Previous letters pages can be found here.

And just like that we have moved from the 1956 run of magazines and into 1957.

According to Blyton’s own letter January was the perfect time to dig over the garden and start preparing for spring planting. Whoops, I’ve missed that boat quite considerably then! (Assuming I could have dug over the frozen soil, of course.)

Letters page from Volume 5, issue 1.
January 2nd – 15th, 1957.

OUR

LETTER PAGE

A letter from Fiona Colbeck and Cheryl Wingfield, Hitchin, Herts.

(These two children sent me some lovely Christmas labels they had made, and said that they were selling some to make money for our little Children’s Home. I asked them to tell me how they made them. Here is their interesting letter in reply.)

Dear Enid Blyton,
This is how we made the labels. First of all we collected old Christmas cards that had not been scribbled on. Then we took some pinking scissors (scissors that make a pretty cut-out edge to anything) and pinked all round the edges of the cards. We did hundreds of pictures and put them into a box. Then Daddy lent us his punch (a tool that punches holes in things) and we punched holes in the cards, so that we could thread the labels with string. Daddy bought me a ball of red string, and I cut it into equal lengths, and threaded it through the holes. We both belong to the Famous Five Club, and we made ros. through selling our labels. We are sending you the money for your little Children’s Home.
Love from
Fiona and Cheryl.

(I am sending you my letter-prize, a book for each of you, because you had such a good idea, and wrote about it so well. You must have done an enormous number of those lovely gay labels.)

A letter from Roy Martin, Edgbaston, Birmingham.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I was sorry when “Playways” Magazine stopped, because I had had it for two years, but now that we have had two copies of your magazine, we are going to have it always. I want to belong to your clubs, please. Will you tell me how to, and must I write in myself, or can Mummy write for me and send the money for the badges? She is helping me to write this letter, that’s why the spelling is good. I do like your stories.
Love from
Roy Martin.

(I did like your letter, Roy. Welcome to our magazine! Yes, Mummy can write in for the badges, and you can sign your name at the end of the letter.)

A letter from Anne Williams, Gravesend.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I would like to tell you about my little dog, Blackie. I lost my F.F. badge one day, and while I was upstairs looking for it, Blackie started sniffing round the floor downstairs. Five minutes later Blackie was scraping at my bedroom door with his paws, and when I opened it he came running in with the badge in his mouth! I thought of a good reward for him – I pinned the badge on his collar and made him a Famous Five Club member for a day.
Love from
Anne Williams.

(What a proud dog he must have been, Anne! You wrote your letter well.)

I’ve certainly made gift tags out of old Christmas cards, I think that’s a fairly common thing for people to do. It’s so simple yet it works really well. It’s also good for the environment and your purse!

A rare letter from a boy – though also from his mother. Imagine writing directly to an author instead of reading the instructions at the back of each magazine about joining the clubs? If Mummy can help Roy write to ask, surely she could just have helped him write to join? Seems a bit weird to me. It almost seems like a fake letter designed to allow Blyton to answer a question but she had thousands of real letters so it seems unlikely.

I don’t know the Secret Seven books well enough to know if Scamper ever found one of the Seven’s badges and returned i to them, but it does sound like something that Blyton would put into one of her stories.