The name 'Kirrin'

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Moonraker
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Re: The name 'Kirrin'

Post by Moonraker »

Chrissie777 wrote:"Finniston Farm" is one of the 6 FF volumes that I skip whenever I reread the series. Because I usually only read my 15 favorite sequels. :oops:
I'm glad I'm not the only one that does this. I never want to read Five Go Adventuring Again - as well as 3 or 4 others.
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Re: The name 'Kirrin'

Post by Chrissie777 »

Nigel, I like "Adventuring again" because of the secret panels, underground passage and the snow (even though I dislike the teacher very much).
But I must admit that I never was compelled by "Caravan", "Camp", "Mystery Moor", "Billycock Hill", "Finniston Farm" and "...together again".
I prefer the sequels which take place in Kirrin Cottage, on Kirrin Island and on Kirrin Common (Secret Trail) the most.
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Re: The name 'Kirrin'

Post by Rob Houghton »

I'm always amazed when people say they dislike Finniston Farm! Its certainly not one of my top favourites, but I love it, and certainly would never miss it out!

However, its true that we are all different. I certainly agree about 'Together Again' and also 'Mystery To Solve' and I'm not very keen on 'Demon's Rocks' in many ways, or 'Secret Trail' - though it has some good elements. I would put Finniston Farm above all these books, and also above 'Run Away Together'.

I realised the other day that my top favourites all come in a line, in the middle of the series - Smugglers Top, caravan, Kirrin Island Again, Camp, Trouble, Fall Into Adventure, Hike, Wonderful Time, Sea, and Mystery Moor. :-)
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Re: The name 'Kirrin'

Post by Chrissie777 »

Rob Houghton wrote:I'm half jealous that so many people read the Famous Five as children. But then again, I had the pleasure of discovering all but two of them as an adult! :-D By that time, I'd already read loads about the Barnard thing, so I didn't actually notice it myself without having already read about the discrepancy.
Rob, I had a rather unhappy childhood with very strict parents. The FF books kept me sane through those very difficult years. I owe EB a lot! 8)
In the 1960's EB's books were banned from German school libraries and public libraries, but fortunately my best friend had 3 older brothers who owned the FF books and Adventure series and she lent them to me.
It opened up a whole new world for me, a world with kind and easy going parents, a world full of adventures with sunken ships, treasures and secret passageways.
The rest is history. :D
Books in general became my escapism. Thanks to EB I began reading more and more and also discovered other authors, but I always returned to the FF, Adventure series and R series even when I was an adult.

For decades I thought I must be the only adult who still reads EB and considered it my guilty pleasure...until in the summer of 2008 my husband found the Yahoo Blyton Group for me when he searched for EB on the Internet.
You can imagine how happy I was when I joined the Yahoo Group and found out that many other people still enjoy reading EB in their 50's and 60's and older.
They told me about the EBS website. To this day I haven't found a more beautifully created website with such a wealth of knowledge on EB.
I will be eternally thankful to Tony, also for the EBS Journal.
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Re: The name 'Kirrin'

Post by Rob Houghton »

Thanks for sharing your experiences, Chrissie. I'm glad Enid helped you through difficult times. :-)

I feel very privileged to have had an almost Blytonian upbringing - great parents, who lavished love on both my sister and I, and a mother who loved Enid Blyton and bought us loads of Enid Blyton books, which she read to us, and we also read for ourselves.

We weren't very well off, but we also weren't really poor - but love is worth more than all the riches, and I consider that we had a very free, loving, inventive childhood! Enid Blyton gave me a love for writing and for reading. I can honestly say I pretty much read nly Enid Blyton between the ages of 6 and 12, and even when I read other authors, I only digressed a little - to E Nesbit, CS Lewis, and Daphne DuMaurier etc!

Though I've read many other authors since - especially Harlan Coban and Linwood Barclay - Blyton is still my main author. She has helped me through some tough times when I suffered stress during teacher training, and when I had all my teeth out, and when I have had depression etc. She is a safe place to go.
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Re: The name 'Kirrin'

Post by Chrissie777 »

Rob Houghton wrote: Enid Blyton gave me a love for writing and for reading. I can honestly say I pretty much read nly Enid Blyton between the ages of 6 and 12, and even when I read other authors, I only digressed a little - to E Nesbit, CS Lewis, and Daphne DuMaurier etc!
Though I've read many other authors since - especially Harlan Coban and Linwood Barclay - Blyton is still my main author. She has helped me through some tough times when I suffered stress during teacher training, and when I had all my teeth out, and when I have had depression etc. She is a safe place to go.
Rob, you've read Daphne DuMaurier already when you were only 12 years old?
That's impressive!
I love "Frenchman's Creek" and "The King's General" (with the hidden room).
DuMaurier is one of my favorite British authors together with EB, Norman Dale, Agatha Christie and Peter Robinson who's now Canadian, but originally comes from the UK.

I also enjoy Linwood Barclay and Harlan Coben (just read "Tell No One" in the German translation) plus Carlene Thompson (try her crime novels, they are very atmospheric, you might like her if you enjoy Barclay and Coben).

Same here, if I'm sad or have the flu, I usually read a FF or an Adventure book and it makes me feel better soon. 8)
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Re: The name 'Kirrin'

Post by Rob Houghton »

Chrissie777 wrote:Rob, you've read Daphne DuMaurier already when you were only 12 years old?
That's impressive!
I love "Frenchman's Creek" and "The King's General" (with the hidden room).
DuMaurier is one of my favorite British authors together with EB, Norman Dale, Agatha Christie and Peter Robinson who's now Canadian, but originally comes from the UK.
No - I think I just made it seem that way by what I wrote! I was about 17 when I first read Rebecca - and then others followed after that. I've read most of her books, and love her style of writing. :-)
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Re: The name 'Kirrin'

Post by Moonraker »

I can honestly say I pretty much read nly Enid Blyton between the ages of 6 and 12, and even when I read other authors, I only digressed a little - to E Nesbit, CS Lewis, and Daphne DuMaurier etc!
I read it the same way as Chrissie! I was impressed - for a moment! :roll:
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Re: The name 'Kirrin'

Post by josepmcb »

Let's collect what we have related to the surname Kirrin:

- FF1 Treasure Island: Uncle Quentin is the brother of Julian, Dick and Anne's father
- FF1 Treasure Island: when Julian, Dick and Anne are told they're going to Kirrin Bay on holidays, they are not familiar with that name
- FF1 Treasure Island: George tells her cousins that the whole Kirrin land once belonged to her mother's family
- FF1 Treasure Island: Henry John Kirrin is identified by George as his great great great grandfather

- FF2 to FF7: nothing relevant
- FF8 Trouble: Aunt Fanny and Julian's mother are sisters :roll:
- FF9 to FF14: nothing relevant
- FF15 Secret Trail: George's mother is identified as Mrs. Kirrin (if I'm not wrong for the 1st time)
- FF17 Fix: Julian's mother is identified as Mrs Barnard
- FF18 Finniston: the four cousins are called the Kirrins
- FF19 Demon's Rocks: Uncle Quentin and Aunt Fanny are Mr. and Mrs. Kirrin

- FF20 to FF21: nothing relevant

Conclusions:
- Green is correct
- Red is wrong
- Blue: we don't have any reason to think this is a mistake, although it seems that Enid Blyton herself aknowledeged that

- Could UQ and AF have the same surname because they were cousins? It would be possible, but in that case reaction to Kirrin in FF1 doesn't make sense
- Two brothers married respectively with two sisters? Everything is possible, but this fact, if true, would have been revealed at the begining
- Barnard a mistake? Well I guess it was easier to admit one mistake instead of several repeated ones.
- Aunts Fanny's surname? It can be Kirrin but we don't know for sure

So, as far as I can see, The Famous Five are the Barnards.
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Re: The name 'Kirrin'

Post by Rob Houghton »

Its quite possible for two brothers to marry two sisters. It happened in my mom's family, with my mom's nan and uncle. Doris Sutton married Fredrick Webster and William Sutton married Jessica Webster. But in the FF case, they would presumable also have to be cousins, which is a bit more complicated?! However, cousins can marry so it is possible I guess.
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Re: The name 'Kirrin'

Post by Courtenay »

We had something similar in my dad's family too — his two uncles, my grandfather's brothers, married two sisters. But the two families weren't related. With the Kirrin family relationships conundrum, I've always suspected that Enid never actually thought it out properly with who was related to whom and managed to put in a whole lot of contradictory information over the course of the books without really realising. It's the story and characters and adventures that are the important things, after all, not the details of family trees.

I can think of another instance, actually, pre-Famous Five, where I suspect Enid didn't think hard enough about the actual family relationships in what she was writing. In The Treasure Hunters, the children find Granny crying because the old family mansion, Greylings Manor, is to be sold, and she tells them all about the Greyling family's history and the long-lost family treasure. But the children are Greylings themselves — we're told that explicitly. Granny and Granpa are their father's parents and Greyling is the family name. So their grandmother, who's getting all weepy about selling Greylings Manor and how the family's fortunes have declined over the centuries, isn't a member of the Greyling family by birth and heritage, only by marriage! Of course that doesn't mean she couldn't still get emotional about her husband's family home and history, but it's not hers in the same way. Unless, of course, she IS actually related to the Greyling family and it's another case of inbreeding... :wink:
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Re: The name 'Kirrin'

Post by Rob Houghton »

josepmcb wrote:Let's collect what we have related to the surname Kirrin:

- FF1 Treasure Island: Uncle Quentin is the brother of Julian, Dick and Anne's father
- FF1 Treasure Island: when Julian, Dick and Anne are told they're going to Kirrin Bay on holidays, they are not familiar with that name
- FF1 Treasure Island: George tells her cousins that the whole Kirrin land once belonged to her mother's family
- FF1 Treasure Island: Henry John Kirrin is identified by George as his great great great grandfather
For me, the biggest inconsistency is actually in this first book, which doesn't seem to allow Enid the excuse that she was writing the series over a long period and so simply got mixed up!

Enid states that Uncle Quentin is the brother of Julian, Dick and Anne's father. Uncle Quentin is also a Kirrin. So therefore the Famous Five are called Kirrin. Then Enid tells us that the Kirrin land all belonged to george's mother, not George's father.

I know this is not anything that hasn't been seen before - but WHY has Enid got so muddled even in just this one book? Unless she's not muddled, and Aunt Fanny and Quentin really were cousins who had the same surname. So one can only conclude from this that Fanny and Quentin were definitely cousins.

It wouldn't be so surprising that Julian, Dick and Anne have never heard of the name 'Kirrin Bay' - they are probably surprised to hear that there's a place named after them. I had never heard of the place 'Houghton on the Hill' when I was 10 years old...
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Re: The name 'Kirrin'

Post by sixret »

I am not sure but is Kirrin a proper/usual surname? Can we create any name to be our surname? I have always thought of this. For example, Dan Spolington or Tisha Brickham or something. Could you differentiate between made-up surnames and the proper surnames?
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Re: The name 'Kirrin'

Post by pete9012S »

Julian's father, Quentin's Kirrin's brother, also seemed very vague about the details concerning Kirrin:
Five On A Treasure Island

The children began to feel rather excited. It would be fun to go to a place they had never been to before, and stay with an unknown cousin.
"Are there cliffs and rocks and sands there?" asked Anne. "Is it a nice place?"

"I don't remember it very well," said Daddy. "But I feel sure it's an exciting kind of place. Anyway, you'll love it! It's called Kirrin Bay. Your Aunt Fanny has lived there all her life, and wouldn't leave it for anything."

"Oh Daddy, do telephone to Aunt Fanny and ask her if we can go there!" cried Dick. "I just feel as if it's the right place somehow. It sounds sort of adventurous!"
I too was thinking of exactly the same book Courtenay mentioned and wondered how things would have developed if the book was a series due to the unusual genealogy already mentioned.

Did Enid think she could just slip 'Barnard' quietly and unnoticed into Famous Five book number seventeen? It freaked me out aged about nine - no friendly neighbourhood websites or forums back then to express my disquiet and unease!
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Re: The name 'Kirrin'

Post by Rob Houghton »

sixret wrote:I am not sure but is Kirrin a proper/usual surname? Can we create any name to be our surname? I have always thought of this. For example, Dan Spolington or Tisha Brickham or something. Could you differentiate between made-up surnames and the proper surnames?
You can pretty much choose any surname - in Britain anyway. Traditionally, our surnames come from trades or places, so 'Farmer' or 'Miller' or 'Fisher' or 'Smith' etc - as well as places (my name Houghton is basically a place-name). But any name can be a surname and you can change your surname at will. You could become 'Blyton' if you chose to, as long as you registered it officially on documents etc.
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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