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 references all of a sudden.

Letters page from Volume 4, issue 15.
August 15th – 28th, 1956.

OUR

LETTER PAGE

A letter from Freda Hoyle, Lancashire.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I would like to tell you about my little dog called Rover. One Saturday, as my Mummy, my brother Brian and I were going for a walk, Brian suddenly heard a whimpering noise behind a wall. Looking behind it we saw a little brown and white animal on the grass. I carefully picked it up and carried it home. When we got home I found out that the animal was a tiny puppy, just new-born. I got a doll’s feeding-bottle, while my Mummy warmed some milk. Then we put the milk in the feeding bottle and let the tiny puppy suck it. Mummy fed him every two hours, and she even got out of bed every two hours in the night to feed him. I got the pup a cardboard box to sleep in, and on cold days Mummy put a hot water bottle in it to warm him. Many people said we would not rear him, but they were wrong. He is now six months old and a very happy dog.
Love from
Freda Hoyle.

(I think my readers will agree with me that this is one of the most interesting letters we have ever had on the letter-page, and well deserves my letter-prize. I have sent it to you, Freda. You do not say if you are one of my Busy Bees or not, but we should certainly welcome an animal-lover like yourself!)

A letter from Sheila Urquhart, Lanarkshire.
Dear Enid Blyton,
Please find enclosed three separate postal orders, each for one pound, for your three Homes – the Beaconsfield one, the Spastics and the Sunshine Homes. The money was raised at a little concert which my chum (Elizabeth Whitelaw) and I gave in my Daddy’s church hall this summer. During the last winter my chum and I trained some of the little ones who lived near at hand to sing songs, recite and do some little sketches. My Mummy provided tea for the other Mummies who came to see the concert.
Yours sincerely,
Sheila Urquhart.

(Thank you, Sheila! I do not often get THREE postal orders in the same letter and you are indeed kind to remember all my Homes. Well done!)

Only two letters this week as both are quite long. We get two of Blyton’s favourite topics, though, animals and fund-raising.

I originally wrote animals and money but I re-read it and thought that made her sound a bit callous and possibly as if she was farming puppies for a living.

Freda’s rescue of the puppy was lovely, and I bet loads of children read it and kept their eyes peeled for abandoned puppies after that – particularly the ones whose parents had told them they weren’t allowed a dog. Makes you wonder why a new-born puppy was lying alone on the grass, but that’s maybe best not thought about too much.

Reading Sheila’s letter I did think that it was probably easier to raise money if your father is the local vicar and has his own church hall, but that doesn’t take anything away from the effort she (and her chum) put in to raising £3. Then I wondered if she just meant the church her father goes to. But surely they’d all go and so she’d call it her church hall or the local church hall. And then I thought Fiona, you’re overthinking this, and this is why you shouldn’t blog late at night when you’re tired.