Previous letters pages can be found here.

Letters page from Volume 3, issue 6.
March 16th – 19th, 1955.

OUR

LETTER PAGE

(This week I have chosen letters that tell something interesting about Nature or your pets. The first one wins my prize.)

A letter from Philip Lee-Wolf (aged 6), Lower Heyford, Oxford.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I must tell you about my birds, which I feed every day outside the back door. There is a big black-bird, a finch, two sparrows, a very tame robin. When we leave the back door open she comes in and pecks up the crumbs. Every spring she lays her eggs in a nest which she builds in a drain-pipe, but when the baby robins get big the nest falls down to the bottom and they die. So this year I have put one of my old woolly slippers in the top of the pipe, so that the robin can build her nest on it safely, and it will not fall down.
Love from
Philip Lee-Wolf.

(You are a real bird-lover, aren’t you, Philip! I did like your letter.)

A letter from Julie and Yvonne Hudson, Didsbury, Manchester.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I was at my friend’s house, and we were combing her dog; you should have seen the hairs that came out ! She gave it all to me. I am going to put it on my bird-table this spring for the birds to use when they make their nests.
With love from
Julie and Yvonne.

(I hope other children will do the same-it’s a very good idea!)

A letter from Doreen Petrie, Rockview Road, Dunedin.
Dear Enid Blyton,
We have 12 pet lambs to feed. We have three goats, three ducks, and two dogs and a pup. When we went up the paddock to look for rabbits’ nests we found forty baby rabbits. Our duck has got a nest in the cow-shed just where the cow puts her head. And do you know, when I was writing this letter, a baby calf was born.
Lots of love from
Doreen Petrie.

(How lucky you are to live on a farm and have so many birds and animals around, Doreen!)

This is the first themed set of letters as far as I can remember. Good thinking on Philip’s part – perhaps a Philip mannering in the making? Though Philip Mannering would probably have coaxed the robin into making a nest in one of his good slippers while it was still in his bedroom.

Leaving out dog hair is still recommended by the RSPB today – as long as it hasn’t been treated for fleas etc. What’s not a good idea though is long hair which the can get tangled in, or hair which has been bleached or permed etc.

I liked Doreen’s breathless description of life on what I assume to be her family’s farm. There’s still what looks like a farm on Rockview Road, Dunedin today, so that could well have been where Doreen wrote her letter from.

A bonus letter!

As the letters page moves around the magazine a lot, I often check the newsletter at the back as that sometimes gives the page number. This time there was another letter included.

6. A NICE LETTER. Here is a letter from the 50,000th member of our Magazine Club. “Dear Miss Blyton, I thank you for your telegram, the badge and the letter. What lovely surprises to have a telegram and a prize! If I am not asking too much, I would To like to have a camera. With love and thanks from Anthony Le Gros, Home for Boys, Gorey, Jersey, C.I.” Anthony has now got his camera, and is delighted with it. How lucky to be member No. 50,000!