The Enid Blyton Society

I have been asked if I recognised this snippet of a memory. I quote -
In my last year of primary school my teacher read us all a book in the afternoons. I remember one book in particular but cannot remember what it was called. It was about a little toy soldier/warrior that lived in a little matchbox in a boys pocket. The little soldier dies at the end. Any ideas?

Funnily enough that does ring a very very tiny bell somewhere, I'm sure I had a story read to me where a toy soldier dies! Let me have a think!

Nope, I don't think this is what you're looking for actually, I've looked it up and the story I am thinking of is about a little toy soldier who falls in love with a paper ballerina and the ballerina is blown into the fireplace by a gust of wind and the little boy who owns the soldier throws him into the fire too, and he melts into the shape of a heart. It's a Hans Christian Andersen fairytale, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, I knew I remembered something about a toy soldier dying!

I loved 'The Steadfast Tin Soldier' when I was little.

There's a series of five books by Lynne Reid Banks (beginning with The Indian and the Cupboard) and it's possible that one of them might be the book your friend is thinking of, Daisy. I've never read the series but I've come across references to it from time to time. In the third book, The Secret of the Indian (1989), a boy named Patrick mistakenly keeps a plastic figure of Boone the cowboy in his pocket during time travel, and as a result Boone nearly dies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Indian_in_the_Cupboard" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thank you Cathy and Anita. I have passed on your ideas.

I have now heard that you hit the jackpot Anita - my daughter's friend says thank you very much.

Thanks for letting us know, Daisy!