The Enid Blyton Society

Dear Barney, Many thanks for your speedy and positive reply! I'm off to look for a copy of The Land of Far Beyond and am looking forward to an evening curled up on the sofa and being taken back to my childhood - bliss!

Barney says: Good luck, Justine, I hope you find a copy.

Help!! I'm sure I'm being really, REALLY stupid/blind here, but what happened about a final St. Clare's book? I was always gutted that we didn't see the girls finish their time at the school. I know there was one written, but not by Blyton herself. So why not?

Barney says: The simple answer to this, Jess, is that Enid Blyton liked to do series with six books in, and she spent rather too long in the first form! The result of this was that she had to leave out both the third and sixth forms. These were filled in eight years ago by Pamela Cox, who has recently added a third book, also from the third form, Kitty at St. Clare's. All are very well written and you can find details of them in the 'continuation novels' section on our Book Listing.

Please could I ask for some help? I am trying to trace a book that I believe Enid Blyton wrote, about 3 young children who lived in a bad city, a kind, clean stranger came to town and having talked to him, he turned all their bad deeds and thoughts into burdens on their backs, which were a part of the children. They had a very long journey to make before they learnt the error of their ways and their burdens were removed. Any ideas would be much appreciated! Thank you.

Barney says: The book you're looking for is "The Land of Far-Beyond," originally published in 1942. It was loosely based on John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress."

Looking for a book by Enid Blyton I read when aged about 10 - am now 72. It was a newspaper annual - very thick. Half was about Hop Skip & Jump, 3 elves, and the other half I think was about Brer Rabbit. Does anyone know of it and where I can get a copy? I would imagine it was from around the 1930s.

Barney says: You may be thinking of the "News Chronicle Boys' and Girls' Annual" (1933), later reprinted under the title "News Chronicle Boys' and Girls' Story Book." It contained two books in one - "The Enid Blyton Book of Bunnies" (about two mischievous rabbits, Binkle and Flip) and "The Enid Blyton Book of Brownies" (about the three brownies Hop, Skip and Jump.) The cover can be seen here.

It's so interesting to read Anita Bensoussane's coverage of the Enid Blyton Day at Twyford. A huge thank you to Pippa-Stef for bringing online all those photographs, indooors and out. A real Blyton-esque setting for the picnic-ers, with woodland walks and lake. And sunshine! Liked the Enid Blyton portrait, and it was a real joy to look at the photos of Stuart Tresilian's original illustrations. Kiki too, large as life.

Hi everyone. Just to let you know that my new book Enid Blyton at Old Thatch is back from the printer and looks terrific. This is one book that I would love to be judged by its cover. To have a look see www.connorcourt.com.au. It is on its way to the UK now for the big day on May 10, but for those of you not going it is available online for £12.87 sterling (POSTAGE INCLUDED), with delivery in 2 to 3 days. Happy Enid Blyton Day. If only I had a Wishing Chair I'd be there like a shot!

Excellent work Lisa!! Your detective work has led to me ordering a book 'Short Stories for Children' published by Nelson in 1950. This includes another short story by Agnes Grozier Herbertson called 'The Teapot Ball'. Can't wait to see my mum's face! Apologies that this is not Enid Blyton related and many thanks for your efforts everyone... Cheers, Phil.

Barney says: Thanks for letting us know, Phil. That's great! What a lovely surprise for your mum!

Can't offer you breakfast, but we are making a real rabbit stew during The Secret Island Day on May 29 at Corfe Castle. See www.gingerpop.co.uk next week when details should be up!

Barney says: Lucky it isn't a Famous Five Day, because I don't think George would approve!

Hi, I grew up in Malaysia, like many other Malaysians, on a constant diet of Enid Blyton adventures and for as long as I can remember have dreamed about the kind of farm breakfasts that used to make my mouth water (flood, more like). I am bringing my kids over late May 2008 and would love any suggestions for a sleepover cum breakfast experience that I can take them for. Appreciate your replies to my email address. Cheers.

Barney says: Your email address won't appear alongside your message but any replies will be posted on the Message Board. Enid Blyton breakfasts usually include plenty of sizzling sausages, fried until they're browned and bursting. Yum yum! Porridge, eggs, bacon, fried tomatoes and toast and marmalade are also popular.

Hi, sorry to post twice but I spoke to my mother this morning and she also remembered the "run-along-man that sold spoons" story. She said it was by A Herbertson. She said I didn't like him because, in the illustrations, he was tall, skinny and looked strange. I was only three.

Barney says: That's a good piece of detective work, Lisa - Fatty would be proud of you. Unfortunately, Agnes Grozier Herbertson wrote numerous children's short stories, so the search may not quite be over yet!

Don't know about the Run-along-man who sells spoons but there's a book about Rubbalong who mends shoes. 'Rubbalong Tales' was published by Macmillan in 1950 and the old edition is superby (if strangely) illustrated. Some good chapter titles such as 'Walls have ears, and shoes have tongues' , 'The six-eyed Jingy-bang' and 'Mr Tuck-In's Handkerchief'. You could probably track it down on abebooks.co.uk

My mother keeps mentioning a story she read about a character called the 'run-along-man' who sells spoons. She is almost certain he was created by Enid Blyton but more than this she cannot remember. Could anyone confirm that this character was created by Enid Blyton and if so where I could get a copy of the story to surprise my mother with?!!

I love 'The Mystery of' series books by Enid Blyton. I am missing some. Does anyone know if the modern publications are unabridged or if they have changed stuff, like with the 'Malory Towers series'? And does anyone know how to get hold of the extra stories that she wrote about the Five Find-Outers that appeared in magazines? Ta :D

Barney says: I think to be safe, you need earlier editions of all Blyton books, including the Find-Outers series. Most have suffered recently from the hands of over zealous editors. There are only two Find-Outers short stories and they weren't published in magazines, if you go into our Book Listing and put Find-Outers into 'Search', you will be able to see the books that they were included in.

I've done a bit of research on the WorldCat website and it is a guess that the book I am searching for, Noddy In Toyland as previously mentioned, could be: 74 p. Popular Press, 1981. ISBN 0361052499. Colour illustrations, 29 cm. If anyone (Tony?) can verify the cover that would be great. The book should have several stories in it, and the above page number sounds like it does. It is a book I grew up with and sadly I have not been able to find one yet.

Good morning! In what order should the Faraway Tree stories be read? My daughter is turning 6 next week and we are giving her the full Wishing Chair & Faraway Tree collection! I think she is going to love them!!!

Barney says: G'Day to you too, Kylie. What a great present, she will love them! If you take a look at the Novels section in our Book Listing and scroll down to Faraway Tree, you will see the right order to read the books.

Golly, that was quick! Well, that proves it: updates to the site show 24 hours later on Google. Interesting to note that Aol.com has picked up Blytongoon already as well, but then, Aol seems to be "enhanced" (ie, powered) by Google, so it's the same thing. Meanwhile, a slightly older keyword, Blytonpome, is showing on Google, Yahoo and Aol, but still not on MSN. So it looks like Google and Aol are fastest, followed closely by Yahoo, with MSN is lagging far behind.

I just wanted to add a message here to say Blytongoon to the Google search engine! Sorry this isn't a very interesting message, but I just want to see how quickly a made up word (completely unique to Google) appears in the search engine. Click here to check if it's been included yet. More about this subject here.

Barney says: Yum, yum, sausages!

If someone is interested in reading some of Enid Blyton's novels online, check out this link.... (censored by Dame Slap)

Barney says: Ooh jackson, you naughty boy, you've got on the wrong side of Dame Slap! How would you feel if you were an author and someone put your books online and deprived you of earning a living? It's not a very nice thing to do really, is it!

I found this month’s quiz questions really difficult, I normally get at least 20 right!

Barney says: Yes, Tony tells me that they are a bit harder than usual so as to give Anita a bit of a challenge after her maximum score last month.

Thanks Tony, hope you or someone has a copy; it could be a compilation of Enid Blyton Noddy stories (who knows?) Illustrated in colour, large hardcover with cover as shown in the picture (or similar with different ill. in circle, Big Ears maybe?) I seem to vaguely recall an illustration of the dog on a chair. A story about Big Ears too. No idea if mushrooms were involved but I could be confusing something else. So long as there's an ISBN / date, I could find a copy secondhand somewhere online. ... And on a different note, was there an Enid Blyton book that mentioned marzipan? ... I grew up with a heap of Enid Blyton books and still have my collection plus a few more to fill in some series; favourites being The Adventurous Four, Willow Farm books, Faraway Tree series, Wishing Chair series, Galliano's circus series (I've yet to read one book from each series but have them now!) and The Naughtiest Girl Again (have since read the others).

It doesn't look as if Barney is going to answer you, Sharon, so I had better do it for him. If you put 'Noddy' into search on the book listings, you will see that the last books listed are for 1974. The reason for this is simple. Noddy is still a current TV character and over the past thirty years there have been numerous Noddy books published that have nothing at all to do with Enid Blyton, apart from the fact that she invented the character. At present I can't access my books, but when I can I will check out the date and ISBN number for you, but it won't be in print, so the cover picture might serve just as well.

Barney says: Good answer boss, you are doing my job for me!

Hello everyone. This is a lovely idea for anyone who wants to ask a question but doesn't want to register. Still not able to enter the site properly yet through my own server, so can only occassionally view the site through Keith's email, and then I get frequently cut off. So not really been able to join in the chats on the forums. Hope it will resolve itself soon.

Barney says: Poor Julie and Poor Keith, as all his sites are affected. I hope you are able to rejoin the fold soon, Julie.

Thanks for adding this feature as I've been wanting to ask a question but there was nowhere to email and I didn't want to register... I am trying to find an edition of Noddy that I cannot find listed in your book listings *anywhere* (unless I missed something). It should look like this picture. Or similar (ie. are there any others with a different illustration within the circle?) Same dark blue colour. I used to own one; it had several stories I believe, possibly published by Purnell (from researching online). It says "Popular Press" above the title Noddy In Toyland, with "Noddy" being in different colours. Noddy in his car driving with a present beside him on the seat. One of the stories was probably about the present... another about the dog... I cannot recall titles. It was not very thin, it was fairly thick I suppose (but not *too* thick). And no it was not about a play. I can't find the specific edition on Amazon.co.uk (or variants) and would like to know year published, ISBN and any other relevant details as I'd love to have the book again. Had it in the 1980s so published either early then or before. Thanks for any help!

And the supermarket will never replace the corner shop! I know you enjoy your trips to the market as well, Barney! ;-) As far as I can see, this message board is really, as Keith says, a place for people to post a one-off messages without the need to register - not for Forum regulars to necessarily post on (unless it's an answer or comment to a query/post).

Stephen, what do you mean I "may" be aware of Wal-Mart? ;-) It's our local grocery store (and yes, it's a supercenter version; apparently supercenters are far more common in the south though). But anyway, I doubt this message board will have any affect on the forums. On the contrary, I think it will just provide an outlet for those who until now have had no voice because they haven't wanted to register. Plus, it's ideal for those who just want to post one-off messages. I'm just wondering at this point how many of the latest messages we display on the home page -- I've set it to 20, but we'll see...

Barney says: I agree, Keith. In UK terms this is like opening a corner shop for those that don't want to make the trek to the supermarket, but the corner shop will never replace the supermarket.

Hi to all Blyton fans from Brisbane, Australia. I have just joined this Society and it looks like great fun. I'm a Find-Outers fan from way back and am about to have a book published called Enid Blyton at Old Thatch. I hope to get it over to the UK ASAP but in the meantime please have a look at www.connorcourt.com.au It's not a politically correct dissertation on Golliwogs or hidden inferences in the dialogue of Noddy and Big ears. It is about the places Enid Blyton knew and loved and where she set the Find-Outers.

Barney says: Tony has posted a link to the book under Author in the forums.

It is great to have a "Post a Message" section on this great EB website in the tradition of Enidblyton.net. Keith, since you live in America, you may be aware of that giant store called Wal-mart. oftentimes, when it opens two stores in a town, especially a small town, one of the stores (especially if one is a supercenter while the other one is a "regular" one) eventually closes down due to lack of customers in one of the stores. My only concern is that this "Post a Message" section does not develop at the expense of the forums section, which could cause it to close or shutdown, eventually. However, so far the forums section is still going strong and the "Post a Message" section may give us more choices in how we may want to post messages to this website. Some messages may be good for the "Post a Message" format while others could be good for the forum format (that is an individual choice, whichever way one wants to post).

I was very surprised to see an eBay seller flogging Famous Five video on dvd-r with the claim that this material is out of copyright and in the public domain. Surely this cannot be right?

Barney says: Rather like the Press, you don't want to believe everything that you read on ebay!

Hey Guys, I have a complaint. I saw that the "Games" section had been unanswered for days. So I started posting messages. I got some replies. But from the last 3 or 4 days, there has been no reply. Was there some problem in my question?? It is really disturbing, you know, to see no one replying. So I am worried if it is my fault. Please tell me.

Barney says: Don't worry about the Games section going quiet, Ritu. It does that from time to time. Your questions are fine - it's just that people don't always have time to play in the Games section every time they visit the Forums, so some questions remain unanswered for quite a while. Eventually, people will start playing again!

As a new Member, I want to emphasize the high quality of the Enid Blyton Society Journal. Thank you, Tony Summerfield.

Barney says: That's really nice of you to say that, Joaquim Augusto, I'm sure Tony will be pleased, but the real credit must go to the people who write the articles.

I wanted to chip in and say that regular visitors to my own site, EnidBlyton.net, will be familiar with this "post a message" system. Hey, if it works, why re-invent it? Anyway, don't be surprised at the similarity in format. I hope that visitors to this website (whether you use the forums or not) will use this message board as a place to give feedback about the site, good and bad, as well as suggestions for improvement. And this is the perfect time to do so, as over the next few months we plan to make some cosmetic changes around here! Also feel free to comment on anything whatsoever related to Enid Blyton.

Barney says: Thanks Keith, for getting us under way!

As you can see, we now have a message board in place on the Home Page. This is for the benefit of those who would like to comment on the site but have no wish to register on the forums. We also welcome any suggestions for improvements you would like to see. Please try to avoid text speak and post messages in a properly worded English sentence. We look forward to hearing from you.

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