The Enid Blyton Society

While at Seven Stories last week I had a quick look at Enid's diaries which Imogen generously donated a few years ago. They are extremely interesting. Here is a summary of the last few, from 1963 to her death.
http://www.enidblyton.me.uk/styled-16/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
There are one or two things that are hard to decipher, especially on the only substantial entry in the final diary. Perhaps fellow forumites will have suggestions as to what Enid has written?

Duncan

Very interesting, Duncan. Thanks for posting.

Very interesting, though sad.

The first word in the section that refers to the Parable of the Sower might be "Reading", though I'm not absolutely sure.

I suppose the "Betty and Dorothy" who came for the day on Sunday February 19th 1967 were Dorothy Richards and her sister Betty.

It seems that Enid Blyton was an admirer of Betty Maxey as she writes of the Famous Five paperbacks: "The books are beautifully produced."

Very interesting, and rather sad. thanks for posting!

Anita Bensoussane wrote:
It seems that Enid Blyton was an admirer of Betty Maxey as she writes of the Famous Five paperbacks: "The books are beautifully produced."

Where's Pete when you need him?

Yes, very interesting and moving, thanks Duncan.

Anita Bensoussane wrote: The first word in the section that refers to the Parable of the Sower might be "Reading", though I'm not absolutely sure.

Yes, it looks like it could be. The line under "Parable Sower" is almost certainly "went forth to sow" — that's the wording from Matthew 13:3 in the Bible.

The rubbed-out Bible citation for Sunday 24 December 1967 is intriguing. It looks like there's a Roman numeral between "Luke" and the "4 10". Traditionally, Bible citations were often written with a Roman numeral for the chapter number and our usual Arabic numerals for the verse numbers.

If that's so, this would be verses 4-10 of a chapter from Luke, which I'm guessing is more likely than "Luke 4:10". (Luke 4:10 is from a scene where the devil quotes scripture to Jesus to tempt him to throw himself off the pinnacle of the temple. If that quote about angels had been used in Kenneth's funeral service it would have been taken from its original source, Psalm 91:11.)

Annoyingly, I can't quite make out what the Roman numeral might be... it looks like IIX, but that's not a valid Roman numeral. It could be IX - nine - but Luke 9:4-10 starts in the middle of an account of Jesus sending his disciples out to preach and heal and ends at an odd place too; it doesn't work as a story on its own.

Of course, Enid might have written a citation down incorrectly, then realised afterwards and rubbed it out... I guess it's a mystery!

Rob Houghton wrote:

Anita Bensoussane wrote:
It seems that Enid Blyton was an admirer of Betty Maxey as she writes of the Famous Five paperbacks: "The books are beautifully produced."

Where's Pete when you need him?

I was thinking the same thing!!

Thanks for posting this, Duncan. Very interesting, if rather sad; it shows that in her final months Enid was still able to concentrate on and gain solace from the Anglican church services that had always been central to her belief system.
My own reading of the entries for 'Monday / Christmas Day 25 December and Tuesday Boxing Day/ 26 December' is that the word by Enid on line 1 is 'Monday' and on line 3 she writes 'went forth to sow'. The names of and quotes from the hymns seem to be those you suggested; she is presumably jotting down the bits of the services which made most impact to remember them later. I was at a Church of England primary school in 1967 and can confirm that these hymns were favourites at the time - our local Head and the curate often used them at services they ran.

Rob Houghton wrote:

Anita Bensoussane wrote:
It seems that Enid Blyton was an admirer of Betty Maxey as she writes of the Famous Five paperbacks: "The books are beautifully produced."

Where's Pete when you need him?

1967 Knight, illustrations by Eileen A. Soper, cover by Betty Maxey

I did momentarily build my hopes up, but I think as shown above,all the 1967 Knight Five's only had Maxey externals and Eileen Soper internals...


1968 Knight, illustrations and cover by Betty Maxey

By 1968 it was no doubt too late for Enid to see the wonders of Betty's internals.

Great article and research work Duncan. Many thanks for sharing it with us. I really enjoyed it.

Those early Maxey covers are beautiful (gosh, she makes Smuggler's Top look exactly like St Michael's Mount!) and I'm not surprised Enid approved of them. But, well, Pete, we may just have to leave the admiration of Betty's internals to you.

Thanks for all the comments.

Yes, I can see now that it's 'went forth to sow' rather than 'went forth to God'.

But as to whether the first word to that entry is 'Monday', 'Reading' or even 'Evening', I still wouldn't like to say. It may be something else altogether.

No thoughts on the 'Prayer' word and subsequent words on Saturday 30, 1967?

Interesting to see the Famous Five paperback covers, Pete. Where's 'Five Go Adventuring Again' the one she actually mentions? Twice! But, to be fair, as the Cave of Books informs us, it's the first seven FFs that came out in paperback form in 1967. The 50,000 sales figure may mean the sales of all seven books, one wouldn't expect Enid to pick up the information correctly by this stage. Maybe the publisher just brought the one round to show her.

Enid: "Betty's a wonder. Get her to do some new internals as well."
Toby Hodder Williams: "Steady, Enid. We're intent on keeping costs down. The idea is to milk your achievement for all its worth."

Great to read this particular entry though. One can imagine the pleasure Enid got a few years before, in 1963, when the first seven Mysteries came out in paperback. (Different publishers got off the mark with paperback publication at different speeds. Methuen also got four of the Malory Towers out in paperback in 1963.)

Didn't inspire her to write another one, though. Sadly, she would have struggled to do justice to Fatty and Goon by then.

How lovely to see and read these. I'll keep popping back and reading more when I get more time on my hands.

Thanks Duncan for posting these. Good to see you are still maintaining an interest in Enid Blyton as well even though you don't post here as much as you used to. Welcome back.

As to the content yes, as others have said it's a bit sad but fascinating nonetheless.

timv wrote:Thanks for posting this, Duncan. Very interesting, if rather sad; it shows that in her final months Enid was still able to concentrate on and gain solace from the Anglican church services that had always been central to her belief system.

I find that an odd suggestion, as, as far as I'm aware, Enid never attended church anything like regularly and never had any true religious beliefs...

Green Hedges wrote: Pete. Where's 'Five Go Adventuring Again' the one she actually mentions? Twice!

1967 Knight, illustrations by Eileen A. Soper, cover by Betty Maxey

Please accept my humble and most sincere apologies for this unforgivable oversight Duncan!

ps.
Did I ever mention that Betty produced not one,but two externals for this and some of the other Knight paperbacks?


1970 Knight, illustrations by Eileen A. Soper, cover by Betty Maxey


*forum collectively yawns*

Pete - I actually didn't realise she sometimes produced more than one cover design for the Famous Five paperbacks! I've always liked the bottom one with the villains bursting through the door...but I really like the cover where they are looking out of the window - very nicely rendered!