Enid Blyton Coin Rejected by Royal Mint

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Re: Enid Blyton Coin Rejected by Royal Mint

Post by Fiona1986 »

Thank you for that, Anita. I knew there had to be more to the story. I have my scanner now, if I can get it set up I will scan that article soon (and hope nobody is too disappointed after all the waiting :lol:)
"It's the ash! It's falling!" yelled Julian, almost startling Dick out of his wits...
"Listen to its terrible groans and creaks!" yelled Julian, almost beside himself with impatience.


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Re: Enid Blyton Coin Rejected by Royal Mint

Post by Fiona1986 »

Image9_28_11_scan212731240 by Fiona Brough, on Flickr

Image9_29_53_scan21285221 by Fiona Brough, on Flickr

Unfortunately too small to really read on here but click the links to see it bigger and even zoom in.
"It's the ash! It's falling!" yelled Julian, almost startling Dick out of his wits...
"Listen to its terrible groans and creaks!" yelled Julian, almost beside himself with impatience.


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Re: Enid Blyton Coin Rejected by Royal Mint

Post by Fiona1986 »

And while I'm at it here's the other one from the Express, though I don't think it adds anything new.

Image2019-09-04_214511 by Fiona Brough, on Flickr
"It's the ash! It's falling!" yelled Julian, almost startling Dick out of his wits...
"Listen to its terrible groans and creaks!" yelled Julian, almost beside himself with impatience.


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Re: Enid Blyton Coin Rejected by Royal Mint

Post by pete9012S »

Thanks Fiona - what an amazing choice of book they put up on the right hand side of the page, the mystery unpublished 'Famous Five' cover!!!
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Re: Enid Blyton Coin Rejected by Royal Mint

Post by Fiona1986 »

Yes Pete, I noticed that! It's an unused one by Mary Gernat, isn't it? Shows how much research they put into their article :roll:
"It's the ash! It's falling!" yelled Julian, almost startling Dick out of his wits...
"Listen to its terrible groans and creaks!" yelled Julian, almost beside himself with impatience.


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Re: Enid Blyton Coin Rejected by Royal Mint

Post by Rob Houghton »

Using that 'book cover' gives a good indication of how factual the rest of the article is.

I'm still waiting to discover the passages where Enid Blyton is being homophobic...?!
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Re: Enid Blyton Coin Rejected by Royal Mint

Post by Katharine »

I couldn't read it all, but from what I could read, I gather than one article called her homophobic, and the other suggested she had a relationship with her friend Dorothy. Surely they contradict each other?

I've been looking into other commemorative coins and I see there is one for Samuel Pepys. According to Wikipedia, Pepys was brutal towards his servants - hitting them with brooms, whips, canes etc. He also indulged in extra marital affairs - which he apparently recorded in great detail in his diaries.

I can't help thinking it's one rule for one.......
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Re: Enid Blyton Coin Rejected by Royal Mint

Post by Courtenay »

Rob Houghton wrote: I'm still waiting to discover the passages where Enid Blyton is being homophobic...?!
I felt the Nadia Cohen article seemed to be implying that it was because she used the terms "gay" and "queer" so often — as if they had the meaning back in the 1940s and '50s that they do today... :roll:

Honestly — I get the feeling the majority of these Blyton-bashing critics didn't grow up reading her books and only came to them as adults (or at least adolescents) already armed with the warnings that These Are Racist and Sexist Relics of a Bygone Era, so that's exactly what they find in them. Everyone I've ever met who grew up on Enid Blyton absolutely loved her books as a child, can still see lots of good in them today, AND none of them were turned into racists or misogynists or homophobes or anything else unsavoury by Enid's influence. It really is largely a smear job by critics who seem to consider themselves vastly superior to Enid herself, despite the fact that she wrote hundreds of books, dozens of which have been in print for 60-70 (or even 80) years and are selling well to this day, which none of her critics (to my knowledge) have done. Jealousy, maybe??

This bit about golliwogs and gypsies "often" being cast as villains in Blyton is absolute rubbish. To my knowledge, there is only ONE Blyton book — Here Comes Noddy Again, which the article refers to — where she uses golliwogs as villains. They are occasionally portrayed as cheeky tricksters, but no more so than any other of her toy characters such as teddies and toy elephants, and more often than not the gollies are shown as wise, respectable and admirable characters. What actually happened was that popular culture started to write golliwogs off as irretrievably racist between about the 1960s and '80s, until they became absolutely unacceptable anywhere and then of course Enid had to be pilloried for using them as characters in her books at all, regardless of how she actually portrayed them. Never mind the fact that generations and generations of British and Commonwealth children (myself and my parents included!) had grown up playing with golliwogs and were never turned into racists by them... :x

(I can understand why golliwogs today are attacked for looking like a racial caricature — they do, on the face of it — but that in itself isn't what puts racist notions into an otherwise innocent child's head. There is so much more nuance to the whole issue, as Viv amply showed a few years ago in the excellent short film she made, Je Suis Golliwogg.)

As for the "sexism", as I've said before, I remember rolling my eyes as a child when Anne stayed home to do the cooking and cleaning and George threw another fit of sulks for being told that this part of the adventure was too dangerous for girls, or when boys in various other stories declared that "brothers must always look after their sisters", and so on — but both Mum and Dad were always quick to remind me that this was genuinely how most people thought at the time when Enid was writing. So I gained an appreciation early on for the fact that there have been huge changes in our society regarding what girls and women "should" or "shouldn't" be allowed to do, and how lucky I was now to be growing up in a world where I knew I would never have to accept being told "girls can't do that". If all the "sexist" portions of Enid Blyton had been edited out before I read them, I wouldn't have learned that very valuable lesson at anything like the early age that I did.
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Re: Enid Blyton Coin Rejected by Royal Mint

Post by Courtenay »

Katharine wrote: I've been looking into other commemorative coins and I see there is one for Samuel Pepys. According to Wikipedia, Pepys was brutal towards his servants - hitting them with brooms, whips, canes etc. He also indulged in extra marital affairs - which he apparently recorded in great detail in his diaries.

I can't help thinking it's one rule for one.......
Too right. :roll: :x :evil:
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Re: Enid Blyton Coin Rejected by Royal Mint

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

Thanks for scanning the articles, Fiona. I've only read the second one so far but will return to the other when I have the time to do it justice.

I agree with others that the choice of the unused Famous Five cover by Mary Gernat (to accompany the article in the Express) betrays a lack of knowledge of the books.
Katharine wrote:I couldn't read it all, but from what I could read, I gather than one article called her homophobic, and the other suggested she had a relationship with her friend Dorothy. Surely they contradict each other?
:lol:
Katharine wrote:I've been looking into other commemorative coins and I see there is one for Samuel Pepys. According to Wikipedia, Pepys was brutal towards his servants - hitting them with brooms, whips, canes etc. He also indulged in extra marital affairs - which he apparently recorded in great detail in his diaries.

I can't help thinking it's one rule for one.......
True!
Courtenay wrote:Honestly — I get the feeling the majority of these Blyton-bashing critics didn't grow up reading her books and only came to them as adults (or at least adolescents) already armed with the warnings that These Are Racist and Sexist Relics of a Bygone Era, so that's exactly what they find in them. Everyone I've ever met who grew up on Enid Blyton absolutely loved her books as a child, can still see lots of good in them today, AND none of them were turned into racists or misogynists or homophobes or anything else unsavoury by Enid's influence.
I agree, Courtenay. It's incredible that negative labels given to people are so readily accepted and circulated, without individuals checking things for themselves.
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Re: Enid Blyton Coin Rejected by Royal Mint

Post by pete9012S »

Yes, Anita!
I'm growing extremely tired of this repetitive, sloppy, journalistic enidophobia!!! :evil: :D
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Re: Enid Blyton Coin Rejected by Royal Mint

Post by Rob Houghton »

Courtenay wrote:
Rob Houghton wrote: I'm still waiting to discover the passages where Enid Blyton is being homophobic...?!
I felt the Nadia Cohen article seemed to be implying that it was because she used the terms "gay" and "queer" so often — as if they had the meaning back in the 1940s and '50s that they do today... :roll:
:roll: :roll: :roll: Oh dear!! That is probably what was being referred to! Some people would do well to learn the history of English for a start!! Even when I was at school, I remember the word 'gay' as in bright and colourful, appeared in many early school reading books!


I still say, regards the sexism, that part of Enid's use of the roles of boys and girls - girls doing the cooking, washing up, or staying out of dangerous adventures, was to show how unfair this treatment was. She rarely agreed with it by using her author's voice - it was usually just the opinion of her male characters - and occasionally of characters like Anne, who was particularly 'girly' - but Enid never emphasised the point in her own words, so to speak.

Only by using such phrases as 'this is man's work' or 'its too dangerous for girls' etc could Enid clearly create conflict between the boys and the girl characters who objected, such as George. I always got the feeling Enid was firmly on the side of the girls. After all, she detested housework, as far as I know - hated being made to do chores as a child while her brothers did whatever they liked, and was herself a career woman who usually made all her own decisions. She was far from sexist in my view, but used sexism to make a point, as well as reflecting the attitudes of the day.

In fact, Enid often mocked the boys. I recall in Puzzle for the Secret Seven where the boys are scornful of Susie having an aeroplane - wasted on a girl - and boast of how boy's know more about flying them etc - then they promptly lose it on its maiden flight! :lol:
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Re: Enid Blyton Coin Rejected by Royal Mint

Post by Katharine »

It's fascinating how Enid's books have been interpreted. I never saw the any sexism in the books as a child, nor did I feel Enid was making a point about gender inequality either. For me, comments about girls staying at home doing the housework, and boys climbing trees etc felt quite 'normal'. Although I can't say I ever particularly aspired to spending my adult life polishing and cooking, I never really questioned it, because that was the way of the world I live in. My mother stayed at home to raise the family, my father earned the money, very few of my friends had working mothers, if they did work, it was only part time in relatively low key jobs, and they would have still done most of the household chores - the fathers would have decorated, dug the garden etc. I remember going to the funeral of one chap a few years ago, and in the eulogy it mentioned that although he loved his large family, he wouldn't have been seen dead changing a nappy. Certainly in my social circle, the gender roles were pretty clearly defined. I had several female friends who had older brothers, if ever they were left to fend for themselves, it was expected that the younger sister would 'keep house' for her older brother. So I never questioned Enid's writing or saw anything wrong with it - it was just writing about life as I knew it.
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Re: Enid Blyton Coin Rejected by Royal Mint

Post by Rob Houghton »

Katharine wrote:It's fascinating how Enid's books have been interpreted. I never saw the any sexism in the books as a child, nor did I feel Enid was making a point about gender inequality either. For me, comments about girls staying at home doing the housework, and boys climbing trees etc felt quite 'normal'.
I agree. Even growing up in the 1970's, it was quite normal to say 'he runs 'like a girl'' etc and I never even batted an eyelid when I read that girls had to stay out of adventures etc. It wasn't until I was older, and particularly after watching the documentary 'Sunny Stories' starring Maureen Lipman, that I began to feel Enid was indeed making a point about gender roles. She probably didn't do it to be controversial - and indeed, she never did it obviously, but purely through the usual attitudes of her time - except that often a girl character (such as George and others) would object, or else rebel entirely (like Lotta) and do whatever she wanted to do. Knowing how Enid hated the role life had given her, and seeing that depicted in the 'Sunny Stories' documentary, I began to view some of Enid's writing in a new light. She obviously hated being forced into a gender stereotype, and she spent most of her life not adhering to the typical feminine role.
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Re: Enid Blyton Coin Rejected by Royal Mint

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

I've just read the first newspaper article that Fiona posted and noticed that the author, Nadia Cohen, calls herself "Enid Blyton's biographer." I know she has written a recent biography of Enid Blyton, but the person we really have to thank for unearthing details of Enid's life is Barbara Stoney.

Nadia Cohen goes along with the notion that Enid treated black, foreign and working-class characters "with a disdain that horrifies modern readers." She clearly hasn't read books like The Secret Mountain, The Mystery of the Strange Bundle, The Secret of Killimooin, The Boy Next Door, The Valley of Adventure, the Galliano's Circus trilogy, the Mr. Twiddle tales or the Faraway Tree series!

Statements like "Her private life was a riot of extramarital affairs" and physical contact with her children "was likely to involve a beating with a hairbrush" are ridiculously exaggerated.

The articles have inspired me to write a ditty from Enid Blyton's point of view, to be sung to the tune of 'The Logical Song' by Supertramp:

Stories I wrote, full of wonder and jolly japes,
With tricks and scrapes; circus apes; brave escapes.
How my characters shone - they radiated vitality;
Geniality; originality; reality.

But critics poisoned my pen and said that I was too infantile;
Short on style; spitting bile; not worthwhile.
They would pick and they'd probe; claim I had no place on this globe;
I was a xenophobe; a lowly microbe and homophobe.

Over time, they'd change a phrase or word
And make my tales absurd,
Distorting history.
They'd ignore the inclusivity;
The positivity;
The joyful bonhomie.


But the stories survive, truly multi-generational;
Inspirational; educational; sensational.
And they take us so far from this world of petty wrangling;
Jingle-jangling; eternal angling; wangling.

Over time, they'd change a phrase or word
And make my tales absurd,
Distorting history.
They'd ignore the inclusivity;
The positivity;
The joyful bonhomie (bonhomie... bonhomie... bonhomie...)
"Heyho for a starry night and a heathery bed!" - Jack, The Secret Island.

"There is no bond like the bond of having read and liked the same books."
- E. Nesbit, The Wonderful Garden.


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