The Enid Blyton Society

Daisy wrote:Interesting entries.... the layout makes it quite enlightening for the diarist to compare what was happening on previous years on that day.

Yes, I agree that it's fascinating (for diarist and reader!) to compare events on the same date across the years.

Thanks for the scans, Tony. Some entries hint that Enid and Hugh's marriage was under strain and Enid was turning to Dorothy (D.) for companionship - and we know, of course, that Enid and Hugh started divorce proceedings in 1942.

I'm not at all sure of the last two words in this sentence from July 17th 1938 - "the ceiling fell down in night nursery"? The references to the beach make me think they were staying in a holiday house when that happened.

On July 17th 1940, a Mollie Atkinson came to tea. Interesting that the name is spelt "Mollie" as Enid often spelt the name that way in her stories.

Anita Bensoussane wrote: I'm not at all sure of the last two words in this sentence from July 17th 1938 - "the ceiling fell down in night nursery"? The references to the beach make me think they were staying in a holiday house when that happened.

I read it as "night nursery" too.

I won't inundate this thread with scans, but one other page for you to look at for now from the 'Work Paid For' section of her earlier workbook (both this and the diary are now at Seven Stories, but I have scans of every page on my computer).

I have chosen a page from 1923 as it shows two Birns books on it All About Railways (published as All About Trains) and Sports and Games. Prices were often worked in guineas and for these she got 20 guineas each. You can also see several 'From My Window' entries for which she got a guinea each. Longer poems were normally a guinea, whilst the shorter ones were half a guinea (10/6). Short stories varied in price depending on their length, but you can see two at the bottom from a Merry Moments Annual.



You might be interested in some of the payments she got for one of two more 'meaty' things.
The Zoo Book £90-0-0, The Book of Bunnies £77-3-6, The Book of Brownies £69-6-0 and for Sunny Stories for Little Folks £8-8-0 each. In four separate payments for the three volumes of The Teacher's Treasury she got just over £1000!

Wow, she was becoming a rich lady early on.

Thanks for that, Tony. I think we've commented before that the amount of money Enid Blyton was paid in those early days of her writing career was astonishing. This article (about the cost of microscopes) discusses wages and house prices in 1921:

http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/ind ... atdid.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It says:

A Farm Labourer's average weekly wage was about £1.70 : A top class footballer £4.50! : Cottage prices rose to about £250 and houses up to about £500.

It;s amazing to see what she was earning as early as 1924. In just a few months she earned more than many people made in a year!

Robert Houghton wrote:I want to read Bobtail's Red Car'

And now you can! David Chambers has very kindly sent me both this short story and 'Timothy's Tame Mouse' which I will load later. Unfortunately the Magazine section is not like the Periodical section and was never designed to take illustrations other than the cover pic, but I have found a way round it!

http://enidblytonsociety.co.uk/magazine ... ?magid=158" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks Tony! I enjoyed reading it - I guessed the ending of course but I like the idea of the little red car driving and driving and never stopping! Thanks for posting it.

The chance to read uncollected stories is always a treat. Many thanks to David Chambers for sending them to Tony and to Tony for taking the time to add them to the website.

'Timothy's Tame Mouse' has now also made an appearance.

http://enidblytonsociety.co.uk/magazine ... p?magid=65" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"The Village of Wop"... oh dear, there's one that wouldn't pass the censors these days!!

Thanks for sharing those stories, anyway, Tony. I particularly enjoyed "Timothy's Tame Mouse" - I'm surprised it's one that's never been reprinted, as it's an interesting little story with a satisfying ending. Timothy could almost be a sort of proto-Philip Mannering!

What a sweet little story - but how different was the attitude of parents in those days. I was going to question the idea of putting a seven year old onto a train but then I remembered that a friend I knew many years ago used to be sent from Birmingham to Scotland by train when she was about that age... all alone, to be met by her grandmother at the other end. This was in the early fifties.

I loved Timothy's Tame Mouse - although I could easily guess that the man on the train would be one of Timothy's teachers. One thing that did strike me was that it was rather cruel of the man on the train to agree with Timothy that he shouldn't tell anyone about the mouse, then at the end the man said he should have told someone!

Robert Houghton wrote:One thing that did strike me was that it was rather cruel of the man on the train to agree with Timothy that he shouldn't tell anyone about the mouse, then at the end the man said he should have told someone!

That's not what I picked up from the story:

"I'm taking him to school," said Timothy. "I couldn't leave him behind. I thought I could hide him somewhere safely, and no-one would know."
"I should tell your master about him, if I were you," said the man.
But Timothy was quite sure he wasn't going to do anything of the sort....

That will teach me to read things quickly! I misread 'should' for 'shouldnt' and now see the man on the train said he should tell his teacher. 'my bad' as they say.

Very enjoyable story though - except I hate to think how I would have felt if my parents had sent me to boarding school at 7!