The Secret Series

[Anita Bensoussane]

Hospital consultants have often described me as "asthmatic" and I've never thought of it as an insult!

[Chrissie777]

...it was mainly centred on bullying, cyber and other; the consensus was that counselling improved the situation, not that the individual necessarily wanted anything done about the issue but it was felt that discussing the problem was of value. Dreadfully sad in the 21st century when in principal at least everything in the garden should be lovely.

Floragord, I don't remember that bullying was an issue at my high school, but over here in the US it's very much a problem.
The poor bullied kids cannot even simply change between schools like it's possible in Germany. Here you have to go to the high school in your district (which might have something to do with the school busses).

[Rob Houghton]

my secondary school had a strict 'anti bullying policy' but bullying was rife. I was bullied a lot between the ages of 11 and 13, by a selection of bullies, and at one point, the whole class, who pushed me on the floor, kicked me, dragged me around by my jumper etc. This is why I hate bullying now, and tend to not mince my words but say what I think. If I see anything that resembles bullying I tend to also see 'red mist'. The reasons I was bullied were mainly that I wore clean polished shoes, had clean trousers, washed every week, wore home made knitted jumpers and didn't swear. The school I went to was in a deprived area, despite only being about a mile from where I lived, which was a better area. It was on a large estate and I was looked upon as an outsider. Mind you, I was by no means the only person to be bullied, and I was admittedly relieved when my friends were also bullied, when, I'm ashamed to say, I just stood back and watched and did nothing.

[sixret]

Bullying happens not only to the children but also to adults in many situations and environments. The worst thing in bullying is when others just do nothing to help the victim as if it is not their problem. The reasons are usually varied like the victim is not 'one of them', the person who bully has a dominant characteristic, seniority in the workplace/neighbourhood to name a few. I have seen too many bullies throughout my life that I could see the red flag at once if a bully is about to happen or going to happen. Believe it or not, the karma will get back to that person in one way or other over times. Just sit back and be patient and you will see the karma doing its job even if you have done nothing to trigger it except prayed. Just be very observant because it can be very subtle sometimes and be very quiet meaning do not interfere 'the moment'.

[Chrissie777]

We frown on the use of the word 'coloured' to describe a race...but at one point it was the newly acceptable politically correct word to use. Then 'black' became more acceptable. Now I hear the vaugue term ' people of coulour' - but doesn't that describe absolutely everyone on the planet?

I don't see that using the phrase "people of colour" is any different from describing people as "coloured." If one is frowned upon, surely the other should be frowned upon?

Now in the US you have to say African American to be p. c..

[Chrissie777]

Bullying happens not only to the children but also to adults in many situations and environments. The worst thing in bullying is when others just do nothing to help the victim as if it is not their problem. The reasons are usually varied like the victim is not 'one of them', the person who bully has a dominant characteristic, seniority in the workplace/neighbourhood to name a few.

Sixret, fortunately it didn't happen to me in school as I was rather popular in my class and also never scared away from a fight if I noticed that another class mate was bullied. Since then I hate unfairness.
I can realte to Robert's story as my grandmother sewed my dresses (I hated them!) and I also had to wear glasses, so some of my class mates (this was an all girls high school) did make certain remarks once in a while, but as I never shyed away from defending myself, they stopped after a few incidents.

BUT I had a very mean program manager once who took every chance she got to bully me.
However, I got my revenge after a year.
I finally had enough (depression, stomach ulcer and ultimately breast cancer), quit and applied for unemployment insurance. As you are usually not getting any unemployment benefits in the US when you quit a job yourself, I had to go to the unemployment court.
The unemployment/Work Force judge listened to my story and also listened to the untrue claims that this person invented against me, but I had kept all daily work print outs like call sheets (which listed the amount of calls I had done per day) and could make her look bad, because my daily call average was above the limit that was expected from us.
And in the end I even overcame my fear of her and realized what a miserable, low life person she actually was.
To make a long story short, the judge decided in my favor, the company ended up paying me almost as much in unemployment benefits as my former net income used to be, this was for a total of 99 weeks .

[Chrissie777]

 Heaven help Enid Blyton's books if these have to be removed too - it would just be too ridiculous to make criminals as civil in their behaviour as most of us: you *expect* criminals to behave badly.

Michael, I'm convinced that if EB's books really would get removed from the regular book stores, her used books on the Internet would become unaffordable ultimately.

[MJE]

'Dummy' in Rubadub Mystery was altered quite a few years ago now - to the ridiculous and less loveable 'Dumpy' which could be equally as unacceptable in a few years time, and changes his whole character, using the stereotype that a fat dumpy person is also slow or stupid.

     Gosh - I'm surprised that "Dumpy" was ever allowed in the first place - I think "fat-ism" is just as un-P.C. today as "disable-ism" is. I wonder if Fatty is still Fatty in the latest editions of those books.
     Thanks for the update, Robert. I haven't read any of the updated editions, so I'm often ignorant of such updatings, unless I read discussions about them here. I might find it interesting (if rather dismaying) to see what changes have been made - but I'm not interested enough to spend the money on, and devote the storage space to, a whole lot of newer copies of books - and, very likely, in the process completely destroy the Blytonian magic of the books.

Regards, Michael.

[MJE]

I don't see that using the phrase "people of colour" is any different from describing people as "coloured." If one is frowned upon, surely the other should be frowned upon?

     For the same reason, I presume, that some consider it acceptable (for now) to say "a person with a disability" or "a child with autism", but unacceptable to say "a disabled person" or "an autistic child".
     This latest manifestation of politically-correct mania actually has a name: person-first or people-first language, and there is a Wikipedia article on it:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People-first_language

     Why it should make any difference is beyond me - because "disabled person" and "person with a disability" logically mean *exactly* the same thing - but the former (and older) formation is linguistically far better and less clumsy. I, at least, do not attach any more strength to a particular word just because it comes first in a phrase as against last, and I regard it as purely as a matter of grammar and/or idiom - what flows best from a linguistic point of view.

Regards, Michael.

[MJE]

 Heaven help Enid Blyton's books if these have to be removed too - it would just be too ridiculous to make criminals as civil in their behaviour as most of us: you *expect* criminals to behave badly.

Michael, I'm convinced that if EB's books really would get removed from the regular book stores, her used books on the Internet would become unaffordable ultimately. :cry:

     Not sure if you misread my post or not, Chrissie - but I the post you quoted from was not talking about removing Enid Blyton's books from sale, but just the removal of instances of slapping or hitting, etc. done to children by criminals. I was suggesting that this level of interference would do very severe damage to the stories - as if the damage weren't already bad enough.

Regards, Michael.

[MJE]

[...] it's more the country of Killimooin rather than just the valley, that is the focus of the story.

     It's a while since I read the book - but I seem to recall that about 10 chapters near the end are within the Secret Forest itself. Seems a pretty good focus to me - of course almost no story is set in just one localized setting.
     And what was Killimooin, anyway? I don't seem to recall. Is it a village or town? A district or county? Or the actual name of the Secret Forest, or the mountains surrounding it? What?

Regards, Michael.

[Daisy]

I have always assumed that Killimooin was the name of the area where the summer residence of the royal family was built.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I don't see that using the phrase "people of colour" is any different from describing people as "coloured." If one is frowned upon, surely the other should be frowned upon?

     For the same reason, I presume, that some consider it acceptable (for now) to say "a person with a disability" or "a child with autism", but unacceptable to say "a disabled person" or "an autistic child".
     This latest manifestation of politically-correct mania actually has a name: person-first or people-first language, and there is a Wikipedia article on it:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People-first_language

     Why it should make any difference is beyond me - because "disabled person" and "person with a disability" logically mean *exactly* the same thing - but the former (and older) formation is linguistically far better and less clumsy. I, at least, do not attach any more strength to a particular word just because it comes first in a phrase as against last, and I regard it as purely as a matter of grammar and/or idiom - what flows best from a linguistic point of view.

Thanks for that. I agree with you, Michael. It's perfectly normal for the adjective to come before the noun in English. I see that the Wikipedia article mentions several people who don't like the "person first" construction, and I feel much the same as C. Edwin Vaughan (though I'm not sure what is meant by a "positive pronoun"):

C. Edwin Vaughan, a sociologist and longtime activist for the blind, argues that since "in common usage positive pronouns usually precede nouns", "the awkwardness of the preferred language focuses on the disability in a new and potentially negative way". Thus, according to Vaughan, it only serves to "focus on disability in an ungainly new way" and "calls attention to a person as having some type of 'marred identity'..."

After all, no one says (as far as I know, anyway!) that we should call a cleaner "a person who cleans" or a doctor "a person who doctors" to prevent us dehumanising people by referring to them only by the jobs they do.

The article even suggests speaking of "people who ride bicycles" rather than "bicyclists"! I'd normally shorten the word to "cyclist" but I really can't imagine anyone being offended by being called a "bicyclist" or "cyclist"!

[jubei]

Time flies, I just finished The Secret Island yesterday. Though it's quite fancy to see how the children able to stay there for months, the story is nice to read. The ending surprisingly strong and touching.

I straight away continue to Spiggy Holes. This one looks face pace where the thrill begin quickly. So far, I am amused to see how these two books actually slip from my reading list thirty years ago. I manage to read only one book, Secret of Moon Castle before but already forgotten all the details.

The first page of Spiggy Holes mentioned geographically Cornwall area, and the secret island lies somewhere 40 miles from Spiggy Holes. I remember Famous Five being set in Dorset area, so two England southern area as Enid Blyton setting place I see.

[timv]

The 'Spiggy Holes' site is supposed to be Cornwall, but I will be setting out the evidence in my forthcoming book that Enid does provide clues that she was thinking of specific sites in NE Devon when she invented the local geography. She was on holiday in Budleigh Salterton around 1937, shortly before she began the 'Secret' series.
All we are told about the 'Secret Island' is that it is on 'Lake Wildwood' which is a journey of around forty miles from Spiggy Holes. The children at the end of 'Spiggy Holes' go to a nearby town by the lake some time after Mr Diaz turn up on the island (probably in mid- or late afternoon), and catch a coach to the town nearest to Spiggy Holes. This appears to take only a few hours to get there as they arrive in daylight - and then they can get a bus to the village close to SH, which they would not be able to do that late in the day nowadays due to rural bus cuts! I presume Enid intended to make the lake somewhere in fairly remote countryside and on a private estate, as in the first book it is not frequented by many trippers - who were already noted for 'spoiling' scenic countryside in the 1930s, as Arthur Ransome illustrated with his gramophone-playing 'Hullabaloos' on the Broads.

'Killamooin' I assumed to be the name of the castle the King had built for his family up in the mountains, named after the local district. The high mountains, wild animals, robbers etc would suggest Enid was thinking of the Carpathians in Eastern Europe; this was the era of Patrick Leigh Fermor's exploration of the region on foot in 'Between the Woods and the Water', only published in the 1980s, which gives a good idea of what 'Baronia' and 'Tauri Hessia' -type countries were like in real life with castle-dwelling aristocrats like Count Paritolen .