I’m way behind on these, and this is the best I could manage based on a handful of notes and memories. We actually read this in November 2024.

Questions and answers

It’s not a reading session with Brodie without at least one question. The first came before we even started reading.

SPIGGY holes? What’s a spiggy hole? That’s a really weird name for a book. Like so many questions the answer here was along the lines of Let me get on with reading it and you’ll find out.

George – like George from the Famous Five? She has a boat too! Sadly not a crossover, but I reckon George Kirrin could have done everything this George did, and more. For a while the Famous Five seemed to be stuck in his head though recently I asked him about them and he couldn’t remember any of their names!

Could they row to their island? No, because the island is on a lake not in the sea!

They want his boat? So they can go fishing too? They being the Diazes and Luiz, so no. I asked him to think about that for a moment and see if he could come up with another reason for wanting the boat and he suggested they needed it for their smuggling. (Really they wanted it so that nobody could be rowing around and seeing what they were up to.)

He really wanted to know what they were going to smuggle and asked if it was going to be Gems, treasure, gold? I think he was confusing smuggled goods with pirate treasure.

Baronia? Is that a real place? Sadly no.

Miscellaneous interruptions

 When the boys mention that they are not too far from their island he really wanted them to go see it again.

Not for the first time he confused Blyton’s habit of speaking directly to the reader for me speaking to him. (She didn’t guess what a strange time the children would have—poor Miss Dimity!)

He was very concerned about them getting trapped in the caves as he knows about tides and how dangerous they can be.

When Mike asked Jack how the men got onto the beach Brodie immediately said A secret passage. Hardly surprising given the number of secret passages we’ve read about already. He didn’t work out that it was coming from Old House, though, as he was maybe thinking more of the Wrecker’s Way from Five Go Down to the Sea.

He was thrilled to hear about Another secret passage! and also thrilled when they decided to go back to their island.

He can’t hear me read Little bit of bread and no cheese! without doing his own tuneful imitation.

There was a fair bit of laughter at He put on both his stockings inside out, and buttoned his coat up wrong—but who minded. He also very much enjoyed Mr Diaz and Luiz getting their comeuppance when the boys stole their boat.

Spiggy surprises

Things that prompted gasps:

Smugglers! – I bet there still are smugglers and they’re going to catch them.

The various trips sneaking around old house as he was certain they were going to get caught every time. Particularly when Jack was a klutz and walked into a tin bath.

Honestly, that’s one problem with Blyton’s adventure books. It feels like every other chapter ends with a cliffhanger and it makes saying no to just one more chapter even harder.

The rockfalls had him very tense, I think he half-expected them to be crushed to death any moment. Not very Blytonian!

My experience

This was pretty easy to read. I went for a very slight accent which was probably closest to Mexican for the Diazes and Luiz.

There was very little I felt needed changing besides queer. The only thing I could see looking back was the references to them being black with soot. I called them dirty/sooty and chose not to say negroes.

I realised only this week that I have never reviewed The Secret of Spiggy Holes, or the rest of the series, after doing The Secret Island. Mind you, it took me 7 parts (and 12.5k words) to review The Secret Island so I did deserve a break after that!