Previous letters pages can be found here.

NB – a warning again for the use of wording that is considered derogatory and offensive in the UK (and potentially elsewhere) today. As I am transcribing these letters exactly as written by the child authors I will therefore be using it, though I wouldn’t be using it in any other circumstances.

The S-word has appeared in several previous letters pages now and I am starting to assume that Blyton only recently began working with a relevant charity or home hence the many letters all of a sudden.

Letters page from Volume 4, issue 10.
June 6th – 19th, 1956.

OUR

LETTER PAGE

A letter from Ruth Perry, Susan Stern, Susan Barnett and Jacqueline Levy, London, N.W.1.
Dear Miss Blyton,
We were very keen to do some- thing for the Spastics, so we decided to hold a sale. We held it in Jacqueline’s back garden. First we had a little show. There was a shed next door from which we served refreshments. People had to go through a gate in the hedge to reach it. Our teacher very kindly gave us two delicious cakes. We made 7s. on refreshments alone. Then we had the Sale. This was a great success, and we are pleased to send you £3 10s. for the Spastic children. We will soon be having a Fair. At our homes we have a circulating library with a charge of twopence a fortnight.
Yours sincerely, Ruth, Susan, Jacqueline and Susan.

(I have picked out your letter for the prize, children, because it gave me a very good picture of all you did. Excellent! I am sending you a book for your library.)

A letter from Lois de Jager, Middelburg, South Africa.
Dear Enid Blyton,
Our swallows here in South Africa have already left us. It seems queer not seeing them perching about around our house. We were sitting having our evening tea when we heard twitterings in the sky – and there, flying away to another country, we saw the first swallows leaving us. I hope they have a happy flight, wherever they go!
Yours sincerely,
Lois de Jager.

(I think maybe they have flown north to Britain, Lois-perhaps even to my home town here, for we have many flying high in the skies now!)

A letter from Janet Barley, Coventry.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I belong to your Famous Five Club. When I heard that the Home was having new prams I thought it would be nice to embroider a pillow case for one pram, and I do hope you like it. I send 14s. too, to help your funds.
Yours sincerely,
Janet Barley.

(You have embroidered the case beautifully, Janet – it is our Very,
Very Best One!)

A very typical letter page this week. A letter about wildlife sandwiched between two fund-raising letters. (Though the embroidered pillowcase is unique for far!)

As these are only a tiny fraction of the letters Blyton would have received it’s difficult to imagine just how many fairs and lending libraries and sales were being held every week or month and just how much money was being sent in for her various charities.