Stories 19 and 20 in today’s post, leaving just 5 more!

Previous parts look at story 1, stories 2 and 3, stories 4 and 5, stories 6 and 7, stories 8 to 10,  stories 11 to 13, stories 14 to 16 and stories 17 to 18.

Lazy Lenny

Originally titled Lazy Leonard this was first published in Sunny Stories #310 in 1943. It was first reprinted in the Fifth Holiday Book in 1950, and then four further times starting in 1970, with the shortened title.

A brief review

Lenny is on holiday by the beach with his cousins, and as the title suggests, he is lazy. His cousins do all the digging and water carrying but he gets to enjoy the finished work. Well, his cousins have had enough! But Lenny has a slew of excuses which he pulls out until there are none left and he has to get up. He needs to buy a new spade, only he’s dropped his money in the sand… there’s only one way to find it and that is to do a whole lot of digging…

Seeing as this is a warm, summer’s day on the beach, during the holiday, this one definitely belongs in the collection.

The updates

The first – as above – is that Leonard has become Lenny. Which is short for Leonard anyway… In the one instance that Leonard is called Len, the new version keeps it as Lenny and thus loses the little sign of implied affection that his cousin using a nickname gave.

The girls also get their names changed from Joan to Karen and Sheila to Rachel. I don’t know any Karens or Rachels under 30!

The money is the thing that is changed the most. Originally it was a shilling, and has now become a pound. Inflation calculators are not always reliable when it come to working out how much money would be worth now, as there are so many variables, but I worked out that 1 shilling should be around £2 in 1015 (and £3 now!)

Most of the shilling-pound changes were a straight swap of one word for the other (12 times, if you were wondering). However on other occasions a shilling became some money, his silver shilling became his money, the shilling became the money, the shilling became it, and he couldn’t find his shilling became find anything (even though he was specifically looking for the coin!).

The word shilling was used rather a lot of times – but it was a short story with half of it being about losing a shilling!

The change to a pound creates bigger problems when Lenny uses it to buy small gifts for his cousins by way of apology.

Originally the gifts cost fourpence, threepence-ha’penny and fourpence-ha’penny, adding up to exactly one shilling. They now cost forty pence, fifteen pence and forty-five pence. I think you’d have to go back a long way further than 2015 to be able to buy toy boats and fish at beach-side shops for that amount of money! Originally the amounts spent are fairy even, also. Now one child gets far less spent on them than the other two!

I can appreciate the difficulty, though. A £2 coin would have been slightly better, but spending 65p, 60p and 75p still seems unreasonably cheap. Beyond that it would have to be multiple coins or a note, which would mean making even more changes to the text. If only there was a really simple method, like not updating the currency to begin with?

One more update is made to the money – originally Leonard sees something round and flat and shining, which turns out to be his shilling, whereas Lenny sees something round. Pound coins in 2015 could still be shiny and they were also pretty flat!

A few other minor changes – fine fun becomes great fun, and the apostrophe in ‘planes is lost. Italics are removed twice, but left on three other uses.

Not changes is shan’t, he’s too fat and Lenny’s iron spade.

The illustrations

Sylvia I Venus provided the illustrations for the original magazine printing while Valerie Sweet provided six lovely three-coloured illustrations for the Fifth Holiday book.

Pink Paint for a Pixie

First published in Sunny Stories #303 in 1943, it was first reprinted in A Story Party at Green Hedges. That feels a bit dishonest somehow – the book is presented as a truthful account of a party so I’d have expected Blyton to have written something especially for it! As it turns out all the stories had been printed in Sunny Stories before. If the party was real, I hope those children hadn’t already read them! Anyway, it wasn’t reprinted again during Blyton’s life but has appeared four times since 1980.

A brief review

Linda finds a little pixie painting a tiny tea-set in the field by her garden. Unfortunately the pixie has run out of pink paint, but Linda brings out her tube of red paint which when mixed with water makes pink. (I’m no artist – but I’d have thought you’d need white paint to make pink?)

He’s most grateful and although he hasn’t the power to grant a wish for Linda he does try to show her ways she can make a wish. But there are no four-leafed clovers, the foxgloves aren’t out yet, and there are no pink-tipped daisies in the field either.

But the pixie does have his pink paint…

When Linda comes back after her afternoon rest there is no pixie but there are a load of pink-tipped daisies! Linda takes the 13 she was told to, makes a chain for around her neck and makes her wish 13 times in the hour. Her wish is for her soldier brother to come back from far away, and he does!

I know about four leaf clovers being lucky, so wishing on them makes sense. I haven’t heard of putting a fallen foxglove bell on your thumb to make a wish – possibly that has died out because touching foxgloves can cause allergic reactions, and they are extremely toxic if ingested. I wonder if this is a genuine old myth, or something Blyton randomly came up with? The same goes for the pink daisies, as I haven’t heard that one before, though I always liked finding them when I was younger.

The pixie was painting the tea-set for Princess Peronel – who appeared in story #6 in this collection. Is it always the same character when Blyton uses that name?

Not a very summer holiday tale. Foxgloves start coming out in June so it’s likely it’s only May or very early June anyway.

The updates

Not many in this one. Linda is still Linda.

Hullo becomes Hallo and to-morrow becomes tomorrow.

A Story Party for Green Hedges includes a little bit in between each story where Blyton talks to the children about the stories (reported in the first person which is rare for Blyton). These are not repeated in the collection.

At the end of the previous story Peter makes a comment about his story, then Daisy begins talking.

“We’ve only got three more stories,” says Daisy. “Oh, dear it sounded so lovely to have fourteen but the time just rushes by when we’re listening. Can I have my story now, please, Enid Blyton? I know just what I want.”

“What do you want, Daisy?” I say.

“I’d like a story about a pixie and a little girl and some magic,” says Daisy. “A really nice one, please.”

They all look at me and wait. A pixie a – little girl – and some magic. Yes – I know a story with all those in!

“I know just the story for you, Daisy,” I say. “And what is more it’s got daisies in, so it’s just exactly right for a little girl called Daisy – which. is you!”

“I shall like that,” says Daisy, and she pulls her chair as close as she can. “Do begin.”

“It’s about a pixie and a little girl called Linda,” I say. “And it’s called Pink Paint for a Pixie.”

Between the title and the body of the story is then the subheading A Tale for Daisy.

Following the story there is more from Daisy.

“Oh can we go out and look for some pink tipped daisies this very minute!” cries Daisy, as soon as I have finished the story. “Do let’s! Oh, I’d so love to find some and make a daisy-chain, and wish thirteen times!”

“No – don’t let’s go yet,” says Jack. “I haven’t had my story and it will soon be time to go home! We can look for daisies when we have to go.”

“Yes, you can,” I say. “I’m afraid I shall soon have to send you all home, and certainly Jack mustn’t miss his story!”

The illustrations

Marjorie Thorp illustrated the story in Sunny Stories, and Grace Lodge provided five illustrations in A Story Party at Green Hedges.