The Enid Blyton Society

Woman's Hour (BBC Radio 4) featured an interview with Enid Blyton, this morning. Many will have heard it before, but it is worth a re-listen! Click here to listen. It starts just after 35 minutes into the programme.

Thanks, Nigel. I've heard the interview before but it's nice to listen to Enid Blyton's voice again. Interesting too that they're going to discuss Enid Blyton's boarding-school books on Woman's Hour next week.

Yes, I enjoyed it too (I hadn't heard it before)! Interesting that it was recorded only two years before Enid's passing in 1968, but her love for children and stories still shines through. She was beautifully spoken, too, and not as posh (heightened RP, I mean) as I was expecting! Lovely to hear.

I wonder why they seem to be focussing on the school stories specifically for the programme on her legacy? Maybe it's just that school stories never appealed to me as a child (I still haven't read either St Clare's or Malory Towers), but I would have thought the Famous Five are the ones that most readily spring to mind when anyone mentions Enid Blyton, even for children today.

Maybe it's because the school books are usually about girls' schools (except the Naughtiest Girl series and Mischief at St. Rollo's), and Woman's Hour is aimed at women?

I'd never heard it before either and found it fascinating. Thanks for that Nigel! (although the link you gave only has short clips. The full interview can be found here.)

Thanks for providing the link to the original 1963 broadcast, Walter. Enid seems to nail the myth that George Kirrin was based on hersel! Most interesting to listen to that broadcast again.

As Nigel says above this was first broadcast in 1963, not two years before her death.

I know nobody bothers much with our Lashings of Links page, but we do have all the BBC archived material on it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/blyton/index.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

There was an interview in 1966 and it is pretty shaky. Kenneth asked for all the questions in advance and prepared all her answers, I am not quite sure which programme it is in.

I don't think that it explodes the myth about George being based on herself as I am sure that she was, Enid is just using a bit of poetic licence in that Woman's Hour piece!

I also think the bit about reading her books to her children and changing anything they didn't like is total bunkum. She only saw them for an hour a day so when was she supposed to do this! I often think that she said what she thought people would want to hear and this was not necessarily what had actually happened.

I want to know, what was Nigel doing listening to Woman's Hour. Is this a secret passion of his?

Tony thanks for the reminder about the broadcasts link. I've listened to something from there in the past, but must admit I forgot to go back and listen to any more. Hopefully I'll have time once my Carpenters CD has finished.

That does make more sense that it was recorded in 1963, not '66. I'll have to listen to the whole thing later when I have time - thanks for the link, Walter.

Katharine wrote:I want to know, what was Nigel doing listening to Woman's Hour. Is this a secret passion of his?

I was wondering the same thing myself

Thanks to Nigel,Walter and Tony for the links. I have really enjoyed listening to Enid.Great stuff!

My daughter-in-law sent me a text to say the interview was on. Unfortunately, by the time I switched my wireless set on, it had finished, so I went to the iPlayer to hear it later.

I don't think that it explodes the myth about George being based on herself as I am sure that she was, Enid is just using a bit of poetic licence in that Woman's Hour piece!

You could be right.

Tony Summerfield wrote:I don't think that it explodes the myth about George being based on herself as I am sure that she was, Enid is just using a bit of poetic licence in that Woman's Hour piece!

What Enid Blyton says in the Woman's Hour interview does tally though with what she wrote in The Story of My Life back in 1952:

George, who is in the Famous Five books, was also a real girl. You will remember that she is called Georgina but refuses to be called anything but George, because she so badly wants to be a boy. I think you must have felt she was real, because so often in your letters you say to me, "George is real, isn't she?"

Yes, George is real, but she is grown-up now. She had a dog, of course, and though he was like Timmy (the dog in the book) in character, the artist has not drawn him quite as he looked - but then, she had never seen him, so how could she?

The real George was short-haired, freckled, sturdy, and snub-nosed. She was bold and daring, hot-tempered and loyal. She was sulky, as George is, too, but she isn't now. We grow out of those failings - or we should! Do you like George? I do.

The part about the dog looking a particular way makes me think that Enid Blyton probably did have in mind a specific girl and dog she once knew, when she created the character of George. According to Barbara Stoney, Enid confessed to her foreign agent, Rosica Colin, that George was based on herself. But it's hardly surprising that, when writing about a character who was headstrong and tomboyish, Enid Blyton found aspects of her own personality creeping in. Her brother Hanly has described Enid as a feisty, rebellious young girl. So there could easily be elements of the girl with the dog and Enid herself in the character of George.

Thanks to Nigel,Walter and Tony for the links and Anita and Tony for the fascinating information about Enid - I can never get enough.

It's nice to listen to the links again, even though I have heard them many times.

In one of the broadcasts mentioned, Enid does say that George was a real person who she knew and admired, as a child and that she was strong willed and had a dog called Timmy.

So maybe Enid took a bit of this girl and herself for George in the Famous Five.

I've just listening to the broadcast. Very interesting. One comment stood out to me. It was the part where the presenter talked about criticism of Enid's writing, and how children should basically 'grow out' of Enid Blyton as they got older. I thought that's a very arrogant comment by the 'experts'. Why should a person 'grow out' of any particular kind of book? Obviously as I've grown up I need to take on responsibilities in life such as a job, running a home etc., but why does it matter what sort of book I decide to unwind with at the end of the day? Am I an less a worthwhile human being just because I haven't read many other authors?

I can accept that reading a wide range of different authors and styles I will increase my vocabulary, but as long as I can go into a shop and ask for the week's groceries, does it really matter if I can use the word 'verdant' instead of 'green'?

I also thought it was interesting to note the emphasis that was placed on books being suitable for children because of their morals, I wonder how many modern publishers/parents give two hoots as to whether books today contain them? I know I don't read many modern children's authors, but from those I have come across, the stories just seem to be about fun, or even worse, putting one over people.