We are at the final part! Despite only being part 12 it feels as if this taken forever. Then again I did start it at the end of March, so it has taken four months which is quite a long time. I plan to do a similar look at The Christmas Book / Enid Blyton’s Christmas Stories so if I want to be able to post that around Christmas I’d probably better start looking at it now…

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, stories 17 to 18, stories 19 to 20, stories 21 to 22, and stories 24 to 25.

The Three Sailors

First published in Sunny Stories #82 in 1938 this was first reprinted in The Gay Story Book in 1946. After that it has appeared in six other story collections from 1969 thr9ough to 2022. The 1969 print is actually At Seaside Cottage which contains the story of the same name – the first one in this Holiday Stories collection – as well as a few other stories.

A story with the same title appears as a John and Mary story in 1967. At first glance this appears to be a different story as the children do not have the same names but the plot summary describes this story exactly.

A brief review

Peter, Rosemary and Richard are staying by the sea with their parents and Granny. As Granny doesn’t like eating on the sand Daddy has brought a table down for meals. The children are desperate to go out in a boat but the sea is too rough. In the end they use the upside down table as a pretend boat. But when the grown-ups leave them all afternoon to play (have they never heard of water safety??) they fall asleep on the table and the tide takes them out to sea. They wake in a panic as they are far from shore, but thankfully Daddy has just arrived bringing the tea things.

You might expect a dramatic rescue ensues, but Daddy just laughs… it turns out the water is not at all deep and they can simply walk back to shore. Just as well, as Daddy considers keeping his white trousers dry is more important to him than helping his children!

I do like this story, and the ending is funny but it also gives me a moment of thinking how badly it could have gone had the table been carried out further. But then again I also wonder if the tide could take a table out like that, with three children on it, without the waves breaking over the sides. How deep would the water have to get before it could lift all that weight?

At the very least it is a summer holiday story that fits the theme of the book!

The updates

There are so many you can practically read whole paragraphs of this story here.

First up Tom, Joan and Eric have become Peter, Rosemary and Richard. (Then you’ve got John, Mary and their friend Tony in the 1967 tale… not confusing at all!) The name updates continue to baffle me. The new names are barely any more modern or common than the original ones!

The other modernisation is to remove in a trice again (which is a shame as I like that phrase, it’s so Blyton!) So in a trice the table was turned upside down is then The table was quickly turned upside down.

The rest of the text changes are of the strange and pointless kind.

Granny didn’t like sitting on the sand to have tea becomes Granny didn’t like sitting on the sand. Well, maybe Granny doesn’t mind sitting on the sand unless she’s eating?

Then So Daddy had brought down a wooden table from the house for her becomes so Daddy had brought down a chair and a wooden table from the house for her. I can see their point – they’re thinking how can she sit at a table without a chair but it’s not unreasonable to think she might have a chair already?

Mother had a tablecloth is changed to Mummy had a table cloth. She is referred to as Mummy earlier so they are trying to keep it consistent, I suppose, but it’s still clear that mummy and mother are the same person!

This makes the next change even more baffling as the children ran to ask their Daddy to get a boat becomes the children ran to ask their father to get a boat. So now Daddy, who is referred to as Daddy in all other instances, is this once, father.

When Daddy says “No, my dears, the sea is still too rough this becomes just no, the sea is still too rough. Is Daddy not allowed to use terms of endearment?

After arguing about going on the boat Rosemary sulks and says Oh I do want to go, but this line is removed.

When talking about the table Granny suggests they pretend it is a boat for some reason this becomes pretend it’s a boat.

After they wake on their table-boat Eric/Richard’s upset is diminished. Originally it read “Oh what shall we do,” wept Eric. “I’m afraid – I’m afraid.” Now it reads “Oh what shall we do,” cried Richard. “I’m scared.” Doesn’t quite have the same impact, does it?

“Daddy, save us!” shouted Tom has then been changed to shouted Rosemary. I really can’t see why – it’s not a correction of a character replying to themselves, nor does Rosemary get forgotten about and need a line.

Grammar-wise a few hyphens get taken out but there were no italics to change anyway. Some dashes get changed to commas – a style thing, I presume.

And lastly Blyton’s commentary at the end to the reader has been removed. There are ones at the end of some other stories in this collection, and there is plenty of space on the page for it so I can’t see why it was removed.

Weren’t they funny? I would have loved to see them sailing away fast asleep on their upside-down table, wouldn’t you?

One thing was was left is the old-fashioned sentence structure here they could none of them swim well enough. This sort of thing has been changed in other stories so I was surprise this wasn’t None of them could swim well enough.

The illustrations

Marjorie Thorp provided illustrations for the Sunny Stories print, including the cover which shows the story.

The Gay Story Book was illustrated entirely by Eileen Soper, though sadly there is only one illustration in The Three Sailors. It is a lovely one, though.

The Magic Seaweed

First published in Sunny Stories for Little Folks 144 in 1932 this story has had five further printings. It has appeared in Macmillan Reader #5 in 1944, then in The Little White Duck and Other Stories in 1946 (this is the copy I have).

A brief review

This story shares a few similarities with the previous one, which makes me think it might have been better off if the two stories were not back to back.

Jill is on the beach building a sandcastle when she shrinks down to miniature size (commons sense would have told her not to eat little sweet-like things that come out of seaweed) and goes exploring. Once inside her sandcastle – and I mean who has never longed to explore a little world like that? – she meets a crab who warns her the tide is coming in. And in it comes, tearing away chunks of the castle until Jill nearly swept away herself. But then she wakes up on the beach, the tide just lapping at her feet, and her castle still standing.

The updates

Jill at least is still Jill but Nurse who has accompanied her to the beach is now her mother. While Nurse sat and did her knitting, her mother is sitting reading.

While Nurse could have been changed to Mother/ her mother perfectly easily, for some reason other bits of wording around them have been changed too.

So she shouted at the top of her voice to Nurse becomes so she shouted to her mother at the top of her voice, and while Nurse had moved far up the beach it’s her mother had moved further up the beach.

The one use of queer is in queer-shaped and that becomes oddly-shaped.

The editors must think that children are pretty stupid. Originally when Jill goes inside the sand castle it reads she climbed up the little sandy steps she had made in the side of the castle and the next line says something about her walking down one of the hallways inside. For some reason the words and went inside have been added to the sentence above. As if we couldn’t figure that She went up the stairs then walked down the hallway meant she had entered the castle!

One thing that wasn’t changed is the very outdated term giantess. 

The illustrations

For the Sunny Stories printing the illustrator was Phyllis Chase, while the Macmillan Reader and The Little White Duck both had Eileen Soper illustrations (the same ones, I assume).

And that’s it, Holiday Stories finally done! Now I just need to choose what to do next…