Previous letters pages can be found here.

Letters page from Volume 3, issue 4.
February 16th – March 1st, 1955.

OUR

LETTER PAGE

A letter from Sheila Johnson, Alexandra, Singapore 5.
Dear Enid Blyton,
Today is my birthday. I’ve had a lovely party with 14 guests. As guests usually bring gifts to a birthday party, Mummy thought 14 gifts would be too many just for me, so we asked that guests should not bring personal gifts, but something for my Sunbeam Box instead. How delighted we were to get 45 Malayan dollars, which is 5 whole guineas in English money! Wasn’t everybody generous? A friend is exchanging the dollars for an English cheque, which I will send you for the Sunbeams.
Love and New Year greetings from
Sheila Johnson.

(Thank you, Sheila – and please thank your mother too. I was very touched by your generous letter.)

A letter from Carol Browne, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, Ireland.
Dear Miss Blyton,
I wish to tell you that I am very pleased with the pen-friend Beverley Cooper got for me. I am sure that all the other children who wrote to Beverley are pleased too. Beverley has run her pen-friend club very well, I think.
Yours sincerely,
Carol Browne.

(I, too, think Beverley ran the little club very well, Carol – she has stopped it now, because she has to work hard for an exam.)

This letter, which was sent to the Secretary of the Sunbeam Society, was forwarded to me. It is from Pamela Auriole Loweth, Studham, Beds.
Dear Secretary,
I am Sunbeam No. 5294, and I have always wanted to help the blind babies. So last Saturday all the children in my road did a Pantomime, “Cinderella,” at our Village Hall. My Mummy produced it, and she was the wicked stepmother. My sister Janet was Cinderella, and I was a fairy. It was a wonderful success and everyone loved it. I am sending you the money we made, which is £10 15S.
With love from
Pamela Loweth.

(Wonderful, Pamela! I am so glad I saw your letter. I really do congratulate you all.)

More maths for me to do this week!

Sheila’s friends really were very generous. Of course I had to look all this up and I’m still not sure I quite have it straight… but a guinea was £1 1s. While there had been a one guinea coin in the past they stopped in 1814, but up until decimalisation in 1971 prices of some products were still given in guineas. And apparently today race horses are still sold in guineas!

Anyway, that makes 5 guineas 105 shillings, or £5 5s. That means the party guests brought 7s 6d each (or the Malayan equivalent, on average).

I don’t recall seeing such a high amount raised and donated in any letter in the magazine before.

And then of course Pamela went and blew that out of the water with her £10 15s. But then again there were probably far more than 14 audience members attending their pantomime. Still, it’s a very impressive amount of money – around the average weekly wage for a man in 1955.

Interesting that although Blyton often features money-donating letters, particularly in the winning spot, she obviously doesn’t award purely based on the monetary amount.

The other letter is equally interesting – if you remember the letter from volume 2 issue 20 where Beverley gave her address and encouraged readers to write to her as a penfriend, and if she got too many she would pass them on to some of the other 1,000 girls at her school. In that post I wondered how many letters she got, and while there’s no answer to that, it’s nice to see a follow up (and that Blyton has been kept in the loop by Beverley!).