Previous letters pages can be found here.

[Warning for some offensive terminology again.]

Letters page from Volume 4, issue 20.
October 24th – November 6th, 1956.

OUR

LETTER PAGE

A letter from Rosslyn Shaw, Congo Belge.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I belong to a Famous Five Club. A little while ago we counted the money we had collected, and found we had 36 francs. That is about 4s. 6d. in British money. The Club decided to send it to some little children just like those in your Home, but black, not white. The lady who keeps this Home sends us news about it. She has 56 little babies. When I send the money I shall tell her about your Home, too. We are all enjoying your magazine.
Yours sincerely,
Rosslyn Shaw.

(It isn’t often I have a letter from Congo Belge, Rosslyn, and I am very pleased to hear that my F.F. members there are doing for small black children what F.F. members here do for little white ones. Please give all the members my warm thanks. I am very pleased to send you my Letter Prize.)

A letter from Patricia Freeman, Clonskea, Dublin.
Dear Miss Blyton,
I would like to tell you how I grow my own tomato plants. First I plant about five of the pips out of a ripe tomato in an ordinary garden pot filled with soil, and leave them to grow. In a few weeks’ time tiny green plants will appear. The stalks will be red. I leave them growing in the pot for a while, then I transplant them into my garden.
With love from your Busy Bee,
Patricia Freeman.

(Thank you, Patricia, for a good little garden hint. I expect that quite a lot of my readers will try to grow tomatoes your way!)

A letter from Roberta Fisher, Harwich.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I am a member of your Magazine Club, and I was pleased when we had something to work for, as well as your other clubs. When I had my ninth birthday, I asked children to my party – but as I am a very lucky little girl and have lots of toys and books, I asked the children who came to my birthday tea if they would bring a few pennies for the little spastic children, instead of a present for me. So eight of them brought the 12s. 6d. I am now sending you.
Love from
Roberta Fisher.

(This is truly a kind thing to do, Roberta, and it is lovely to hear from someone so unselfish. Thank you very much.)

I knew Congo Belge was another way of saying Belgian Congo but I still looked it up and spent a while reading about Congo as a Belgian colony. I wonder if Rosslyn was still there in 1960 when Congo Belge gained rapid independence and became the Republic of the Congo and 800,000 Belgians were evacuated.

Patricia makes growing tomato plants sound very easy but I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t have the same success if I tried it. We did have a little tomato plant once, and it grew from a little sprout to be about 20cm tall. It smelled like tomatoes but it didn’t produce a single flower let alone a tomato!

Roberts – our second fund-raising letter writer this week – had admirable self awareness to recognise she had enough, and to then not ask for gifts!