The Enid Blyton Society

I would have thought that a surgeon earned much more than 70K a year .. even a GP gets that

In Claudine at SC, a new matron arrives for a term and we learn through her daughter that she 'lost a lot of money' .. that's why she had to take the job as matron.' It makes me wonder whether she was actually qualifed or if the school was just looking for someone to take care of the laundry and mending and administer nasty tasting medicine

That's interesting.

Family history is a hobby of mine and often find when you translate pound for pound it's hard to get a sense in terms of relative purchasing power.

For example I have a will dating from 1963, someone left a total of £14,000. People can tell you how much that £14,000 would be in today's terms but I have found that this is often misleading (I think there is a website which allows you to make like for like translations but can't find it). It's useful to have a sense of how much things cost in the time period you are interested, for example the average house price etc.

Interesting to get salaries etc in the time frame. Red Roofs sounds like Benenden/Cheltenham Ladies College and Malory Towers more like Gordonstoun or similar.

Bedales seems a lot like Whyteleafe, animals allowed at the school, liberal regime where teachers are known by their first name etc, I wonder if Enid knew the school?

Well, SC is possibly below the school Pat and Isabel wanted to go to - Redroofs? Been ages since I've read SC but I remember the other school being described in very grand terms - evening gowns etc and Mr O'Sullivan thinking it was a lot of nonsense and not needed.

Ringmere was the name of the school that Pat and Isabel wanted to attend and Redroofs was where they had been previously. While they talk a lot about St Clares being the "sensible" choice of school, you also get the impression that it was a lot more academically rigourous than Redroofs and possibly Ringmere and perhaps preparing girls for actual careers rather than lives of leisure and lounging. They also make a big thing of the girls having to do their own mending etc at St Clares which horrifies the girls from the other schools who have maids to do this kind of thing.

Oh and boarding schools (and just plain private day schools) horrendously expensive in Australia these days. There is no way that we could afford to send our son to the school that my husband attended (or maybe we could but would mean a huge amount of hard work and sacrifice which I really don't think would be at all justified when we live near a perfectly good government school).

A life of leisure and lounging, love that description .

Thinking more about it, Benenden was actually an interesting choice by Enid for her girls. I think that Enid - although generally sensible and down to earth - had an aspirational, even a pretensious side which she occasionally struggled with, an inner Mrs Lacy perhaps?I believe Benenden, later chosen by the Queen for Princess Anne, was an aspirational choice to some extent although I am sure it had a solid academic reputation etc.

Was interested to find out that Benenden school was exacuated to Newquay, Cornwall during the war.

Belly wrote:...I think there is a website which allows you to make like for like translations but can't find it...

THIS might help. Interesting that I would be on an annual salary of £2,931 (using average earnings) in 1968 money. Who says we were better off in the sixities?

Thanks - the amounts seem to vary a lot? Retail price index v average earnings? Need to read again to understand I think. Maths never a strong point!

As I understand it, the RPI is just that, if a tin of Heinz Beans cost 4p twenty years ago, and now costs 20p, that is the comparison. Average earnings however, have risen above inflation over the past 50 years, so that figure will be higher.

Aha! Feel silly now!

Yes, I was just going to say but has wages risen with inflation all the time?

Perhaps we'd need to look at things in terms of percentages to work this out? But if people are taking out loans to cover expenses, then that isn't going to give a true reading because the "income" will be higher.

I've just finished reading this book and thoroughly enjoyed it. The story was good and had that famous technique that Enid possessed in being able to write a story, that the reader can't put down until finished.

Bill was a bit secretive, not wanting to give away why he was there in the cove, therefore giving the children completely wrong ideas as to his reasons, but then anything different wouldn't have made the story as good.

It was so nice to see how Jack and Phillip wanted to keep protecting the 'girls' and keeping them safe. That sort of chivalry is not seen as much these days, which is rather sad. Also Enid made a point of saying after Dinah boxed Philip's ears, that he couldn't hit back, as boys don't hit girls. Something else these days seems to be missing when you read the newspapers etc. I wonder what Enid would have thought of the world we now appear to live in. Worlds apart from the values she knew.

Looking forward to reading the rest of this series.

It was so nice to see how Jack and Phillip wanted to keep protecting the 'girls' and keeping them safe. That sort of chivalry is not seen as much these days, which is rather sad. Also Enid made a point of saying after Dinah boxed Philip's ears, that he couldn't hit back, as boys don't hit girls. Something else these days seems to be missing when you read the newspapers etc. I wonder what Enid would have thought of the world we now appear to live in. Worlds apart from the values she knew.

I somehow second that, while at the same time seeing the downside of it, which Enid (involuntarily?) included in "Five go on a hike together".
The usual quibbeling between George and Julian about matters like who is to sleep in barns and who is not and all that. The scene when it all boils up has been interpreted many a time, so I won't have another go. It is remarkable though, how George walks the line and breaks out at the same time, one thing which makes me like the FF so much.
The Adventure Series has other qualities and maybe a different focus. It shares the one quality each Blyton book has: you won't put it down till you have finished it.
Cheers

Dick Kirrin
Boys don't hit girls, unless they dress up and behave like boys and have a good punch to them, eh?

Julie2owlsdene wrote:It was so nice to see how Jack and Phillip wanted to keep protecting the 'girls' and keeping them safe. That sort of chivalry is not seen as much these days, which is rather sad. Also Enid made a point of saying after Dinah boxed Philip's ears, that he couldn't hit back, as boys don't hit girls. Something else these days seems to be missing when you read the newspapers etc. I wonder what Enid would have thought of the world we now appear to live in. Worlds apart from the values she knew.

I've been reading The Sea of Adventure with Gabe and Philip's changed his mind about hitting Dinah in this one! Jack has to tell him to stop or he'll hurt her.

I don't think Enid's line about boys not hitting girls was reflected in the world around her at the time of writing, though. There would have been more domestic violence in the past than there is today.

lizarfau wrote:
I've been reading The Sea of Adventure with Gabe and Philip's changed his mind about hitting Dinah in this one! Jack has to tell him to stop or he'll hurt her.

I'll look forward to reading that one then

Philip and Dinah have a very tempestuous brother / sister relationship in general. They are always fighting and arguing. The violence is usually the other way round as I recall but I think Philip does administer the odd slap or push on ocasion. Its a bit of a break from the norm for Blyton as she is usually very careful to put across the boys dont hit girls message. To be fair though, the Adventure series was aimed at older children and it was always stressed that the Mannering siblings were utterly devoted to one another and their mother. Perhaps Enid felt that the odd fight between the pair would ring true with older readers. After all tiffs happen every day in real life in families.