The Enid Blyton Society

Darn, I always get it wrong. I thought Francis was a woman for quite a while as well...

Duncan's website - featuring me and Anita! - talking about 'The Hidey Hole' -

“Er... I love the book, though it’s been slaughtered by Robert Houghton in the Enid Blyton Society Journal. He points out that you use the word blackberry or blackberries or blackberrying 93 times in the first eight little chapters.”

“Goodness, me. He would be better to spend his time counting blackberries on bushes rather than in the pages of a book.”

“It’s a shame Robert doesn’t like the book because of what he identifies as limitations of plot. I experience the work as one glowing image, one growing metaphor. Robert does like the other book you published the year before, in the same summer you published the last Famous Five book and the final Secret Seven.”

“What story was that?”

“The Boy Who Wanted a Dog. Robert points out that in this book you’re drawing on your own experience of being frustrated as a child not being allowed to have a pet of your own. He thinks you have dug deeply into those feelings in order to come up with the boy’s stirring story. The book is full of the lad’s pluck and his adoration of all animals. Robert thinks that it’s one of your best Family books, as good as anything you wrote in your forties.”

“Lovely. I must thank Robert when he calls round. All my children call round sooner or later, often to ask me to write about their animals. But when Robert comes I will ask him why he doesn’t like my very last book, in which I dig deeply into myself as I am now, an old woman.”

“Anita doesn’t like it either. The Hidey-Hole is just plain silly, according to that normally very sound judge. So when she comes round to pay her respects you must give her a hard time as well! Treat her to a bit of ventriloquism, that should leave her stirred but not shaken.”

http://www.enidblyton.me.uk/styled-5/index.html

You're even mentioned in 'The Anecdotage'....

During the 1970s, Robert Houghton and his friends enjoyed quite a lot of freedom, though they were supposed to let their parents know [approximately] where they were. They would go off on their bikes to the park, fish for sticklebacks in the stream or the canal. They would play for hours in the woody area next to the canal that separated their gardens from the canal, building dens, playing hide-and-seek, etc. They would go up to the local shops, and sometimes stay away from home for hours before their stomachs would call them home. In his opinion, those were probably some of the best days of the last few decades as they had the freedom of the 1950s and 1960s with the home comforts of later days.

Stephen Isabirye. The Famous Five: A Personal Anecdotage (Kindle Locations 2255-2259). Infinity Publishing. Kindle Edition.

What about writing your own book Rob?

pete9012S wrote: What about writing your own book Rob?

I'm not conceited enough to think anyone would buy it, lol!

I never hugely liked Noddy.

It's been over thirty years since I read it, but I do remember loathing one of the Mr Pink-Whistle books. Of course, he was supposed to be a hero, but I found the character so sanctimonious and annoying in the way he took it upon himself to interfere in other people's business and summarily dish out justice. On the other hand, one of my favourite Blyton characters was Mr Meddle, who was also renowned for interfering in other people's business, but this time in a much more inept, comic way!

Noddy and Pink Whistle passed me by - I came straight in with Five and the Find-Outers. The first books I read were Burnt Cottage, Pantomime Cat and the 2nd Five book. It was very nostalgic to see the 70s Armada covers of the first two on this site!

It's always fascinating to hear of other people's experiences with Blyton and the books they never liked etc. Most people's experience seems the exact opposite of mine. I was brought up on Enid Blyton from the earliest of ages, with my mom reading 'Chimney Corner Stories, Fireside Tales, Binkle and Flip, The Book of Brownies and later The Faraway Tree, before I could even read. The first books I read on my own were Binkle and Flip and the Book of Brownies, and later, Faraway Tree and Circus books. By the time I got to The Mystery of the Missing Necklace (the very first Find Outer Book I ever read) and The Rilloby Fair Mystery (the first Barney book I ever read) I was around 8 or 9 and had read many other Blyton books by then!

My least favourite books back then were definitely The Famous Five. I only read two Famous Five annuals (Smugglers Top and Mystery Moor) and Smugglers Top also as a novel - but never read any others until I was in my 20's. Apart from this I can't think of any Blyton book I disliked, except The Adventure of the Strange Ruby.

Also, just been reading some of Rob's great reviews of the Mystery series - can't believe I never spotted Jenks' demotion in Banshee Towers! And that's one of my faves too - although, this has more to do that when I first read it I was living in York and spending most of my time in the art gallery staring at their sea paintings (just like Ern!)!

LexFraser wrote:Also, just been reading some of Rob's great reviews of the Mystery series - can't believe I never spotted Jenks' demotion in Banshee Towers! And that's one of my faves too - although, this has more to do that when I first read it I was living in York and spending most of my time in the art gallery staring at their sea paintings (just like Ern!)!

Thank you! As you can tell, Banshee Towers is NOT one of my faves...and maybe I was a little unfair to it, lol! Its a while since I read it and I now have a hardback edition, so maybe it will improve with another reading!

I really can't think of any Blyton books I didn't like — certainly there are some I've always liked better than others, but I couldn't say I've actually disliked any I've read, as far as I can remember.

I only ever read one Secret Seven book as a child and quite liked it, but never felt the urge to read any of the others and still haven't got around to them. The Famous Five I've always thought were a bit overrated. But again, I enjoyed the books when I read them — they're just not my top favourites and I don't feel inclined to read all the ones I never got to as a child, or to collect a complete set.

The Rockingdown Mystery I found a bit disappointing (I've read it twice), and I've never got to the rest of the series, even though plenty of people have assured me it gets much better and is definitely up there with the Adventure series as among the best Enid ever wrote. But I didn't dislike the first book, and the others are definitely on my to-read list (along with far too many others!).

I haven't read any of the school series — as a child I felt they just weren't the sort of thing that appealed to me, so I never tried them and still haven't — but for that reason, I can't fairly judge them either way!

Interesting how many people didn't like Noddy. I grew up with Noddy books and absolutely loved them — my mum didn't read them to me when I was really little, but I sought them out and collected quite a few of them (or borrowed them from my cousin, who had almost the full set of the original books) by myself, simply because they were cute and colourful and heartwarming and lots of fun. I was still reading them quite avidly even almost into my teens — alongside more age-appropriate material, I hasten to add!!

Maybe it's not possible, as some have suggested, to really love these books if you didn't grow up with them — but then, as I've said enough times, I never read any of the Adventure series until I was over 30 and they instantly became my favourites, so who knows? On the other hand, some of the other stories for really young children that I've only read as an adult, like Binkle and Flip, don't have the appeal for me that they probably would have had when I was little. So maybe it's a child vs grown-up mentality thing, rather than simply nostalgia.

I'm often surprised about Noddy also, as I thought Noddy was great, especially as a child. I did have a couple of old 'Big noddy Books' as a very young child, passed on from my older cousin, but never had a 'proper' Noddy book (the 'Noddy Library') until I was quite a bit older. Like you, Courtenay, I continued to buy and read Noddy books well past the age they were intended for. I maybe started collecting them aged about 7 and was still collecting them at around 11 or 12. I still love the Noddy books now - mostly due to the great illustrations by Beek and others, but also because they are good fun, as you say, and they were well produced books on top of that.

The one book I have always felt I disliked (Strange Ruby) wasn't disliked because of the plot or characters, but more because of the setting in which I first read it, as I've said before - a ripped paperback, with all the eyes coloured in red Biro, on a cold bumpy car journey to North Wales, while feeling car sick. I think this influenced my feelings about the book for many years!

I don't really 'buy' the nostalgia/older reading thing. There are books I read as a child (like Strange Ruby') which I didn't like, but there are also books I read first as an adult which are my favourites of all Enid's books (Rubadub Mystery, The Mystery of the Strange Messages, and The Six Cousins books are all examples).

It wasn't so much that I didn't like the Noddy series - the books were, bright, colourful and imaginatively written. But it was the character himself who came across as feeble and saccharine, and yet strangely arrogant and self-important. I've said on another thread that this sort of thing is fine for today's CBeebies generation and if anything, Enid Blyton was writing something 70 years ahead of her time!

I just never read Noddy as a child and when I looked at some of the stories as an adult they just left me cold. I think I probably just missed Noddy at the time I should have read him. I have read other Blytons for the first time as an adult and loved them. I just don't think Noddy goes down all that well for anyone over about 8 years old.

I can't say I really 'got' Noddy in the way Mr Twiddle did have in stitches when I was around 8 thru 11, reading just before bedtime.

joanne_chan wrote:I can't say I really 'got' Noddy in the way Mr Twiddle did have in stitches when I was around 8 thru 11, reading just before bedtime.

Hmm Yes I still enjoy Mr Meddle and Mr Twiddle and all the stories about fairies and goblins etc today as an adult whereas Noddy just leaves me bored stiff. And I never read either Meddle or Twiddle as a child.