in the storyline - the mixture of danger on a train (like an Agatha Christie novel) plus the snowy weather and the sense of being cut off in the remote Fells. In some Saville stories the plot could take place anywhere but here the site is crucial. Nowadays the latter, near Shap in Cumbria, is right next to the M6 motorway.

The episode with Miss Willcox and Anne-Marie at St Clare's (in the fifth form book) is one of my favourites,with the precocious - and it must be admitted pretentious - poet showing up the teacher by passing off a fairly obscure poem by a famous poet as her own work . Miss W assumes she wrote it as it's like her style and savages it as typical of the 'rubbish' that she writes, and AM then reveals who the real author was - ie Miss W mistook the poem for hers and thought her style was as good as the famous poet's.
Of course in a 'moral 'story that parents would approve of Enid couldn't be seen to have a girl - at any rate a rather pretentious one - get the better of a teacher so she has AM told off, though earlier in the series Enid does have Alison show up and stand up to the patronising, favourite-prone Miss Quentin. Alison is a nicer girl than Anne-Marie, the latter having selfishly failed to hep Felicity earlier by telling other people about her sleepwalking and only thinking how she herself could stage a fake sleepwalking episode to boost her reputation as a 'sensitive genius'. But I did sympathise with AM over the poetry episode when I first read it and think it would be a great trick to play on a teacher.

The St C teachers seem more individual and quirky than the MT ones, with only 'mannish' Miss Peters and the two squabbling Mamzelles standing out at MT. Most of the MT form-mistresses seem a bit interchangeable.

timv wrote:One 'competition' that I have played with children's authors is to work out whose series had its characters 'ageing' least and/or covered the smallest period of years, but was written over the longest period.

I alwaya thought it was bizarre that Saville's 'Not Scarlet But Gold' (from memory written in the early 60s), featured the Lone Piners in an adventure which linked back to World War II, twenty years earlier, but failed to mention that the first Lone Pine adventure featured the kids busting Nazi saboteurs during the war.

I think I'd read 'Scarlet' before 'Mystery at Witchend' (the first book seemed to be almost impossible to find back in the 70s) so it was only later that I realised it didn't add up.

The original idea of the Lone Pine series as being set in the 1940s was kept up after the first book too - in the second book (Seven White Gates) 'Peter Sterling's cousin Charles, who has moved to the US, is in the UK with the US Army and Mr Morton and Jenny Harman's father are being 'demobbed' after the war.
The other glaring examples in the Lone Pine series showing up inconsistencies in the time-line which I noticed when I read them are:
1. In 'Rye Royal', Book 17, set in Sussex where the Mortons join Jon and Penny Warrender at the 'Gay Dolphin' hotel but the only one to feature 'Peter' Sterling accompanying them. This was written in I think 1969, and it features a then fashionable 1960s 'coffee bar' set up at the bookshop in the High Street run by the mysterious 'Roy Royal' (yet another MS 'Man with a Secret Past' who is being blackmailed by a crook; Enid was not the only one to create similar 'baddies'). It has a juke box, records to dance to etc for the teenagers, and MS has 'Peter' turning up there in a trendy miniskirt unlike her usual country clothes - but feeling uncomfortable and out of place as she is really not at home with this sort of people, which relieves her disapproving boyfriend David. This puts the book clearly in the period when it was written not the usual late 1940s, and possibly MS may have used real coffee bars in Rye as a model as there were one or two there then.
2. In 'Saucers Over the Moor', written and set at the time of the mid-1950s flying saucer craze, Devon journalist Dan Sturt is working on the local paper - but by the time of 'Where's My Girl in the 1970s, when the characters are only a couple of years older, he is working for the local TV station, which was only set up in the mid-1960s.
3. Jon Warrender's father was killed in the War a few years before the action of Book Three (The Gay Dolphin Adventure) when J is 16, but by the final book, written in 1979, Jon is a student aged around 19 at Sussex University, opened in the md-1960s!

Mystery at Witchend and Not Scarlet But Gold were the only two Lone Pine books my sister had in the 1970's.

Interesting that Witchend was a difficult book to find back then.

Rob Houghton wrote:Mystery at Witchend and Not Scarlet But Gold were the only two Lone Pine books my sister had in the 1970's.

Ha-ha - that would have been a strange introduction to the series.

I remember finding my 'Mystery' (hardback, same as the one you pictured) after a few years looking out for it aged about 10-13. I'm not sure I've seen another copy for sale (in a shop) since that day, so was glad I snapped it up.

Most of the Savilles for sale at the time were paperbacks but since many were edited versions, I always used to look out for this, where possible. Luckily, Saville's intro to the book was usually amended to say that this version was 'a little shorter' than the original.

Yes - my sister's were paperbacks (I think I may accidentally have posted a picture of the hardback version above!) - but I never read them as I wasn't interested at the time, thinking they were 'too old' for me. I think she did also have 'Strangers At Witchened' - which I recognised when doing a search and I came across the cover!

Split from 'What other author are you reading at the moment?'

I'm currently reading The Master Of Maryknoll by Malcolm Saville. This is the first in a series of six about the Buckinghams and their friend Charles Renislau. I don't think I have read this book since 1964 or thereabouts and now that I have all six books (the last one wasn't published until 1974) I intend to read them in order.

I only read two or three Malcolm Saville books as a child, and The Master of Maryknoll was one of them. It remains a favourite.

Anita and John, did you ever read "Treasure at the Mill" by Malcolm Saville?
It's one of my favorite children's books (which I didn't discover before 8 or 9 years ago, but I did watch the CFF movie as a child).
The book by Saville was published in 1957 and there's a lovely blog post about the making of the movie.

https://bearalley.blogspot.com/search?q ... t+the+Mill" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks for the link Chrissie - most interesting. I still have a letter Malcolm Saville wrote to me in response to one I sent him.

I had a letter from Malcolm Saville but sadly, I can't find it, I think my mother had it and it was lost.
I first read Treasure At The Mill in the early 60s, I still have the Armada paperback. I'm sure I saw the film version but I can't remember a thing about it!

An interesting blog post, Chrissie. I read Treasure at the Mill in my thirties and enjoyed it, though I'm afraid I can't remember much about it now. My copy, like John's, is the Armada paperback. I've never seen the film.

Daisy wrote:Thanks for the link Chrissie - most interesting. I still have a letter Malcolm Saville wrote to me in response to one I sent him.

That's a wonderful souvenir, Daisy.
May I ask you what he wrote back?

Anita Bensoussane wrote:An interesting blog post, Chrissie. I read Treasure at the Mill in my thirties and enjoyed it, though I'm afraid I can't remember much about it now. My copy, like John's, is the Armada paperback. I've never seen the film.

Anita, what I like about Saville's book (other than the really good plot) are the illustrations throughout the book and in the front before chapter 1 where you can see all details of the mill interior.
The CFF film is available on DVD together with "Trouble at Townsend" which is also based on Malcolm Saville.
The bonus material of "Treasure" is very fascinating as the oldest of the child actors, Merrilyn Pettit, who lived at Spring Valley Mill in Ardleigh near Colchester with her family returns for the interview to the mill and talks to the present owner of the mill who is very nice.

BTW Richard Palmer who also plays Julian in "Five on a Treasure Island" (1955) (CFF) plays the major part in "Treasure at the Mill". There is a very good baddie as well.

Petula Clark was about 13 or 14 when she did get the role in "Trouble at Townsend". I seem to remember that either Malcolm Saville's son (?) or the son of the farm owner where "Trouble " was filmed talks about the making of the movie. It's been a year since I re-watched it the last time.

"Treasure" is definitely one of my favorite CFF films together with FOATI. "Trouble" is nice, too.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Treasure-and-T ... t+the+mill" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Enid-Blytons-F ... ure+island" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;