The Enid Blyton Society

Can anyone help me to find a short story which I am 99% certain is by Enid Blyton? It concerns a husband and wife: I think the husband is an absent-minded professor. He has to go "up to town" on a train and comes home ill because he had his back to the engine. His wife tells him he should have asked the person opposite to swap seats. The next time he travels by train the same thing happens and, when his wife asks why he didn't swap seats, he tells her there was no-one sitting opposite to swap with!
After this, my memory is less sure but I think some similar things happen, as he tries to follow his wife's instructions, but each time applies the wrong set of instructions for the situation. I read this story over forty years ago but something about it must have struck a chord with me, as I think about it frequently. I would dearly love to read it again and see if it is as extraordinary as I remember it. It seems to contain some universal truth about the learning of social protocols!

If you recognise this plot summary, I'd be very grateful for any information!

Thank you!

I don't remember that particular story, but it sounds the kind of thing that Mr. Twiddle would do. Although he wasn't an absent minded professor, more a muddle headed, presumably retired, elderly man.

Could it be him you are thinking of?

That's the person I was thinking of, Mr. Twiddle or Mr. Muddle. But I haven't read all of the stories.

judithteresa wrote:Can anyone help me to find a short story which I am 99% certain is by Enid Blyton? It concerns a husband and wife: I think the husband is an absent-minded professor. He has to go "up to town" on a train and comes home ill because he had his back to the engine. His wife tells him he should have asked the person opposite to swap seats. The next time he travels by train the same thing happens and, when his wife asks why he didn't swap seats, he tells her there was no-one sitting opposite to swap with!

I'm pretty sure the story you're looking for is the amusingly-titled 'Mr. Widdle on the Train':

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/sear ... +the+train" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You may have read it in the Dean & Son Round the Clock Stories:

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/book ... 28No.+5%29" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I don't know a story about Widdle applying the wrong set of instructions for the situation, but Round the Clock Stories also contains a tale called 'Fiddle-de-dee, the Foolish Brownie' and Fiddle-de-dee applies his mother's instructions to inappropriate situations, e.g. he squashes the muffins bringing them home and his mother says he ought to have carried them in a tray on his head. So when he goes to buy some ice-cream he carries it on his head and it melts in the sun... and so on. The story appears to have been based on the traditional folk-tale 'Lazy Jack'.

I've not read the story, but I certainly want to now!

Thank you to everyone who helped me with my query. I think it seems that my memory has merged two stories - one about Mr Widdle and another from the same book. Strangely, a Year 7 student told a Lazy Jack story with that exact plot in my lesson yesterday! I will chase up "Round The Clock Stories" and re-read these stories.
You are a helpful bunch! Makes me realise that agreeing to go to my mother's choice of school on the grounds that it had a similar uniform to Mallory Towers' was not so foolish.....