Secret Seven on the Trail.

[MJE]

     I've just read "Secret Seven on the Trail", not having read it for quite some years - so it was somewhat fresh to me, although I certainly still remembered in general terms what it was about.
     I've got to say I have mixed feelings about it now, even though I do seem to recall that, the first time I read it, 12 March, 1967, I found it very good - one of the better Secret Seven books.
     In fact, that day I read it was the day I had just travelled from Adelaide to Melbourne in the overnight train then running, The Overland. I was mad on long-distance trains then, and loved having my own sleeping compartment, and that train ride had been much looked forward to - so the coincidence of that train ride with the railway-themed Secret Seven book gave me one of the stronger memories of my childhood, with very much a "railway" atmosphere.

[WARNING:
     The following discussion does include plot spoilers for the story. Read on at your own risk.]

     The episode in Tigger's Barn which marked the real start of the adventure (after Jack and George were tricked into going there by Susie and her mosquito-like Famous Five Club) was quite spooky and exciting. It seemed a good example of the "fake mystery turns into a real one" sub-genre Blyton occasionally used - exemplified also in the Five Find-Outers story "The Mystery of the Hidden House", and also the stand-alone "The Mystery That Never Was".
     But I find myself wondering now why the gang had to go to such a remote place to discuss their plans, instead of just doing it in one of their own living-rooms, or even just in a town park or eating place or somewhere, at a time no-one else was nearby or paying any attention. Somehow I never picked that up as a child. But a place like Tigger's Barn was certainly far more exciting than if they had used some mundane, everyday place.
     Secondly, I really wonder if it's credible that the gang were so ready to believe George, stumbling by accident into their meeting while trying to find Jack (hidden in an old cupboard unbeknownst to George at that moment), really was a messenger from "Cheeky Charlie" (another gang member not present). I suppose it was persuasive to the gang that he said "Cheeky Charlie" to them, intending to whisper the Secret Seven password (named after an aunt's dog) to Jack to try to locate him. I suppose the story sort of gets away with it, although with a bit of eyebrow raising on my part.

     On that cupboard: I'm not sure how Enid Blyton envisaged that cupboard working, or whether it just illustrates Blyton's complete lack of precision that sometimes occurs in the books. Jack is standing just near the doorway to the room where the gang were talking, trying to figure out where they (and George) are now, and he leans against something. It is a cupboard door, and it gives way, and he falls into the cupboard, whereupon the door closes on him with a click, leaving him in silence.
     Well... I really cannot figure out how that works. Cupboard doors always open outwards, never inwards - so I cannot figure out how it can suddenly give way without warning. Even if it had, by an oddity, opened inwards, I can't see how it could then close again without Jack noticing it, because he would surely be in the way of the door, as he lay on the cupboard floor. Maybe if the cupboard is the size of a pantry or small room... but it certainly left me scratching my head. Also, whether opening inward or outward, do cupboard doors really move that much on their own, to the point of clicking shut?
     I think it's one of those things where, if one over-analyzed it, one *might* possibly come up with an explanation; but I think it's far more probable that it's just something Blyton wrote without considering the detail, because she wanted to get Jack out of the way in a cupboard for a few minutes. I do think some commentators greatly over-think contradictions in Blyton's work (e.g., the family relationships between George's parents in the Famous Five and her cousins' parents), where it is far easier, and more probable, to just acknowledge that Blyton slipped up there - something which she seems to do from time to time.

     The story was simple, but quite effective. The actual crime was a bit vague in some ways, and I'd have liked a little more detail. We found out that it involved stealing lead sheets from a goods train, but really nothing more ever became clear, even towards the end. Dalling's and Hammond's were lead producers, but Cheeky Charlie's relationship with them was not clear. Was he an employee of them (of two different companies?), but on the side organizing for shipments of their lead to be stolen from a goods train? This was never really made clear.
     The climax in the railway yard was less exciting than I had seemed to remember it as a boy. The four boys and Scamper go there on a foggy November evening to see what happens, having worked out that the crime could take place that night. (The habitual omitting of girls from climaxes like this does not sit very easily with me now. I think the Secret Seven series has a group of central child characters which is too large for the somewhat slender stories to support comfortably.) The gang are there in a lorry, and Larry, the points operator, switches the train onto a siding and into a goods yard, and the gang pretend to the driver, fireman, and guard that something's gone wrong with the points, and divert them by taking them to a shed where they can get warm, have tea, and play cards, while the gang unload the lead from the marked truck in the goods train and into the lorry. As Peter goes to a phone to call the police, he leans into the lorry and removes the keys, bumps into Zeb, who grabs him, but Scamper bites him so Zeb has to let him go, so Peter and Scamper are able to melt off into the thick fog. The police arrive as the gang are desperately trying to find the key to start the lorry and move off.
     The climax is not much more than that. The setting, a fog-bound railway yard with audible fog signals going off at times, is wonderfully mysterious and atmospheric - one of Blyton's more unusual settings - so it's a pity she almost wastes it with such a pedestrian close. No real twists or crises or dangers arise at all, except for Peter being grabbed by Zeb, and saved by Scamper - just a minor distraction covered in a few paragraphs. I would have dearly loved for more to happen in this closing scene than that - a really exciting climax making the most of the unusual setting. I would have done so myself if it had been my story, even if at the cost of lengthening the story by a few more chapters.
     Still, it kept my interest and I read it quickly enough, so it has full marks for readability - a most prized writing quality Enid Blyton has that I would envy her.

     I think the location of the unnamed town where the Secret Seven live has puzzled some, and given rise to speculation. Unnamed, that is, except for one mention of Peterswood somewhere in another Secret Seven book, with the consensus appearing to be that the naming of the Five Find-Outers' home town was just a mistake Blyton made.
     I, too, would discount the Peterswood mention as simply a mistake. If you read both the Secret Seven and Five Find-Outers series, it's clear that their respective towns are quite different in character: the Secret Seven town probably being larger, with busy industrial areas - as shown, for example, in "Well Done, Secret Seven" or "Go Ahead, Secret Seven", where there are quite gritty areas such as warehouses, coal-holes, and such.
     However, I wonder whether "Secret Seven on the Trail" may provide clues, as several towns were named which the railway line went through, although the home town was not named. The lead firms of Dalling's and Hammond's were both based in Petlington, and the goods train would come from Turleigh, Iddleston, Hayley, and Garton, and go on to Swindon. Also, the railway yard where the adventure ends was described by Peter, when he called the police near the end, as being near Kepley. (So could Kepley be the town the Seven live in? Other parts of the novel describe there being approximately a mile's walk from their local railway station to the railway yard.)
     Some of the towns named in the book are real, going by a search I made, although it's possible, I suppose, in some cases, that Blyton just chose names and they may not refer to the real ones.
     Swindon, of course, exists - and Turleigh is a hamlet in west Wiltshire; there is a railway station nearby (Avoncliff railway station). There appear to be two Gartons in the East Riding of Yorkshire, although the wide distance between these and Swindon suggests to me that one or more of these names (perhaps Garton) was possibly just invented by Blyton. I couldn't find any signs of a Petlington or Kepley within England. As for Hayley, there is a suburb of Halesowen, West Midlands, an "area" of Warfield, Berkshire, and Hayley Stadium - but not a town or village as such with that name.
     Those much more familiar with British geography than I am may well be able to determine whether these place-names give any real clues about the actual location the Secret Seven books are set in.

Regards, Michael.

[timv]

As MJE notes, this is one of the few books where Enid gives any clues as to where the Secret Seven live - and some of these seem to contradict what she said in earlier books. I assume that is because she wrote the Secret Seven books in a more relaxed manner than some of her more complicated mystery/crime books , possibly as a sort of relaxing 'fill-in' that did not require much effort in plotting, and did not always remember (or have the time or notes at hand to recall) what she had written earlier. This trait is more noticeable in her later books, of course , and possibly indicates failing concentration even before the 1961-3 slip-ups in Banshee Towers and the last two Five books.

My own guess as to Enid's idea of where the Secret Seven lived would be that it was vaguely in her own middle Thames valley area, as with the Cherry Tree Farm/ Willow Farm books (hilly country like the Chilterns and one mention of real Chilterns site Christmas Common) and House at the Corner ( the local 'Riverside' magazine). But she did not intend anything more precise than that, so 'clues' may well contradict each other and were not intended by her as clues anyway!
The clue in this book is the railway detail; one of the local rail lines goes to Swindon, so this is probably the main Great Western Railway line up the Thames valley from Paddington to Maidenhead (close to Enid's Bourne End, but BE is on a side-line off this) to Reading to Didcot parkway to Swindon to Bristol. The goods trains for the Midlands would turn off this lineat Didcot Parkway for Oxford, Banbury and Leamington Spa. (I used this line a lot while working at Oxford in the 1980s-90s, hence my detailed knowledge of it.) All the goods trains using this 'hub' of ail lines around Reading - Swindon would make the local stations a good place to organise robberies from the trains; and the biggest town near Bourne End is Reading where several rail lines meet. Reading also has a more affluent and a poorer area, plus a canal; this is my best guess for the town that Enid refers to, but I suspect all her names were made up on the spot without thought as to making the name a clue. Earlier the Secret Seven seem to live in a semi-country area, as with Peter and Janet's farm and the local manor-houses.

Notably we have one re-use of a Blyton plot element; the 'member of detective group is mistaken for a crook by the gang due to accidentally being at the rendezvous and using a crooks' password' idea seems to come from Dick being mistaken for Dirty Dick in the Blue Pool Farm cottage barn in Hike Together!

[MJE]

     Obviously I don't know nearly enough about the details of British railway lines to comment further; but thanks for your ideas.
     As to the location the Secret Seven live in, some clues do seem to point to the country (Peter's and Janet's farm, their shepherd Matt living in a hut some distance away), whereas other clues seem to point to quite an urban setting (warehouses, coal-holes, grimy alley-ways, and the like).
     My best guess is that it's a somewhat large (but not too large) town with a busy centre, but the Seven live in the outer areas, with Peter's and Janet's farm perhaps being just outside the town limits so they can have all the rural trappings, but close enough to have easy access to the town and the other Seven members. (Various descriptions of their movements in the different books seem to make it clear they all live within walking distance of each other - although of course standards of "walking distance" in the time the books were set may cover much longer distances than "walking distance" might today, in this era when children are wrapped in cotton-wool, and have all freedom of movement supervised out of them, organized out of them.)

Regards, Michael.

[pete9012S]

..

Michael had piqued my interest with his re-read which I enjoyed. Thank you Michael.

I will do the same myself before making any comments.
The books pictured above are the versions I possess.

[Daisy]

That is a most interesting observation Michael - and one which I sometimes struggle with when trying to write a Blyton type story. I'm aware that the readers of my efforts are in the main adult and therefore I feel I need to be careful about details and not leave any loose ends - which might be overlooked by the under 12s for whom Enid wrote. I too have struggled with the idea of an inward- opening cupboard!
My own guess is that the town where the Secret Seven live is not named - Peterswood being a slip in the last book which has been mentioned before on the forum. I always assume the names of towns are imaginary in most of her books, the exceptions being Swindon, as mentioned in your post, Michael, and Maidenhead which is mentioned in the Find-Outer series. Places like London are of course occasionally mentioned - as in The Sea of Adventure - but although different areas like Wales or the west country are sometimes be identified, usually we are quite unaware of a real location.
This is very different from Malcolm Saville who sets his stories in specific places and encourages his readers to visit them for themselves. Maps are often included too, which combine the real places with the site of bits of the adventure (if you know what I mean!)

[Nick]

    

     On that cupboard: I'm not sure how Enid Blyton envisaged that cupboard working, or whether it just illustrates Blyton's complete lack of precision that sometimes occurs in the books. Jack is standing just near the doorway to the room where the gang were talking, trying to figure out where they (and George) are now, and he leans against something. It is a cupboard door, and it gives way, and he falls into the cupboard, whereupon the door closes on him with a click, leaving him in silence.
     Well... I really cannot figure out how that works. Cupboard doors always open outwards, never inwards - so I cannot figure out how it can suddenly give way without warning. Even if it had, by an oddity, opened inwards, I can't see how it could then close again without Jack noticing it, because he would surely be in the way of the door, as he lay on the cupboard floor. .

Great post MJE, I always loved this book as a child and as mentioned (many years back) one of my "when I get around to it" projects is to make a model railway representation of the goods yard/robbery. Look out for that sometime in 2030.............

I've always envisaged the particular scene I have quoted as being similar to my Grandmothers cupboard/closet that she had under her stairs. That opened inward and I have vague recollections of going in there as a child to find some toys (an old Playmobil castle IIRC) and the door shutting behind me and my brother thinking it hilarious to lock me in.

[MJE]

That is a most interesting observation Michael - and one which I sometimes struggle with when trying to write a Blyton type story. I'm aware that the readers of my efforts are in the man adult and therefore I feel I need to be careful about details and not leave any loose ends - which might be overlooked by the under 12s for whom Enid wrote.

     I am of the view that one should take care of all those kinds of details even if one does fully expect that readers will be young. I've never really felt easy with that view I've occasionally heard implied (more than explicitly stated) that, because young children will not know anything is wrong, or not be interested even if they can tell, one needn't take so much care to be accurate there, or even occasionally the idea that the effort to look after such details just adds a lot of clutter that will actually detract from the story from the child's point of view. I do recall pointing out a couple of anomalies in a Blyton story during a discussion here some years ago, and someone did point out that the story was written for young children, who would not care about such things - which did sound to me a bit like justifying or excusing something that I think is a serious flaw in any story. But there seemed to be a sense in one or two comments that I was being a bit of a spoilsport in mentioning such things and considering them important.
     But, with regard to accuracy, I would not write any differently whether I was writing for adults or for children. I might stretch things a bit (for either adults or children) to include something very improbable if it would be a good addition to the story - but the impossible or just even contradictory or nonsensical, I could not come at. (I'm not talking about fantasy there, where seemingly impossible things happen - but they would be possible within the universe of that story.)

I always assume the names of towns are imaginary in most of her books, the exceptions being Swindon, as mentioned in your post, Michael, and Maidenhead which is mentioned in the Find-Outer series.

     I also recall Marlow (Marlowe?) being mentioned in those books a few times. I wonder if that is a real place.
     I think I recall Swindon mainly for the dreaded Magic Roundabout situated there, and recall the much simpler but still rather intimidating roundabouts I had to deal with when driving in Britain a few years ago. How I would have dealt with the one in Swindon I cannot imagine: I've seen both pictures and maps of it, and it seems to have one big roundabout, but the perimeter is made up of several small ones, and you go clockwise around the small ones, but anticlockwise around the big one - something like that, anyway. Who on earth dreamed that up, and how did they expect motorists to cope with it?

Regards, Michael.

[MJE]

Great post MJE, I have always loved this book as a child and as mentioned (many years back) one of my "when I het around to it" projects is to make a model railway representation of the goods yard/robbery. Look out for that sometime in 2030.............

     I really do wonder, though, whether enough detail is given in the story to give you clues about how that railway yard would be laid out. I wouldn't even know how to begin planning a map or model representation of that. I think almost anything you made up in that line would work, because the detail in the book is so scanty that there would hardly be anything to disagree with.
     I find, when I read scenes like this, and find the detail scanty, that I tend to try to work out in my own mind how things are laid out, and, when someone moves from one place to another, I try to figure out how their movement fits into that mental map. But it is very difficult to draw up such a map in my mind, and it can be distracting to my reading. It's possible, I suppose, that I am trying to draw more out of the story than is in fact there at all.

I've always envisaged the particular scene I have quoted as being similar to my Grandmothers cupboard/closet that she had under her stairs. That opened inward[...]

     I can't quite see how an inward-opening cupboard would work. I mean, most cupboards have shelves, don't they, and they would get in the way? Clearly this one you speak of didn't have shelves - but, even so, wouldn't the stuff stored in there get in the way of the door opening inwards?
     It's a shame Enid Blyton sometimes brushes aside details like this in scenes within her stories, and writes something either contradictory or just impossible to understand clearly. I assume she just tends to get careless with things like that, perhaps being more interested in the broad sweep of the story. I do find it to be a flaw, though.

[...] and I have vague recollections of going in there as a child to find some toys (an old Playmobil castle IIRC) and the door shutting behind me and my brother thinking it hilarious to lock me in.

     Yes, I think children seem to find it really funny to lock each other inside small places. You can find plenty of evidence for that on YouTube. I do vaguely recall my younger brother and I locking each other in a wardrobe in our bedroom - and I was locked in lockers at school as a kind of prank or joke, and it happened many times because that prank sort of became attached to me.

Regards, Michael.

[Nick]

     I can't quite see how an inward-opening cupboard would work. I mean, most cupboards have shelves, don't they, and they would get in the way? Clearly this one you speak of didn't have shelves - but, even so, wouldn't the stuff stored in there get in the way of the door opening inwards?
    

At my Grandmothers, the door opened inward and to the left, against an wall, with cupboard space in front of you and to the right. As a child it always seemed quite large but I suspect in reality storage space was very limited.

[Rob Houghton]

That is a most interesting observation Michael - and one which I sometimes struggle with when trying to write a Blyton type story. I'm aware that the readers of my efforts are in the man adult and therefore I feel I need to be careful about details and not leave any loose ends - which might be overlooked by the under 12s for whom Enid wrote. I too have struggled with the idea of an inward- opening cupboard!

I face the same problem when I'm writing my stories. I often use unlikely scenarios, because I feel that was part of the attraction of Blyton's stories, but those scenarios must still work within the context of the story, at least. I am always quite aware of any problems in my stories regarding loose ends etc - try to tie them all up - but keeping to the style of Enid's books its sometimes difficult to tie everything up neatly without a lot of long-winded explanations.

Thinking about the cupboard door opening inwards, I think I've always imagined a small room, rather than a 'cupboard' as such - something like a pantry or a walk-in linen cupboard etc.

One of my 'favourite' mistakes in an Enid Blyton book is in what is considered one of her best - The Valley of Adventure, as I've mentioned before. The cave where they lock the baddies at the end just happens to have bolts on the outside of the door...which seem pointless. They couldn't have been used from the inside, so the old couple couldn't have locked themselves in to keep themselves safe, and bolts on the outside wouldn't have kept the treasures safe from any thieves - so those bolts always strike me as being completely useless, except as a convenient way to keep he baddies imprisoned at the end!

[Daisy]

One of my 'favourite' mistakes in an Enid Blyton book is in what is considered one of her best - The Valley of Adventure, as I've mentioned before. The cave where they lock the baddies at the end just happens to have bolts on the outside of the door...which seem pointless. They couldn't have been used from the inside, so the old couple couldn't have locked themselves in to keep themselves safe, and bolts on the outside wouldn't have kept the treasures safe from any thieves - so those bolts always strike me as being completely useless, except as a convenient way to keep he baddies imprisoned at the end!

This has always puzzled me too, ever since I first read the book, aged about 11.

[MJE]

I face the same problem when I'm writing my stories. I often use unlikely scenarios, because I feel that was part of the attraction of Blyton's stories, but those scenarios must still work within the context of the story, at least. I am always quite aware of any problems in my stories regarding loose ends etc - try to tie them all up - but keeping to the style of Enid's books its sometimes difficult to tie everything up neatly without a lot of long-winded explanations.

     I am prone to "info-dumps" myself. I actually don't mind them as much as some people seem to, and would always prefer even a long exposition over remaining unclear on important plot aspects. But I think it would frequently be possible to give out the required information bit by bit in between pieces of action - carefully giving out at any point just what is needed at that exact moment for comprehension. And in some cases exposition can be worked into the dialogue of characters.
     But clarity is very important to me, and I would prefer to hold up the story a bit to make things clear, sooner than leave things up in the air.

Thinking about the cupboard door opening inwards, I think I've always imagined a small room, rather than a 'cupboard' as such - something like a pantry or a walk-in linen cupboard etc.

     I'm still not sure how that would explain the door closing of its own accord on Jack, to the point of "clicking shut". Maybe if the door was badly aligned, on a wrong angle, so that it tends to close on its own, quite strongly. That whole episode is a bit troublesome, though, however you try to rationalize it.
     I'm afraid I do tend to notice plot flaws now more than I did as a boy, and, when I read and notice them, I do try to think of ways the problems could be fixed. (No, I shouldn't speak apologetically ("I'm afraid...") about being more observant about such things now. I think such things are important, and are significant flaws in a story.) And sometimes I do think of fixes that could be written into the story, although it would usually involve adding several paragraphs in one or more places.
     There's one bad example in "Five Have a Mystery to Solve", where the action requires George and one of the criminals to walk along a long tunnel at about the same time, without encountering each other - the whole plot at that point absolutely required this. I don't remember all the detail now, so can't say much more than that. But I did work out that that could have been taken care of at one point by having two alternate paths between two points, and saying that George and the criminal passed each other by taking different paths at that point. The description of the tunnels, rooms, etc. that were in the path were such that it would make it quite plausible to posit that.
     Another more serious example is in "Five on a Treasure Island", with the question of how, when Dick escapes from the dungeons, Timmy manages to get out - the story would simply have to be altered so that someone helps him there - probably lifts him up the well in a basket or (very uncomfortably) lifted up on a rope, or something. Again, I don't recall all the details of the action now, so can't be more specific - but I do recall the problem was somehow about how Timmy gets out of the dungeons.
     While, in general, I take a pretty dim view of modern editing of the books, the minimum amount of editing to address these problems is one type of editing I could probably approve of. I do consider plot coherence to be of top importance in any story, and am not happy about the view taken by people who try to minimize anomalies by pointing out that readers are young, won't notice, and won't care even if they do notice.

One of my 'favourite' mistakes in an Enid Blyton book is in what is considered one of her best - The Valley of Adventure, as I've mentioned before. The cave where they lock the baddies at the end just happens to have bolts on the outside of the door...which seem pointless. They couldn't have been used from the inside, so the old couple couldn't have locked themselves in to keep themselves safe, and bolts on the outside wouldn't have kept the treasures safe from any thieves - so those bolts always strike me as being completely useless, except as a convenient way to keep he baddies imprisoned at the end!

     That would be quite easy to fix - unless I am overlooking crucial aspects of the plot (I haven't read that book for quite a long time). It seems that having a lock on the door operated by a key could be used instead of the bolt on the outside. It would be easier to think up possible reasons why someone might have put that in at some point.
     Or are there crucial points I'm overlooking which would make that infeasible?

Regards, Michael.

[pete9012S]

Derek Lucas illustrates Tigger's Barn - No George Brook pic for this scene.

I have not made as much progress reading the book as I would have liked as I have been engrossed by Roger Daltrey's autobiography, Thanks a Lot Mr Kibblewhite.

However, this expression illustrated above, 'forlorn and bony' does intrigue me. I have never heard it before. It is in all editions of my books.

Could Enid have meant 'forlorn and lonely' or have you heard of this expression before?

The only other mention of 'Bony' in a Secret Seven book comes in book thirteen, Shock For The Secret Seven, where we read:

'You heard the time of the meeting, didn't you?' said Peter. 'You look a bit scatty this morning.'
'Well, I feel it,' said Jack. 'What with exams and things - and preparing for old Bony - he's
coming to stay with me, you know - and . . .'
'Old Bony - who on earth is he - a skeleton or something?' asked Peter, with much interest.
'Ass! He's a French boy - the one I went to stay with in France last year,' said Jack. 'His name is
Jean Bonaparte - no relation of the great general! He's - well, he's awfully serious and earnest, and I
can't say I'm much looking forward to his coming. I'm hoping Susie will like him and take him off my
hands. She rather fancies herself with foreigners.'

[Daisy]

I assume the 'bony' is referring to the fact that the roof is mostly missing and it looks like a skeleton with the bare roof struts silhouetted against the sky.

[Rob Houghton]

I quite like 'forlorn and bony' as a description - its unusual and very visual!

Its in all editions, as you say Pete. At first I thought it might have been a printing mistake!