Did it feel like it was set in the past on first reading?

[GloomyGraham]

If that couple in the Valley of Adventure had been there for decades, their chicken must have set a world record for longevity

I did always wonder whey they hadn't raised some chicks every year or so.

[Hannah]

That was the biggest giveaway of all — that my parents had grown up reading these books (they were both born in the mid-late 1940s).

I probably really didn't think things through - I got books from a much older cousin but still didn't consider the books to be really old . Maybe I thought they were from the 70s but that didn't seem so far away.

I'm not sure when I noticed how old the books were but I guess it must have been towards the end of the 90s (at the latest) when I watched the Famous Five.

[Fiona1986]

I had a sense that the books were set in the past, but I don't think that I had a firm grasp on exactly how old they were. Horse-drawn caravans, crowns and shillings, maids, galoshes and sou-westers, George never having seen TV before etc etc all seemed very dated to me. Plus many of my books were hardbacks with the old-fashioned covers and illustrations which had not only been my mum's before they were mine, but others had been passed to her from her eldest sister, and there were two siblings between them.

[Susie9598]

This is such an interesting question. For me, reading as a child in the 1970s, no I don’t think it occurred to me to even consider whether the stories were contemporary with me. They were stories which existed in their own right.

[Anita Bensoussane]

If that couple in the Valley of Adventure had been there for decades, their chicken must have set a world record for longevity

I did always wonder whey they hadn't raised some chicks every year or so.

Unfortunately, they didn't have a cockerel! The old man tells Lucy-Ann, "When we first came here, we had six hens and our pig."

[TheAngryPixie]

Reading in the 80s.

The think I noticed was the servants really. No one I knew had a housekeeper or anything else. I can't even think of anyone I knew who had a cleaner in the way people do today. It's probably that part that dated it for me, although I wouldn't say I found them old-fashioned.

That stood out to me a bit too, thinking back. But, I think I just put it down to the Famous Five being quite rich. I mean, Julian, Dick and Anne came across as quite posh. And the Kirrins owned an island a farm, so I envisioned they were all quite wealthy so could afford a cook and a housekeeper, rasther than it being an old-fashioned thing.

[Anita Bensoussane]

My mum used to clean someone's house two mornings a week in the late 1970s. However, as the house was a relatively new bungalow belonging to a lady who ran a little local shop, and my mum didn't say things like "Glory be!" or "You are a caution," the situation didn't seem like anything out of an Enid Blyton book!

[IceMaiden]

I knew before I'd even read them that the books were set in the past because my dad told me he'd read them when he was my age and told me what decade they were from. But that is precisely what drew me to them so much. I was brought up with the mindset, attitudes, ways, style, taste, decor and music of the 50s and early 60s and they've stayed with me to this day. So the books didn't feel old fashioned at all to me, if anything they made me even fonder of the era and ways I'd been brought up with. The attitudes in them didn't bother me at all, I've never understood why Anne's housewife role is so nitpicked. If I was married I'd be quite happy in the house baking and cleaning while the husband's out grafting all day, infact I'd insist on it! Home all day, no boss, no schedule, no deadlines, no uniform and your own rules!

[Yak]

The first book I read was Second Form at St Clare's when I was six or seven. It DID seem that it was set in the past to me but that was part of what I immediately loved (and still do) about it. I would hate to read a St Clare's where the girls had mobile phones and X-boxes!

[Anita Bensoussane]

If that couple in the Valley of Adventure had been there for decades, their chicken must have set a world record for longevity

I did always wonder whey they hadn't raised some chicks every year or so.

Unfortunately, they didn't have a cockerel! The old man tells Lucy-Ann, "When we first came here, we had six hens and our pig."

By coincidence, I walked past a charity shop this morning and there was a pair of china figures in the window - an old woman with a long skirt and apron who had a hen at her feet, and an old man wearing an Alpine-style hat who was carrying a pig! I immediately thought of Elsa and her husband, with their pig and Martha the hen (it's funny that Enid Blyton tells us the name of the hen but not the name of the man!)

[Lucky Star]

I too made the assumption that the old couple in Valley had been there for decades! Especially as they said that all their hens had died except Martha. I just thought that Martha must be jolly old. Generally however I did know the books were set in the past. Firstly my Mother had read them as a child and secondly the whole atmosphere of old money, old expressions, old fashioned clothing etc gave it away. I was also an avid reader of war comics and could easily recognise many similarities between the way those second world war characters spoke and the way Blyton's characters spoke.

I don't remember dwelling on it all that much though. My favourite comics were set in the past, my favourite music came from the past (1950s) and my favourite books were set in the past. I was just a kid who had a definite preference for past times.

[IceMaiden]

The first book I read was Second Form at St Clare's when I was six or seven. It DID seem that it was set in the past to me but that was part of what I immediately loved (and still do) about it. I would hate to read a St Clare's where the girls had mobile phones and X-boxes!

Me neither! I don't like TV programmes with modern tech in it either. I don't mind the very basic early mobile phones and computers within reason but not the smartphones, gagets and gizmos of now. They take away any puzzling suspense or mystery instantly because they do so much. For instance how can an isolated house in a deserted valley possibly have the same feel if it's got internet connection and a phone that can track your exact location? How can you rack up the suspense of a character not being believed over something seen or heard if you can instantly take a photo or a video of it?

[Courtenay]

I've heard it pointed out that modern technology is ruining practically every traditional story plot that involves suspense, isolation, inability to contact someone, etc. Like, what if Juliet had been able to text Romeo with "Faking death, c u l8r"?? Apparently more authors are having to set their books in the past so as to be able to have someone stalked down a dark alley without being able to phone for help, or to be able to have someone left wondering why their friend or lover wasn't on the train he/she was supposed to be on... Modern technology is very convenient for many things, but not for suspenseful storylines!!

[Yak]

The first book I read was Second Form at St Clare's when I was six or seven. It DID seem that it was set in the past to me but that was part of what I immediately loved (and still do) about it. I would hate to read a St Clare's where the girls had mobile phones and X-boxes!

Me neither! I don't like TV programmes with modern tech in it either. I don't mind the very basic early mobile phones and computers within reason but not the smartphones, gagets and gizmos of now. They take away any puzzling suspense or mystery instantly because they do so much. For instance how can an isolated house in a deserted valley possibly have the same feel if it's got internet connection and a phone that can track your exact location? How can you rack up the suspense of a character not being believed over something seen or heard if you can instantly take a photo or a video of it?

I don't really mind that stuff in real life (I mean I do have a smartphone and everything ). But I just don't want to see it attached retrospectively to Blyton's characters. I liked learning about what life was life in the forties and fifties (though it did take a while before I realised that I was generally reading about a specific demographic and that most children did NOT live in houses with live in servants etc..)

[Anita Bensoussane]

Apparently more authors are having to set their books in the past so as to be able to have someone stalked down a dark alley without being able to phone for help, or to be able to have someone left wondering why their friend or lover wasn't on the train he/she was supposed to be on... Modern technology is very convenient for many things, but not for suspenseful storylines!!

I read quite a lot of modern children's books and I've certainly noticed that most titles I've read recently have been set either in the past or in a fantasy world, thereby freeing the author from having to worry about modern technology as you say.