The Enid Blyton Society

Tony Summerfield wrote:Her workbooks, that were also destroyed, would have been far more interesting to me.

What sort of information did Enid keep in her workbooks, please Tony?

Viking Star wrote:What sort of information did Enid keep in her workbooks, please Tony?

Exactly as the name 'workbook' implies, Rob. She kept a daily record of all the work that she had done that day, along with when the work was accepted, when it was published and how much she was paid for it. I have the only workbook that exists in the archives, and it covers the period 1923-26. If we also had the next four years, it would help to discover the many missing things that Enid wrote in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Tony Summerfield wrote:I think I have a copy of the photo of that incident, Anita, but I had just assumed it was taken at Green Hedges! I will check to see if it is in the archives, or perhaps I used it in a Journal. One of these days we need a decent Journal index and then I wouldn't have to go backwards and forwards through the Journal catalogue all the time!

Thanks, Tony. I don't recall a photo like that appearing in the Journal, but then the Journal is a veritable labyrinth of treasures and I turn up something surprising every time I go for a wander along the passageways, revisiting half-forgotten nooks and crannies.

There is a 1946 photo in the archives showing Enid Blyton reading to a group of children, including Gillian and Imogen, but that was taken out in the garden at Green Hedges (and was printed in The Story of My Life).

Anita

Yes, I had a look at that photo after posting - I should have done so before really! That picture is definitely at Green Hedges, but interestingly I think it is Imogen and the Biggs children.

Going back to Green Hedges, I remember that about 12 years ago I was having a conversation with Gillian, and I tactfully asked her why on earth had Green Hedges been sold to developers, as it should have been kept as a museum. She replied that at the time the company was having financial difficulties as they tried to pay off death duties and we had no option but to sell the house. There was no mention of Eric Rogers, who she could easily have blamed as he was long dead, and she seemed to be saying that it was a decision that she fully agreed with, indeed she even implied that it was her decision.

Tony Summerfield wrote:Yes, I had a look at that photo after posting - I should have done so before really! That picture is definitely at Green Hedges, but interestingly I think it is Imogen and the Biggs children.

I was wondering whether the boy and girl on the left might be two of the Biggs children but I wasn't sure. As for the boy on the right, whom Gillian appears to be restraining (perhaps he was fidgeting?), I was wondering whether he might be the son of one of Enid's staff. I think a little boy called Kenneth was mentioned by Imogen in her book, the son of Frances Tapping the cook. Kenneth's grandfather was "Old Tapping" the gardener, who became Tupping in The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat.

Tony Summerfield wrote:Going back to Green Hedges, I remember that about 12 years ago I was having a conversation with Gillian, and I tactfully asked her why on earth had Green Hedges been sold to developers, as it should have been kept as a museum. She replied that at the time the company was having financial difficulties as they tried to pay off death duties and we had no option but to sell the house. There was no mention of Eric Rogers, who she could easily have blamed as he was long dead, and she seemed to be saying that it was a decision that she fully agreed with, indeed she even implied that it was her decision.

Very interesting. Who knows what really went on? I do get the impression that Old Thatch, with its rich history and glorious setting, and which Gillian associated with happy days of early childhood, was the house that had really captured her heart though, rather than Green Hedges.

Anita

Anita Bensoussane wrote: I only discovered A Story Party at Green Hedges as an adult and was delighted to see Grace Lodge's exquisite illustrations of Enid Blyton and Green Hedges. I was also pleased to have been invited to the party! The "Tale for Anita" is called "The Cat Without a Tail." Hmm - perhaps Enid ought to have invited a boy named Duncan. I know he's rather partial to stories about tails!

Anita

Unfortunately, I wasn't invited to the story party Enid held at Green Hedges, but I WAS lucky enough to get an invitation to Enid's Picnic Party the following year! The story Enid wrote for me was called 'Two Little Meddlers' (No comment! ) about two children that meddled with everything.

It was a nice picnic, on High-up Hill, and the sky was, of course, 'as blue as forget-me-nots' and the sun was shining brightly, which was lucky. We had egg sandwiches and sardine sandwiches and tomato and lettice sandwiches and a very big fruit cake, two swiss rolls and biscuits in the shape of letters, plus bottles of lemonade, all carried in four picnic baskets! Needless to say, we had a lovely time and heard lots of lovely stories

Sounds as if you had a smashing time, Robert!

I think you are quite right about this, Anita. I think life changed for Gillian when they moved to Green Hedges and she no longer enjoyed the close contact that she had had with her mother at Old Thatch. She often talked fondly of her childhood memories, but things like nature walks all took place at Old Thatch, and I am convinced that Imogen paints a much more realistic picture of what life was really like for the children at Green Hedges. We know that Gillian was keen to get away to boarding school and I think it was easy to see why.

Thanks for the information about the work book Tony. And thanks too to you and Anita for the interesting conversation that's appeared since I last looked at this string (which I imagine was only yesterday).

I didn't know that Gillian was keen to get away to boarding school. Perhaps it's recorded in Barbara Stoney's book (which I haven't re-read since it came out ). Very interesting and yes, it does bear out Imogen's (shocking) account of life at Green Hedges.

I've talked before in one or two other threads about an interview with Gillian which appeared in Hello!, November 2nd 1996. One of the questions asked was, "Many famous authors' homes are now museums. Would you like that?" Gillian replied, "I would very much have liked that for Green Hedges because almost all her well-known books were written there, but unfortunately it had to be sold to pay death duties. My late husband and I wanted to live there, but we had just moved to Yorkshire where he was Director of Programmes for Yorkshire Television. What we didn't know was that a building company had got planning permission to demolish it. Now it's a housing estate."

From that, it sounds as if Gillian (and probably Imogen too) agreed to the sale of the house but expected it to be sold to a family who would live in it - not to property developers who would demolish it!

Anita

What I am now unsure about is whether the house belonged to the company or the family. If it was the latter, then Eric Rogers would have had nothing to do with the sale at all, so although we know he was a rogue, he may have been maligned on this occasion. I will delve deeper.

Tony Summerfield wrote:I will delve deeper.

Please do - it would be interesting to know more.

Anita

Where exactly was Green Hedges? Right at the heart of Enid Blyton's writing. But let's be more specific...

As Imogen tells us in A Childhood at Green Hedges, the Biggs family moved into Upton Leigh in 1943 or 1944 (see page 76 of that book). Upton Leigh, as this valuable thread tells us, being the house immediately to the north of Green Hedges on the Penn Road.

Of the four Biggs children, two have names with subtle Blytonian associations: Diana (any connection with Dinah of the Adventure series?) and Bet (related at all to the Find-Outers Bets?). Imogen tells us that in later life Diana recalled Enid as follows: "She was incredibly vibrant, an absolutely vital person. Everyone else in the room sort of faded. It was just this incredible personality sitting on the settee." I can believe it. Though, as Imogen says, it implies that Enid felt at ease with, and appreciated by, these neighbours.

Soon after the Biggs arrived at Upton leigh, it was agreed by the adults that a gap could be cut in the hedge separating it from Green Hedges, so that the six children could play together more easily. Then, in July 1944, the superb one-off novel called The Boy Next Door was published, which surely feeds off this gap in the hedge business (chapters called ''The Hole Under The Fence' and 'Through the Hole at Midnight').

The Biggs child that Imogen was friendliest with was called Keith, who she wondered if she was in love with by the summer of 1944. Meanwhile Enid had dropped the 'e' and the 'h' from his name in order to get 'Kit', the name of the boy next door. Eh? Mind games! Well, Enid tossed off prize crosswords at the weekend, she wasn't going to stop manipulating letters as well as words whenever she felt like it.

Interestingly, one of the other main motifs of that book is a houseboat on a river. So it's possible that Enid's agile mind was flicking - and fictionalising - from Green Hedges in Beaconsfield to the Thames at Bourne End, ideal for the discreet parking of house boats, three miles away, where she'd previously lived.

Remember that this was a very busy time for Enid. In 1942 she'd published the first Famous Five book, and in 1943 the second Famous Five and the first Find-Outers. In 1944, she was already going great guns with the 3rd FF, the 2nd F-O and the 1st 'Adventure'. But what was happening next door to Green Hedges may have seemed like an irrestible input. So we get the one-off The Boy Next Door as well as forceful and fluent continuations of the main series. Plus all the rest of her efforts in that special year.

Re A Story Part at Green Hedges. Anita mentions that Grace Lodge met Enid and some children in Swanage in order to do a few sketches. I suppose she could just as easily have put together a book called A Story-Party at Kirrin. But, no, the collection is as much about the act of story-telling as anything else. So it's appropriate that the book was called what it was, acknowledging the place of Green Hedges. And with Grace Lodge going to the trouble of drawing Enid and the children from life, I can't believe that she wouldn't have asked to come to Green Hedges for the afternoon to do the principle drawing:

Grace: "Can I come to Green Hedges for the afternoon?"
Enid: "Of course, darling. You shall have tea brought to your sketch pad. And if you want me, I'll either be in my study, banging away at the typewriter, or on the swing seat, desperately trying to keep up with what I'm seeing and hearing courtesy of my own private cinema screen, or down by my little pond communing with the birds and the fishes."
Grace: "Now that's what I call a story-party."
Enid: "I'm so glad you understand."

Anita Bensoussane wrote:

Tony Summerfield wrote:I will delve deeper.

Please do - it would be interesting to know more.

Anita

Yes: a bit of proper research, rather than theory after theory, is what we need here!

Green Hedges theories are entertaining, but I'm hardly ever convinced by them, and they become tedious after a while. (sorry!)