And just like that, it’s September already. Summer isn’t over (if it ever began!) but the evenings are growing darker already.
August round-up
and
Enid Blyton’s favourite words
We have books of the week this week, these two which crossed my path at work last week. I didn’t know anything about them so they were a nice surprise, reviews will be coming soon!
Both are lift-the-flap books based on the Faraway Tree series, with Moon-Face and Silky.
Previous letters pages can be found here.
A letter from from Margaret Edwards, Prospect, Okehampton.
Dear Miss Blyton,
When I read the story of the Dolls’ House Exhibition in your magazine I wanted to do the same. So I made a Dolls’ House Show and have collected 18 pennies for the Blind Children. Mummy has bought stamps, so I am sending them to you. I do like reading your magazine and the Noddy books, and I have your Book of the Year, too.
Love from
Margaret Edwards.
(Thank you Margaret! I didn’t think that my story about the Dolls’ House Exhibition would result in someone else having one too! As you are not very old, I am really proud of you.)
A letter from Menevia Scone, Pembroke Dock.
Dear Miss Blyton,
I live in a flat and have not got a proper garden, so Mummy has made me one on a big marble wash-stand, and I think it is more fun than a real garden! I collected stones from the seashore to make the rockery and it was great fun mixing cement and filling match-
boxes for steps and paths. It really is a lovely little garden.
Love from
Menevia Scone.
(What a very good idea, Menevia! I wonder if anyone else has a garden like yours.)
A letter from Helen Campbell (Captain), Markinch, Fife.
Dear Enid Blyton,
My Club and myself held a sale in my shed at the back of the house. We also acted a play called “Meet the Johnsons” which I made up myself. During the winter I made kettle-holders and mats and other things, and sold some of them to my aunts and friends who could not come to the sale. The sale was great fun, and when it was over we counted the money and found that we had made £6. Please accept this money and send it to your little Children’s Home.
With lots of love from
Helen Campbell
(Captain, F.F. Member and Busy Bee)
and all our members.
(My warm congratulations, Helen! You must have a fine Club of nine members, and be very proud of it.)
I wonder how old Margaret was, and just what a Doll’s house exhibition entails? I’ll have to look at the magazine – it was in issue 3 volume 14 – to find out.
I wonder how much greenery there was in Menevia’s garden? As a child I liked making miniature gardens in plastic trays but of course nothing lived very long in one!
Markinch isn’t very far from where I live – I wonder if Helen still lives in Fife and if she’s still as busy now as she was then!
You know you’ve been reading too much Enid Blyton* at bedtime when your child turns to you and says You’re a beast!
*Obviously there’s not really such thing as too much Enid Blyton.
Letters to Enid part 55
and
Enid Blyton’s favourite words
I really should have used You’re a beast as the quote of the week, but never mind.
Instead, here’s one I’ve used before, but it was six and a half years ago and nobody’s going to remember, or at least they wouldn’t if I hadn’t just admitted it.
This one’s so good anyway, that it’s worth repeating.
Don’t forget Bill Smugs
We reached this on Saturday night and the gasp and the shriek of excitement from Brodie were something else.
Who could forget this guy?
I bought this as it appealed on two counts: a Blytonian title, and illustrations by Eileen Soper.
The title is more accurate than Five Go Off in a Caravan (in which they, of course, use two caravans) as there is indeed one caravan, and six people. However three of the company sleep in a tent as Slow Coach the caravan (newly built but in the traditional gypsy style) isn’t big enough to actually accommodate six. I’m sure all six are inside at some point or another, though, so close enough.
The six in question are siblings Norry (13), Fred (10) and Cynthia (age not given, but younger than Norry), their older half-sister Grace, her husband Rodney, and her son Toddles (3).
I went into this not entirely sure what to expect. Was it going to be an adventure, à la Five Go Off in a Caravan? – that seemed unlikely after the first pages revealed there would be two adults and a toddler in the party.
The other option was something more akin to the Caravan family where the adventure is simply living in a caravan and travelling about.
As it turned out, it wasn’t that either! It looked, for a brief time that it might be, but things quickly plunged into the unexpected…
It began tamely enough. A letter inviting the children on the holiday, taking the train to meet their sister and her husband. Going for tea in the town then walking up to the field to find that The caravan had vanished!
This turns out to be because Rodney had parked it in a farmer’s field without permission, and the farmer had thrown him out (fair enough, really!). The caravan had only been moved to some common ground a little further on, so was found by the others quickly.
I thought that this sort of thing would be the only real drama they faced, but I was wrong, very wrong.
The book is under 100 pages, and yet manages to pack in two children nearly drowning, two children being swept out to sea in a rowing boat (unconnected to the drowning!), one child sneaking off to perform at a circus resulting in one badly sprained ankle, one night time prowler, one planned theft and one reunited grandmother and grandchild. Phew.
Each new chapter had a sense of what next?? Though sadly the mention of smugglers’ caves was just a brief mention and played no part in the story.
The only real disappointment in it all is that the big drama of the planned theft of Rodney’s money is over before it even begins. They hear of the plan and the boys go off to fetch the police
And that was the end of the gypsies’ plot to steal Rodney Dean’s money.
The police arrive before anything has happened and go to watch the gypsy camp through the night. In the morning the police interview Rodney and the gypsies. There’s no mention of them trying to sneak over to Slow Coach in the night let alone any detail of arrests.
Somehow the book manages to also fit in some personal development for the three children amongst all the drama.
Fred has the most – he is described as (more so than shown to be) a bit on the lazy side. He is never shown to shirk duties when caravanning/camping but several times it seems to be expected that he would try to avoid work. Fred himself seems to be aware of this habit of his and as he flushes, or doesn’t meet Rodney’s eye on occasion.
He is told off once for grousing because they’ve been walking in the rain then have to fetch wood and water.
No grousing! You must take the rough with the smooth.
– Rodney
But there’s no dramatic occasion where Fred’s laziness leads to disaster actually – that’s left to his older brother Norry.
It is Norry who is left to supervise young Toddles (referred to as a baby multiple times despite being a sturdy three year old!) and a local friend the boy has made, and it is Norry who engrosses himself in a book and doesn’t notice them trying to sail a bathtub on the village pond until it’s almost too late.
You’ll never make a man if you aren’t trustworthy. No matter how clever, or loveable a person may be he’ll always be a failure if he can’t be relied upon. Make a beginning in small things, my boy, then in great ones you won’t be wanting.
– Rodney
This sort of speech wouldn’t be out of place in a Blyton book.
Only then does Norry reflect that he often forgets to post letters, or do jobs he had promised and treats this as a wake up call.
It is Cynthia who somehow ends up filling in at the circus – having meant to just buy some chocolate then return to the caravan.
She learns her lesson the hard way, by spraining her ankle and not being able to continue the holiday for a time.
We’re not going to punish you for you disobedience, my dear, because you have your own punishment in a good deal of pain and having to lie still when you would like to be running about. But, please remember that you are delaying everyone’s trip for a week or more, and that you have caused us a great deal of anxiety and expense. Rodney and I are very displeased, and if there is any more trouble through the behaviour of you children, you will all three be back off home without a moment’s delay.
– Grace
The first part of that speech is certainly something you’d find in a Blyton book – the worst or only punishment being the natural consequences of a person’s actions. I’m not sure that Blyton’s adult would then labour the point so much afterwards, though. I feel like Blyton’s child would perhaps reflect, guiltily on the impact their actions were having on others rather than having it said to them.
Blyton’s books are in no way exempt from strange coincidences and obviously contrived situations but this book leans quite heavily on them.
The boy (Jerry) who sneaks into their camp looking to steal just so happens to be the grandson of an old lady they meet later, who just happens to lament that she’s all alone as her daughter is gone, having run off with a wandering man and then died. Obviously Jerry is the daughter’s son, who they just so happen to bump into later, and who just so happens to have lost his dad so that he can be passed into the care of his grandmother with very little fuss.
The planned theft of Rodney’s money also required a deliberate set of circumstances. He was expecting money from someone who sent actual money instead of a cheque, and this just happened to be overheard by some gypsies – from the same camp as Jerry – and Rodney just manages to take too long in thinking it over to go back to the post office before it shuts.
When Cynthia hurts her ankle there just so happens to be a doctor in the audience who has a spare room, as the local hospital is full. And he just so happens to have a daughter Cynthia’s age to make friends with her…
These things probably wouldn’t be so obvious in a longer book where they could be disguises or distracted from with other events and details.
I doubt children would notice or care but I did find some of it a bit unlikely and silly.
We don’t get to know the characters particularly well as this is a short book – for example Grace being the children’s half-sister is never explained (making me wonder why it was even mentioned, other than it sort of explaining why she’s so much older) and there isn’t time for the sort of jokes and teasing you get from the Famous Five or Adventure Series children. It’s more like The Treasure Hunters actually where the children are not overly detailed and are just there to have an adventure.
Jerry was similarly sketchy – and had a cringey way of calling Grace pretty lady or lovely lady every time he spoke to her. Likewise his Oh I am so hungry, so hungry! Do not beat me! came across as awkward.
His grandmother gets to talk in a strong Cornish dialect using words like foine, zee volks, zpot, darter (daughter) and so on but this tails off when she has several sentences to say at once!
There is a suggestion a few times that Grace and Rodney are too soft with Toddles.
It does seem crazy for a baby of three [to go on a caravanning holiday], but you know Rodney and Grace take him everywhere they go, and he never seems any the worse.
It would be odd not to take your three-year old on a caravan holiday these days, especially if you were going for six weeks! He also eats a great many more cakes than were good for such a little boy, but Grace only laughed and said no goodies could spoil his digestion.
There’s the usual boys vs girls attitudes, to be expected in a 1940s book. The boys camp out, Cynthia sleeps in the caravan. The boys fetch water and firewood, Cynthia helps make supper and put Toddles to bed. Worst of all when Cynthia is missing Norry is left at the caravan to take care of Grace and Toddles while Fred and Rodney go looking for her. Why on earth does a fully grown woman need a 13 year old boy to look after her!?
I was confused to begin with as the children are in the school room, and home lessons are mentioned but their mother writes to the heads of the children’s schools to make excuses for them taking a long trip away – despite it being as described as all the holidays. So they go to school, but have a school room at home, and home lessons, and have to be excused from the home lessons during the holidays?
I sort of like Cynthia’s idea of hanging fourteen inches of a tape measure up and snipping off an inch every day to count down to the trip, but it does seem a bit wasteful too! She could probably get several uses from a tape measure at least.
I liked that Fred didn’t enjoy his first night camping, as the ground was hard and uncomfortable – and the narration mentions how bad a night most people have when they’re not used to it. I know I’d never manage a good nights sleep on the ground, and find it vaguely annoying how well book characters always seem to sleep in the most uncomfortable places.
Unlike Blyton’s characters Rodney does not approve of going to the circus, presuming it to be vulgar entertainment – though that perhaps applied specifically to that circus and not all circuses.
Overall I enjoyed this – it was fast-paced and I never knew what was going to happen best. It lacks Blyton’s excellent descriptions of places and food, as well as banter and amusing incidents, but that aside, it was a good read. The Soper illustrations also helped!
I’ve included all the rest of the illustrations below as I’m not sure if any of them are online anywhere.
Having read 20 of the 21 Famous Fives and 3 of the 8 Adventure Series books Brodie asked what else there was. I had already suggested The Treasure Hunters some time before and it was rejected, but this time he rejected the Galliano’s Circus books and whatever else I suggested and chose The Treasure Hunters, perhaps thanks to the illustrated Collins spine.
I often write about what he didn’t know, or understand but today we’ll have what he “knew”. I say “knew” because despite his confidence he isn’t always right…
That Jeffrey was the oldest as he was putting stamps into his album and collecting them. He didn’t say as much but I think he was inferring that stamp collecting was a boring activity for people older than he is.
All about secret passages – I know about secret passages into cupboards, it’s just like the one in the Famous Five.
That you should not feed squirrels chocolate. He was very judgmental over them giving the squirrel chocolate in case his teeth fell out – telling me about the highland cow who had eaten popcorn and sweets until his teeth fell out. He meant Callum the Stag who had been fed junk food until his teeth fell out and he had to be put down as he couldn’t eat.
Why Granny was crying – because she has to leave.
That finding the “treasure cup” meant they could drink out of it and have good luck and not leave their house. He announced this as soon as the lucky cup was mentioned and repeated it often through the book. I love how he didn’t focus on them finding valuable treasure which would change their financial situation, but instead was determined that the magic cup would fix everything.
That the treasure cup would be in the box they found in the chimney.
That the treasure cup had been in the box but someone else had already found it. (He rethinks his solutions pretty quickly).
That the box must have had a false top which is why it looks smaller on the inside than it should. (I suggested perhaps it was more likely to have a false bottom, which he quickly agreed with.)
That the map was a treasure map. Well, ok his first response was Huh – just a piece of paper? But I flipped back and showed him the picture at the start of the chapter. It’s a map!… A treasure map!
That JREAFURE spells TREASURE. I spelled out J – R – etc and he was baffled but we went back to look at the illustration again and straight away he said that it was a T (which is impressive as he often gets T, I and J muddled) and from there he quickly realised that it said treasure.
IT SAYS TREASURE he kept telling the children, and was quite annoyed at their inability to figure it out.
That the map must be wrong as it showed four bends and the road only had three.
That the hill had been knocked down, like farmers do – he meant the bits of old railway embankments we’ve seen ploughed through for access.
That it was a river, not a road – mere moments before the children figured it out
That Mr Potts knocked Jeffrey into the water and took his clothes TO GET THE MAP!
That promising to stay in all DAY meant they could sneak out at night – but I did have to say all DAAAYYY a few times before he got it.
That dropping a handkerchief up the wrong passage would send the men the wrong way.
When he wasn’t interrupting with his wild mixture of assertions he was asking questions.
Such as;
What’s a maid?
Is this book too old for torches to exist? His grasp of history is sketchy at best. The other night he asked me if I was alive during WWII…
What’s seccotine? I knew it was glue from The Naughtiest Girl, and so he made the really good point that it would be difficult for them to remove the map from the doll’s house again. I looked it up incase it was a weak or easily dissolved glue but all I could find out was that it was made from fish…
Why would you wake up mad at someone from a dream? Hard to explain, but it’s definitely happened to me!
What’s a lawyer?
This is a kid who barely ever stops talking so he managed to squeeze in more comments.
He was a little upset that their mother and father weren’t staying with them but that was quickly forgotten.
He was surprised by the three sets of stairs in the house. The house which he called fusty-musty-dusty, by the way.
He was concerned that the man (Mr Potts) wouldn’t bring back the map and at that point didn’t know if he wanted to keep reading as things might go bad.
He was very excited by the lucky cup. As above he kept talking about finding it. When they do find the box he shouted THE LUCKY CUP, they can drink out of it and get rich. He was worried that Mr Potts would catch them and get it from them, but if they could drink from it first maybe money would fall from the sky and they could keep the house. He was very invested in them keeping the house.
He loved them drinking their ginger beer from the lucky cup.
Afterwards he said he did not like Mr Potts at all, he was not a good person, But he liked everyone else. His favourite part was the end part with the secret passages but it was almost too exciting and scary with Mr Potts chasing them.
As for me I never realised how often they say LOVELY until reading it out loud. It seemed like every other sentence, but turns out it was only 34 times in the book but 25 of those are in the first 6 chapters!
I know that I’ve put The Treasure Hunters on the list two weeks running now, but things just keep coming up! It’s probably about half-finished at this point so maybe this week will be the week!
Reading The Treasure Hunters to Brodie
and
If you like Blyton: Six in a Caravan by Bridget Mackenzie
Apparently there is to be yet another Blyton continuation title, coming out next year. Five and the Forgotten Treasure focuses on some new children solving a mystery that somehow has something to do with George and the original Five.
Have you heard about the unsolved mystery of the Famous Five? An incredible new story by bestselling author Chris Smith, inspired by Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five series and featuring original and new characters.
When Fran, Tom, Maddy and Gilbert the dog stay with Professor George Kirrin for the holidays, they soon find themselves caught up in a robbery. Professor George will have to tell them about her past and the unfinished mystery of the Famous Five, if they’re ever going to catch the thief…
The Famous Five by Enid Blyton was one of Chris Smith’s favourite series as a child. Now, this bestselling author weaves the action, adventure and danger of this thrilling and exciting world into a brand-new story, perfect for every generation of readers. Join the adventure!
Well, you know I’ll end up reading it… but will I like it? That’s less likely.
There’s no cover as yet, but hopefully we’ll get something decent! Hopefully someone like Ruth Palmer, who can actually draw human beings.
Previous letters pages can be found here.
A letter from Wendy Spencer, Chippenham, Wilts.
Dear Enid Blyton,
As you are interested in wild birds, I thought perhaps you would like to hear about some I know of. Every year the lovely swallows come and rear a family in our cowshed. They use the same nests as the previous year, but sometimes they have to be patched up a bit. When the baby swallows are old enough to leave the nest, the mother lines them up on a beam. Then she flies off to find a tasty fly or some other morsel. This she delivers into the gaping mouth of the first baby. Then off she goes again to find food for Baby No. 2, and this goes on until every baby has been fed.
Yours sincerely,
Wendy Spencer.
PS. – thought you would like this four-leaved clover!
(Thank you for your very interesting letter, Wendy, which everyone will like to read – and for your lucky four-leaf clover!)
A letter from Yolande Bristow, B.A.O.R. 15.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I am sending another ten shillings for the Blind Babies. I earned it by keeping Daddy’s lawn free from dandelions, and doing some shopping for Mummy. I have to ask for everything in German.
Lots of love to the Babies and yourself.
Yolande.
(Thank you, Yolande, you are very generous once more. I must say that I think you are clever to go shopping and ask for things in German. Well done.)
A letter from Mary Johnson, Newcastle-on-Tyne, 4.
Dear Enid Blyton,
Yesterday I saw a most peculiar creature crawling up the stem of one of the weeds in our pond. I watched it, and it stood still – and then split open! I was very surprised. Please do ask your readers if they can guess what came out of it. I’ll tell you in a PS.
Love from,
Mary.
(Can you guess what was in Mary’s PS.? Here it is. What came out was a big dragonfly with wings! Thank you, Mary, for telling us – you were lucky to see such a sight.)
Another letter from a child documenting the birds of their garden – and ANOTHER four leaf clover! After my lament last time that I’d never found one I’m starting to feel slightly victimised here!
I assumed that B.O.A.R. was military related but had to look up exactly what – British Army of the Rhine. Interesting that Yolande wrote in aged 15, a few years older than Blyton intended her writing for. (Obviously not a criticism as I am considerably older than 15!)
I didn’t guess what was in Mary’s PS, I’ve never seen a dragonfly hatch.
The last six weeks have flown by and schools go back tomorrow! Brodie is now 7 and is going into primary 3, I can hardly believe it. We are currently reading The Mountain of Adventure (oh, those Welsh accents, look you!) so perhaps we will see some Adventure series drawings from him this term.
Letters to Blyton 54
and
Reading the Treasure Hunters to Brodie
Part of the Summer Reading Challenge this year was a book bingo. One of the squares was Draw your favourite book character, and Brodie chose the Famous Five. One of them (either Julian or Dick, I can’t remember) has a handy rope around his waist, of course.
That’s us halfway through 2024 already!
I hit my 100 books target in July, so I had to up my goal. I went for 150 which seems very doable at this point.
What I have read:
I ended the month still working through:
Sadly I bought nothing in Leakey’s (though Brodie got a Thomas the Tank Engine book), but I did get a few things in more unexpected places.
There’s a good second hand bookshop in Kingussie which I’ve visited before so of course I had to go again. There I found a load of the Adventure Island books by Helen Moss and was able to get the last of the ones I haven’t read – for £1 each!
We had a look in the gift shop in Landmark and to my surprise I saw these little jigsaws of the Famous Five for Grown-Ups covers. I didn’t know such a thing even existed! While I don’t particularly like the books themselves, the artwork by Ruth Palmer is lovely (the best part of the series!) so I had to get them.
I mentioned this a few Mondays ago, but I also treated myself to a book with Eileen Soper illustrations, and a Blyton-ish title – Six in a Caravan by Bridget Mackenzie.
How was your July?
It’s August now – and we’ve finally had a whole week of decent weather! Possibly the only week, but sometimes that just has to do.
August means Brodie is about to turn 7, tomorrow in fact! He’s still loving Enid Blyton books and hopefully that will continue for a few more years at least.
July round up
and
Reading the Treasure Hunters to Brodie
We Enid Blyton Society Members had some sad news recently, as our friend Daisy passed away after long illness.
Daisy was a regular member of the Society Forums and attended many Society events and gatherings. She was a wonderful writer of Enid Blyton fan-fiction too, and I was delighted when she offered me this short story for the blog.
A Missing Scene: Dick’s Adventure from Five Get Into Trouble
After we finished Castle he suggested going back to the Famous Five, but changed his mind. He wanted to know if any of the other books on my shelves were adventurous. I suggested Valley, he wanted something different. He asked about the girls’ boarding school books and I said he probably wasn’t old enough to enjoy them yet. I suggested The Treasure Hunters, Galliano’s Circus etc but no, in the end he went for Valley after all. I love how he goes straight to the Blyton shelves when he is looking for a story now!
It seems that the children always declare that there won’t be an adventure – either because some of them (looking at Lucy-Ann here of course) doesn’t want one, or because they don’t think they will be lucky enough to have yet another one.
They agree that they won’t have an adventure this time, as they’ll just be messing about at Bill’s house in the middle of nowhere. I very much suspect, though, if they hadn’t been swept off to an abandoned Austrian valley they would have found some sort of adventure at Bill’s. But anyway, this is supposed to be about Brodie’s thoughts, and he said of course they will have an adventure, they always have an adventure. Quite possibly he was assuming they’d have an adventure at Bill’s, not knowing what was in store for them!
He was quick to say that he didn’t think that Bill was one of the men who had got into the plane, looking at the picture probably helped. However he thought that the men were stealing Bill’s plane, which was entirely possible!
When I revealed that the seats were red, not green, he groaned. “Oh no, the WRONG plane!” in a very Wallace and the wrong trousers sort of way.
He was extremely concerned about the lack of food in the valley and kept bringing it up every time the children ate something or talked about food. He is a child who loves his food and has three meals and (and least) two snacks a day, so the thought of being stuck in a valley with no food source was naturally horrendous to him.
He noticed a slight discrepancy, actually, when it came to the food. Dinah says that as they are hungry they could eat the sandwiches, but leave the cake, chocolate and biscuits for the next day. However she takes out the sandwiches and the cake which they then eat.
But they said they’d only eat the sandwiches! he said, obviously unhappy with their lack of rationing!
He was so focussed on their food he also noticed that they ate cake and biscuits for breakfast the next morning, though perhaps there was enough cake to have seconds.
I noticed that Dinah says there’s only cake and biscuits, but they eat those and the rest of the chocolate too.
He was very glad when they were able to liberate some tins from the men’s shack, though he was horrified by them pushing the empties down rabbit holes. I agree! It’s one thing to hide them somewhere with the intention of removing them later, but shoving them down rabbit holes – and leaving them there – is horrible!
He guessed that the men might be looking for treasure and gasped excitedly when it was confirmed. The treasure! There IS treasure!
He was completely convinced that the girls were going to find it when they went down the secret passage at the back of the fern cave. What purpose could a secret passage have other than to lead to treasure? He did realise that the sound was the waterfall, but only right before it was revealed and the girls knew what it was.
He also remarked that the boys are going to wonder where the girls are!
He groaned when Lucy-Ann said that the adventure was about to come to an end, but was relieved when I showed him how many pages were left. He couldn’t guess what would happen to keep the story going as they were on their way to find the passage out.
I think he was expecting a more modern, wider road than a farm track so he was disappointed by the overgrown path they follow I prompted him a little, asking him what it could mean that it was really overgrown and he did say that no cars had come along it. The collapsed pass he attributed to an earthquake at first.
His disappointment at them not escaping was brief as of course they move straight on to looking for the treasure, where he kept asking me What’s the next clue?? as if he was about to look for the next signpost.
He dismissed the cave entrance as just a rabbit hole, the pessimist!
The stalackmites and stalack… other ones he remembered about, thanks to Billycock Hill, and even remembered which ones where which once we sorted out the pronunciation.
He instantly declared that the ‘people’ were statues, I think the golden statues of Mystery to Solve clued him in but he despaired at the children being scared and taking what felt like ages to work it out. They’re just STATUES!! He was equally despairing when the men also take time to work out that THEY’RE STATUES!!
He quickly memorized the list of the caves – statues, paintings, books, chests of gold, and repeated these from time to time if the children omitted mentioning any of them.
The ‘talking’ hen surprised him (both in that there was a hen underground and that it appeared to be talking, which he took as true at first!).
He must have been paying attention earlier as when the old couple mentioned Julius Muller he gasped in recognition.
The idea of the children sleeping on the ledge concerned him, as he was sure they would roll off in the night. He pointed out that he would definitely fall off as he has managed to fall out of bed on almost every holiday we’ve had (not always on the first night either, sometimes several nights in!) though he has probably only done it at home once.
A good point he raised was how were the men going to get the statues to the plane. We see them in an illustration carrying one of the smaller ones between them, but they had lots of heavy treasures and I assume they must have lowered things down the cliff with ropes.
Once the men arrive at the caves things do get a lot more dramatic.
He was delighted with the new – gasp – secret passage which leads to the fern cave, as well as the fact that Jack always wears a rope round his waist.
The scene with Pepi and the suitcases has him laughing like anything, and he did figure that the something that hit him was a suitcase.
When Jack has his sudden brainwave about locking the men into the caves Jack says to himself Why didn’t I think of it before? and Brodie replied Yes, why DIDN’T he think of that before??
He was so involved in all the valley goings on he objected when the next chapter took us to see what Philip was up to. I don’t want to see what Philip’s doing!
It took him a moment once we started on Philip’s adventure, but he suddenly said we’ve gone back in time, which is right as we start with Philip having just left the treasure caves, earlier on.
Scotland? That’s where we are! he cried when Philip’s location was revealed. He’s always excited if Scotland gets mentioned anywhere.
As with every other book he was a little disappointed that we didn’t get to see the treasures all removed from the caves and the valley reopened.
He was indignant at the boys’ attitude (hurrah!).
“It might be best if Philip and I did the stalking tomorrow,” said Jack. “I don’t think I want you girls mixed up in it.”
The boys always say that! he said, telling me it wasn’t very fair. We did talk about how it was sensible for someone to stay behind in case the others got captured and needed rescued.
I loved his summary – The girls could be useful, like Anne can be useful, and George, she’s a girl though she pretends she’s a boy. He added that the girls had had their own adventure so it ‘s the boys’ turn now.
Despite Blyton’s supposedly simple language there are always lots of questions when we read. A lot of the time if I tell him to think about it he can make a fairly good guess, other times I need to do big explanations. So here is what stumped him in this book.
What’s an aerodrome?
What’s a gully – like a sea gull?
We discussed sardines, biscuits and milk as it could have been sardines followed by biscuits and milk, but I suggested as they were tinned biscuits they may have been more like oat cake/savoury biscuits with the sardines on top.
We bought a tin of sardines a the shops (it was only 52p) but we haven’t tried them yet!
Why do they always say that? The Adventure Island, the Adventure Castle it makes no sense… He was referring to when Philip said it was their fourth night in the valley – The Valley of Adventure. I actually like it when books (or films) manage to mention their titles but clearly Brodie doesn’t agree!
Ruts took a long time to explain.
Brodie: What are ruts [in the ground].
Me: Gouges.
Brodie: ?
Me: Gashes?
Brodie: ?
Me: Scars, holes, gullies…
Eventually he got it.
Similarly…
Brodie: What’s feeble?
Me: Weak.
Brodie: What week, like next week?
Me: No, weak, like wobbly and not strong.
What’s a brooch?
He also asked if they had slept in the cave before, and I had to really think about it! The answer was no, but so much had happened it seemed like they’d been there longer!
I also had to try to explain to him how Jack couldn’t get to the secret passage behind the picture after locking the men in – which led to me drawing this (clearly excellent) map… though I think I may have mixed up the cave of stars and the cave of stalactites though.
There was no criticism of the illustrations this time round, perhaps he’s getting used to Tresilian’s style.
The picture of Lizzie prompted a gasp – it’s at the beginning of the chapter before we meet Lizzie – and a cry of A REPTILE!
Similarly the waterfall got a gasp and a cry of – A WATERFALL!
More gasping for the picture of the boys coming back to the cave with the sack of tins, after a closer look that is, where he spotted – THE MEN!
I couldn’t stop laughing when he looked at the picture of Otto and Jack, where Otto has a notebook to write the directions is. Brodie’s question was Is that a phone he has?
First up – I did not attempt South American accents for Juan and Pepi. (Incidentally, it felt weird saying Hwan/Whan out loud and not Joo-an as it was in my head as a child) so they have slightly incongruous general bad-guy voices.
Otto got an awkward Austrian/German-ish treeeshure accent which was fine when he had just a few broken words of English, not so easy when he suddenly has whole paragraphs.
The old man got a similar accent to Otto. I actually never realised before how annoying it is that they are called the old man and the old woman – we never learn his name and Elsa is only called Elsa occasionally.
Happily my rrr noises were recognisable as a plane, or at least as the noise I make when I try to imitate a plane…
Having read many Blyton books now Brodie is learning the common traits. For example as soon as the children as what that distant noise is he will say it’s a spring. And it usually is!
Having forgotten about it somewhat in castle he returned to being annoyed by the nicknames Tufty and Freckles. To which the following conversation ensued:
Me: It’s like me calling you sweet pea.
Brodie: I’m not a sweet pea. I’m not for eating.
Me: A sweet pea is a flower.
Brodie: I’m not a flower! You can call me Tufty now. No, Freckles.
He does have wild hair that sticks up at the front a bit, and even more at the back as he has THREE crowns, but not really any freckles. In the end he settled on me being allowed to call him Tufty Freckles.
Previous letters pages can be found here.
A letter from Dianne Patten, Walsall, Staffs.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I wonder if this is a record – I have found 39 four-leaved clovers, two five-leaved, and one six-leaved. Twenty-two were found in our garden and the rest on a walk that I went with Mother and Father, I have enclosed one for you and I hope it brings you good luck. Lots of love from,
Dianne Patten.
(I think you really must hold the record, Dianne – I have never heard of anyone finding so many lucky clover-leaves before. What a lucky garden you must have! Thank you for the magnificent four-leaved clover you sent me – the biggest I have ever seen.)
A letter from Rosemary Jenkins and Janet Knapman, Plymouth.
Dear Queen Bee,
In our Busy Bees News this month we read about the Mobile Dispensary Caravan coming to Plymouth. We have both wanted to inspect a P.D.S.A. caravan for a long time. The man in charge was very nice and showed us round. We thought it was lovely and enjoyed our visit very much. Before we left we gave a gift of three shillings and sixpence, which we had saved up from running errands for people. We are both Busy Bees and think it is a very interesting Club.
Yours sincerely, Rosemary Jenkins and Janet Knapman.
(I am so glad that you two Busy Bees managed to inspect one of our P.D.S.A. vans. I wonder when I shall have a letter from someone who has inspected our own Busy Bee Van!)
A letter from Ruth Clare, Newport Pagnell, Bucks.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I am writing to tell you about the wrens in our garden. Last year they built a nest in a very tiny hole in the trunk of one of our trees. The mother laid five eggs which all hatched out, and she was kept busy feeding the youngsters. One day they all flew past me and fluttered down to the ground, and the mother gathered them together. At night she took them all back into the nest, brought them out next morning into some brushwood nearby and took them back again that night. I have never heard of a wren doing this before.
With best wishes from
Ruth Clare.
(What an interesting letter, Ruth ! You must have loved watching the little wren-family.)
How is it that I have NEVER found a four-leafed clover? OK, so I haven’t exactly spent hours hunting for one but honestly I have often wondered if they’re a myth as I’ve never seen one. And yet, here’s Dianne finding 22 in her garden alone? There was a letter about finding a four-leafed clover back in issue 13 too, so I’ll hold off on calling them a conspiracy theory just yet.
I thought that Queen Bee was an odd way to start a letter, but it’s probably not if you do call yourself the Queen of the Busy Bees!
I’ll have to keep a look-out for wrens now as I’m not sure I’ve seen one of those, either. (Perhaps THEY’RE the conspiracy theory?). They are, apparently, the most common breeding bird in Britain with 8.5 million breeding pairs in the UK. However they are very small, and it also says that they are scarcer in northern England and Scotland, which might explain it.
This is late going up as I just couldn’t decide what to write this week. I don’t like doing the same things week after week somehow, yet all the other ideas I have are things that will take longer than a few days to put together.
Letters to Enid part 53
and
Reading The Valley of Adventure to Brodie
I bought something new last week – Six in a Caravan. No, I’ve not been mucking around with the Famous Five titles again – this is story by Bridget Mackenzie. I mostly bought it because it has illustrations by Eileen Soper, and I wondered how it would compare to Blyton’s caravan-featuring books.
Something else to go on my list to blog about!
We have read 2o of the 21 Famous Five books so far. When Brodie asked for the next one at bedtime I said This is the very last one, ever
Immediately he said he wanted to make it last, so could we read something else. I offered the Castle of Adventure and he said yes, we would read all the adventure books and then the last Famous Five as we will
“Save the best until last. Isn’t that what they say, Mummy?”
I just hope he’s not disappointed when we come back to the final Famous Five. I’m quite glad to procrastinate over it as it’s my least favourite one!
Sometimes I can read whole chapters and he hardly says a word, other times I can barely get a few sentences out before he interrupts with comments and questions. This was one of the latter situations.
First he spotted the opening illustration
and said OOH knights. That looks scary, I don’t know if I want to read this now, it looks too scary. He really likes castles and knights at the moment too!
I got as far as reading the first few words – Two girls sat on a window-seat on page one and he looked at the illustration asking Who are they? BULLIES?
I reached paragraph two, and had managed one sentence of Lucy-Ann speaking when he said that she sounded like Anne and that the girls were obviously both based on the same character. He has a point, and I do pretty much give them the same voice. Later he also remarked that Dinah helping Mrs Mannering cut sandwiches was Just like Anne!
He said Philip sounded like a terror of a boy regarding the earwigs under pillows and thought he might come home with a tarantula this time.
Obviously he had forgotten that Jack and Lucy-Ann no longer lived with Uncle Geoffrey as he repeated Once lived with in an extremely questioning way.
When Jack was described as having freckles he added Too many to count! as that’s what’s said about Lucy-Ann and her freckles.
As soon as I mentioned the spring he said That means they have water too. I asked him if thought Spring Cottage sounded like a good place to stay and he said yes very firmly.
He wasn’t impressed with the illustration of the girls at the spring, saying that The ones in the Famous Five are much, much better. He actually wasn’t a fan of the pictures throughout – he found them too dark. Sorry, Stuart Tresilian, the art critic has spoken!
Early on the children discuss not having more adventures.
I think they’ll have more adventures – there wouldn’t be more books if they hadn’t.
This is true of course!
He guessed it was Bill Smugs they were bumping into in town- or at least the man from the last book! He then remembered Bill Smugs! but couldn’t remember his real last name.
When Tassie arrived with Button he looked at the illustration and was puzzled. A cat? Is it a dog?
As always he found Kiki hilarious – I try to do my best parrot voice for her of course.
He laughed like anything at Kiki at the station, encouraging the porter to answer her by shouting Yes, yes!
When she starts her Turn to page 6 stuff he said she’s saying school words, but wanted to know why she kept saying to Open your books.
He loved her sniffing/using a hanky trick.
Like the children Brodie was momentarily startled by Kiki falling but he quickly pointed out that she’d fly back up – or at least he hoped she’d manage to fly before she hit the ground!
He blamed her for touching the children’s heads and shoulders in the castle – but really it was the cobwebs.
He found it particularly funny when she got muddled up and would correct her loudly – it’s pop goes the WEASEL!
When the men shot at her in the courtyard he was very upset and worried – convinced, in fact, that she had been hit.
He was confused by the “tunnel” – the narrow space between the cliff and the outer walls – thinking it was inside the castle.
He thought Tassie should jump across from the cliff to the window – obviously he has as much faith her in abilities as she does. I asked him if he would go across the plank into the castle and he said yes, but in real life I’m not sure that he would! A tree branch a few feet off the ground yes, a plank wedged up a cliff, not so likely.
According to him the puddle of water just meant that the pump was leaky.
He was sure that Jack was mistaken about the light at night – it must have been a moon or the stars. Then he turned to me when Lucy-Ann mentioned seeing the light, eyes wide. There WAS a light!
The faint light coming from under the floor of the great hall was in his mind a cellar with a chandelier – you get chandeliers in castles, don’t you.
He was adamant that Philip should just step off the pedestal and attack the two men – he couldn’t see how Philip would be awkward and slow and probably easily pushed over.
He guessed that the plank was gone and that’s why they couldn’t see it – but it begs the question – where DID the men put the plank? They didn’t just knock it to the ground. It’s not in any of the rooms – there’s no mention of any locked rooms or cupboards – it’s not in the hidden room, they don’t find it in the hidden passage… Also makes me wonder why Tassie didn’t bring a plank or a tree branch (or just jump like she initially wanted to) instead of taking the underground tunnel. Also that Button wasn’t soaking and freezing himself which would have given them a clue! (Reading the books aloud really does make you notice new things!)
He didn’t remember that Tassie can’t read – but he groaned like anything when Philip reminded the girls.
After a little prompting he also guessed that it was Bill in the house, and he cheered when it was revealed that it was Bill.
Once Tassie had swapped places with Jack he complained a little that the book was too confusing, and he was very tense, almost too tense during the final chapters. I think he remembered the near-drowning at the end of the first book as he did ask why the children always ended up in such bad situations.
He was concerned that Tassie didn’t know Bill Smugs and wouldn’t trust him like the others did.
Once Bill’s lot get into the secret room he was desperate for the men to step off the pedestals and attack. Then he asked why there was always someone smashing a lamp and I had to explain why a lamp was better than torches.
He was frustrated that Scar-Neck and the other man had got away and would be in another country by now.
He was very upset about the castle being damaged – he was almost in tears about it in fact! He guessed that the castle had fallen in on top of the secret room – still very upset about the castle not being whole any more – and said they’d need to go down the secret passage.
I often get distracted from the book when Brodie asks a question as I go looking up information and/or spend ages trying to explain things.
I had to explain carbolic soap to him, sort of, seeing as I’ve never seen the stuff in real life. I assume it was strong and smelly? I’m actually tempted to buy some now (he really wants me to!) and find out – though I’m not sure how accurate modern stuff is to what the books were talking about. I always imagined it as cream/white – but apparently it’s always dark pink/red!
We had a very long conversation about taking photos with film rather than digital. He’s never questioned it, but I asked him if he knew what they meant. So we talked about the rolls of film making negatives and having to get them developed. Not being able to see what you’d taken, not knowing how it had turned out until they were developed, you could only take so many exposure – 24 or 36 per roll (I vaguely remember) – and then that was it unless you had a spare roll. Then we were on to home developing with chemicals which I know less about.
He knew what a hide was but had to ask me what furnished, a cloud burst and the vagaries of the rock meant. Blyton gets a hard time for her simple writing – vagaries of the rock is not a simple expression!
Something else he asked was why every book had to have someone hiding/sheltering inside a gorse bush. Good question – gorse bushes are not the comfiest places I imagine. I sometimes point out gorse bushes on walks and ask him if he’d like to make a shelter out of it, but somehow he always says no!
Obviously I’m reading the original text but I found myself making a few small changes as I read.
I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I changed a little of the way they speak about Tassie and how smelly she is as honestly it sometimes came across as a bit mean and judgemental.
I down-played the foreign-ness of the men – not to make them not foreign but just the assumption that they must be up to no good simply because they’re foreign.
I also said each other or children instead of the girls sometimes when it came to helping / being scared / having to doing the dishes. Not so much that the girls did the dishes, more the expectation that they would do them because they are girls. We’ve had plenty of discussions about how out-dated these attitudes are already, so I don’t see a need to keep repeating the girls-should-do-the-housework statements.
At the end he was disappointed that he never got to see the police arresting the men. Me saying that Bill and his men ARE the police, kind of surprised him, but they didn’t seem to count!
He wasn’t at all pleased that the men seemed to have been killed, because there should not be people killed in a CHILDREN’S BOOK!
He was still really sad that the castle was ruined even though he loves exploring ruined castles. Honestly, I don’t feel like I’ve expressed just how sad he was – it really upset him! I wasn’t expecting that, I thought he’d find it exciting.
It was very late when we finished the book and so I forgot to ask him about his favourites unfortunately. I suspect his favourite characters would have been (as usual) all of them!
I knew this would happen – a matter of hours after part 3 went up I found another reference! But it has taken me over five months to collect enough to create a whole new post.
There were a couple of Faraway Tree references in the first book of the series (which I had in part 3), there was nothing in book two, but I’m on book three now and found another reference.
Tilly and Oscar find themselves on a rather magical train (the Sesquipedalian) where they are offered a meal…
Inside the powder blue menus were a lists and lists of every kind of food you could possibly imagine, and what book they were from. There was clam chowder from Moby Dick or a picnic with all the trimmings from a Famous Five book, and you could follow it up with an apple pie from The Railway Children, or some Turkish Delight from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
The only thing better than a Famous Five picnic is a Famous Five farmhouse meal!
Not surprising – another Jenny Colgan reference from her boarding school series. Not surprising because there were references in the first book (as well as two others from another series).
Claire (our boarding school teacher) is on a weekend trip with some of her pupils to an outdoor activity centre.
The first is not a direct reference but given Colgan’s previous references and her talking about taking inspiration from St Clare’s and Malory Towers I feel like this has to be counted:
The children fell on lunch with an appetite…. and like all food eaten outside, in the sunshine, after some strenuous exercise, and a bit of a thrill, tasted unbelievably good.
As a side not the food included rice balls and halloumi alongside the more Blytonian chicken, salad, ham and egg pie.
And the second reference is a direct one:
With noise and chatter, the campsite came together in a clearing and it was undeniably fun – and a little Famous Five – to be on an island.
In her author’s note she also acknowledged Blyton again:
I have always loved boarding school books so much. Malory Towers, St Clare’s…
I’ve actually read this before but somehow did not note the two Famous Five references in the physical book, I got them when listening to the audiobook, though!
In the Flatshare Leon works nights as a nurse, and Tiffy works day time hours at a publishing house. That means they share the flat (and the bed) but never see each other in person. So they write a lot of notes to each other instead.
Leon writes:
Seems you’ve been shopping too. I like the blue and white dress on the back of the door. Looks like the sort of one the Famous Five might wear for going on adventures.
The only one who’d wear a dress would be Anne, but perhaps Leon didn’t read the Famous Five, or has forgotten their names.
Later Tiffy is getting read for an unknown adventure that Leon has invited her on and thinks she will wear
The one Leon calls my Famous Five dress.
This is the first book about the bookshop Loveday Cardew works in – but I read the second, below first. I didn’t realise it was a series else I’d never have done that.
Anyway, there are various flashbacks to Loveday’s childhood.
I could pretend that I was enjoying the sun, which was something that adults seemed to consider a worthwhile use of time. I took The Famous Five book I was reading from my blue school backpack.
Dad had given it to me because he said The Famous Five were the best thing about his childhood. His name was in careful capitals on the inside front cover. I opened it, but I wasn’t reading. I was listening, despite myself.
And
I looked through the pile of my books that were starting to seem too childish for me, or had been reread so often that I wasn’t interested in picking them up again. The Secret Seven had lost their charm, and so had Captain Underpants.
In this there are multiple narrators including Kelly who also now works at the bookshop. Kelly says:
I remember my first time reading a lot of things – even as far back as my first Malory Towers!
The Libraran in question is Sylvia, who has just taken a job at East Mole library in the 1950s. She has big plans to engender a love of reading in the children of East Mole, but has to contend with a boss unwilling to allow change and the various intricacies of village life and gossip.
It appeared that the children at number 3 were not obviously acquainted with any actual books. Sylvia, hoping that this was not to be Swindon all over again, suggested, “How about Enid Blyton?”
“Noddy’s only for the Infants”, Sam said scornfully. “Stupid little twit.”
“Mrs Stewart reads it us”, Jem offered. “I liked it when he was got by the goblins and they took off all his clothes.”
Given that this is the 1950s it actually would have been gollies, and not goblins that the book (Here Comes Noddy Again, 1951) features, as the goblins were a much later edit to the book. I wonder if Salley Vickers had only seen a newer copy, and not realised it had been changed, or deliberately chose not to refer to gollies.
Noddy comes up again later:
Sylvia consented to being fed a banquet of wild flowers until the twins grew bored. Would you like me to read to you?”
“Is it Noddy?”
Sylvia was learning that candour with children was an ally. “Actually, Twins, I don’t like Noddy.”
“Noddy hasn’t got a willy”, Jem confided. “We saw when the goblins took all his clothes off.”
And then a more oblique (and perhaps unintentional) reference:
“That ash’s dropped half its branches on your roof – looks like most of the tiles are gone.”
Then in the author’s note Salley Vickers writes a bit about Blyton.
One last word: Miss Blackwell [the librarian who inspired the character of Sylvia] had a fierce dislike of Enid Blyton and I have given this prejudice to her name-sake. I mention this as people often imagine that a character’s views reflect those of the author, just as they imagine that what a character does is what the author has done or might do… I don’t share Miss Blackwell’s or Sylvia’s opinion of Enid Blyton. While her books are not lastingly important to me, as a child I enjoyed them and I still think that her Famous Five books in particular are good in their own way. It was a great spur to my enthusiasm that my atheist Socialist parents, otherwise unusually tolerant, refused to have Enid Blyton in the house and, as a consequence, I was obliged to read the Famous Five round at a friend’s, where I was also allowed Chocolate Spread sandwiches made with sliced white bread.
My parents also outlawed the Beano and the Dandy on the, I now suspect, spurious grounds that the printers of these comics were forbidden to be unionised – happily, I was able to read those in wet playtimes at school. This had the interesting effect that for many years sliced white bread, Enid Blyton, Dennis the Menace and God formed an unholy alliance in my subconscious, one that I naturally wanted to be part of. I have lost my taste for sliced white bread and chocolate spread but I still have time for Enid Blyton, who got children to read who might not have done so otherwise and for that alone she deserves praise. But in any case, tastes differ, thank goodness, and not even the best children’s librarian is, or should be expected to be, perfect.
And so we have another varied selection of Blyton references. No doubt I’ll find another one as soon as this goes up!
I was away on holiday last week, which is why there were no posts! Came back to some freshly ripe strawberries, massively grown potato plants and still growing sunflower stems (though they had flopped over and needed propping up.)
Our holiday was in Newtonmore, home of the Wildcat Experience and the Highland Folk Museum.
A Scottish Wildcat, for those who haven’t seen one before!
I’ll share more about it when it comes to my July round up, for now, back to regularly scheduled content.
Enid Blyton references in other works of fiction, part 4
and
Reading The Castle of Adventure to Brodie
“Oh BLOW!”
– Brodie any time something doesn’t go his way.
I love he’s picked that up – along with saying Fusty Musty Dusty any time he hears any of those words.
Previous letters pages can be found here.
(I have chosen three letters from overseas this time so that our far-away readers may know that they can share this page too.)
A letter from Joyce Simmers and the other four members of her F.F. Club, S. Canterbury, New Zealand.
Dear Enid Blyton,
A short while ago my four friends and I held a small sale to raise money for your little Children’s Home. We sold dolls’ clothes, toffee apples, books and magazines and home-made sweets, and we had a Peep-Show and charged a penny a peep. To our amazement and delight we found we had raised £2 10S. 0d., which we are forwarding to you.
Yours sincerely,
Joyce Simmers,
and the four other F.F. Club members.
(I wanted our F.F. members in this country to know what F.F. members do overseas, Joyce, so I have printed your letter. You win the prize this week!)
A letter from Maureen Brooks, Helmond, Holland.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I am a Scottish girl living in Holland, where they make much more fuss of birthdays than in England. At school here you take a bag of sweets on your birthday. Every one in your class gets a sweet, and then you take two or three of your friends with you to the other classes, and in each class you give the teacher and some of your friends a sweet.
With love from
Maureen Brooks.
(I think this sounds rather nice, Maureen – especially if there happens to be a lot of birthdays !)
A letter from Rajindar, Dar-es-Salaam.
Dear Enid Blyton,
The other day when I went to the book-shop, I saw a little girl looking at the books. She saw my F.F. badge and asked me what it was for. I told her all about it and she wanted to be a member. I’ve given the F.F. address to 68 girls and they all wish to be members.
Yours sincerely,
Rajindar.
(No wonder our F.F. membership goes up, Rajindar. Good luck to
you!)
A theme this week of letters from over-seas, of which I’m sure she received a great many.
Joyce’s letter perhaps reads a little differently today as modern use of peep show generally means something far less innocent.
I’m a fan of Holland’s sweet sharing traditions on birthdays, it sounds fun!
And Rajindar sounds like they did good work, drumming up lots of new members for the Famous Five Club!
That’s us halfway through 2024 already!
I finished 19 books in June which takes me to 39 ahead of schedule. I doubt I can keep up the pace, but if I did… having read 88 books in 6 months, I’d end up reading 176 by the end of the year. Pretty unlikely, and I’m definitely not going to up my goal that much!
What I have read:
I ended the month still working through:
How was your June?
First post of July! The weather continues to be Not Very Good, with plenty of rain and wind and not all that much sunshine. Our strawberries are doing well, though, and our potatoes have done a lot of growing so here’s hoping there’ll be something edible at the end of it.
The schools came off on Friday for six weeks, so hopefully we’ll find lots of things to keep us busy!
June round up
and
Letters to Enid 52
I’m not very green-fingered so I’m going to keep on showing off the stuff I have managed to grow here, while feeling amazed that nothing’s been destroyed by slugs or eaten by birds. (Yet.)
These two books we read from April 17 to May 8. That’s only 11 days a book, which is not bad considering I can’t read t him every night due to my working pattern.
We began with the question of What’s Dorset? I limited my answer to an area in England, and left off that it will have the same Cornish-esque-ish accent I use for all the south west parts of England.
Although George is not with the boys at the beginning of the story he gasped when they refer to Georgina and said He called her Georgina! She won’t answer! He was dismayed when I said that it was OK because George wasn’t with them.
He groaned. So it’s just the boys? That means there won’t be an adventure! (So at least he’s equally disappointed by members of the Five being missing, not just the boys.)
Julian also says the four of us, which Brodie immediately corrected with FIVE!!! before Dick could say the same thing.
Looking at the illustration of the boys (I always pause reading and move the book closer so he can examine every illustration) he said of Dick’s hat It’s a round hat like the patterned ones those people wear and they hold the shaker things and do this… whereby he waved some imaginary shakers.
Yes, he meant Mexican people with sombreros and maracas, and he did some more imaginary maraca shaking.
He laughed as Julian tried to roll over asleep against the gate.
He thought Old Grandad’s supposed loud voice sounded like the other guy’s voice from the last story. That would be Morgan, then, even though he was supposed to sound Welsh.
We had a disagreement as he didn’t like the poppy heads referred to. People have heads apparently, not flowers. I said lots of other things have heads, like beds and boats. Windows don’t, he pointed out rather smugly. Which is true, aggravatingly.
Of the twins in the illustration he said They’re small and so the same! They’re very the same! Later he pointed out that Dick and one of the twins are wearing watches, like twins – and to be fair the twins are a bit like younger versions of Dick. He got a bit stuck on twins and also told me that he and one of the teachers at school were like twins as they had the same medal on one time…
He said that jackdaws don’t made good pets. They go CHACK CHACK too loudly all the time. He chacked a lot doing this chapter, in fact. Every time Nosey chacked (in anger, or like he was laughing) Brodie provided the sound effect.
For some reason for most of the book he didn’t really like old grandad but he couldn’t find a word for what was wrong with him. He also didn’t like it at the end where Old Grandad swings the sword around as it was a bit much(!).
He has a dog, though! he said looking at the picture of Grandad and Timmy. I asked him what he thought of the Harries and he said I don’t think they get along. That’s why they never smile.
Tune in next time for tales of bad American accents…
But first he said he’d like to milk a cow but he doesn’t know how. You don’t just… squeeze it, do you? I reminded him (or tried to at least) of the fake cows he’s milked at a couple of farm/play places.
Looking at at the picture of Junior facing off against Timmy he declared That’s not George! He wasn’t wrong, but he seemed quite incensed that someone other than George should be drawn beside Timmy.
He desperately wanted to know what the old tool they found was and, as is so often the case, was disappointed that I couldn’t figure it out from the absolutely zero clues given.
He misheard me read Strong as an ox, which led to this bizarre conversation.
Brodie: Strong as an auk? A great auk??
Me: No, an ox.
Brodie: An AUK?
Me: No! AN OX. You know, like OXEN?
Brodie: A toxin??
Me: OKsen.
Brodie: Boxin? Soxin? What’s oxen?
Me (wearily): Like cows… Here, look at the pictures on Google.
Thank god for smartphones and search engines! It was funny that his mind went to auks as he first heard of them from The Island of Adventure. He’s starting to make the same associations as me, I think.
Once the twins unbent he demanded to know which was which – right before they explain who is who.
One night I realised that we forgot to buy macaroons after talking about them last time. He’s still not convinced he will like them – this post I think proves otherwise. He asked if he could have chocolate macaroons or ones with jam in them. I suggested we try making some and he was even more suspicious. (We did in fact remember to buy macaroons later and – unsurprisingly – he declared that he loved them and ate at least half the pack. And I think we will have a go at making our own in the holidays.)
He was aghast to hear of Finniston CASTLE!? He didn’t who the Normans were and even though I tried to explain they were a group of people a bit like Scottish people are Scots he said Norman, like naughty Norman price? (From Fireman Sam in case anyone doesn’t get the reference.)
He asked how a stone castle burnt to the ground not long before George did, and wondered what Mr Finniston meant by full of prayer, before the girls did. That was a hard one to explain. But he reminded me that I don’t believe in Jesus, not unless he has two hearts and that’s how he came back.
I asked him what he thought was in the dungeons. Skeletons? There must have been dead bodies around. Why were there no skeletons in George’s dungeons? That doesn’t make any sense.
He suggested there would be a mark in the grass where the castle had stood, as things always leave a mark where they’ve been. The darker green grass that they fins was, according to him, still recovering from being flattened by the stones of the castle. Grass dies when it has things on top of it. I don’t think that he can comprehend that the grass has had at least a few hundred years to recover.
He didn’t ask what horse brasses are (obviously didn’t feel like that was important) but I asked him if he knew, and he guessed horse shoes. I showed him pictures from a James Herriot children’s book of a horse done up with brasses on and he asked why would you want to buy weird things like that?
He was confused by the idea of embers and bricks in people’s beds, in case they got burnt (which I guess is a risk!) and he wanted to know why they didn’t just use plastics if they didn’t have rubber for hot water bottles.
Every time the Five mentioned not letting Junior know (about the castle, the treasure, etc) he sighed and said Junior already knows! I think he forgets sometimes that the characters don’t always know the same things that we do.
He argued with Dick about moles, saying they are not very large and showing me with his hands the size he thought they were.
He couldn’t guess what oyster shells and bones meant specifically, but he did guess that it meant the castle was near. I really notice now how good Blyton was at knowing when to explain things – usually via the younger Anne or Bets type characters – as so often Brodie asks what a kitchen midden etc is and the next paragraph is Anne asking the same question. Obviously lots of things were common at the time the books were written and didn’t need explained, but have to be explained now.
He was concerned that the Five would be lying when they said they wanted to dig because they’d found old bones and shells. I had to explain that they weren’t really lying they were just not giving all the information i.e. they thought that there would he treasure there. I love that he’s picked up on their scrupulous honestly though!
He was astounded by the £250 payment for digging (he has no better a grasp of large amounts of money than of time passing, and doesn’t quite understand that a pound in the 50s isn’t the same as a pound today). He was even more astounded when I worked out that with inflation it would probably have been £7200 today, and with the further £250/7200 the Philpots could probably afford the new tractor they wanted.
In a similar vein he declared it would take a hundred and thirty two hours to dig into the cellars. A hundred and fifty!
It took some prompting to think about it but he did eventually work out that they could find the secret passage and get into the dungeons before the men!
With the dagger and the ring he said It was the woman! meaning Lady Finniston, thinking she dropped them in the passage as she fled – not a silly guess at all. He thought it would be easy for the Five to just squeeze down the rabbit hole, though.
Around this point we found a stain on the pages of the book, like a drop of tea or coffee dripped on one page then mirrored on the other when the book was closed.
He demanded to know what it was (he’s very against damaging books!) and I said someone must have spilled something on it. Like tea! he said. No, like COFFEE! It must have been Gran when she was reading it. Grandad must have made her coffee and she went to get it from the machine and she must have splashed it on the book!
Many of my hardbacks were indeed my mum’s but not this one, she had the Knight paperback, and anyway she wouldn’t have been drinking coffee made by my dad when she was reading the Famous Five as a child. So she’s off the hook!
He was not happy about having to stop reading for the night, just as the enter the passage as it was getting exiting and to the actual adventure.
He instantly knew that the feathers they found came from the jackdaw. I think he and I both thought that the Five were being pretty stupid not to realise that straight away. He also knew that the weird noise was the jackhammer the men are using before the Five worked it out.
He loves knights so he was very excited by the armour and kept wanting to know if there were shields as well.
He couldn’t work out what had spilled from the chest, even looking at the illustration. He suggested Bells? a dog??
He found it really exciting when the children went to tell everyone what they’d found, and didn’t think they should have to wash up first (but then he never thinks he should have to wash his hands before a meal regardless of what he’s been doing first!).
It took me a while to get him to understand how underhand Mr Henning was being when he undervalued the treasure.
He asked me – before we’d even finished the book – if the next one was going to be about them uncovering all the treasure and selling it and was really disappointed when I said no. That’s been a common theme, actually, as Blyton regularly wraps up the story a bit too early for him!
Things he didn’t know about also included sacks of meal, (thinking of actual meals in a sack) meat pie (again) saying they should just have called it a pork pie if that’s what it is, slew, shelling peas, and myxomatosis.
There wasn’t so much to laugh at in this book – he wasn’t that amused by George and Timmy going for Junior in bed for example, but he did find Timmy falling off the Land Rover was pretty funny.
At the end he said he LOVED this story. His favourite characters were his usual (he literally said my usual), Julian, Dick, George, not Anne, Timmy and Snippet and the Jackdaw, Mr Philpot and Mrs Philpot and Grandad, and the person from the shop (Mr Finniston, not Janie or her mum), Mr Henning and Junior, though he agreed that they were awful so maybe more a loved-to-hate them more than actually liked them. He couldn’t choose a favourite part as he said the whole book was so exciting.
As for me? I thought the accents went OK. The Generic American Accent definitely slid into a deep Southern sort of drawl, but it wasn’t quite as hard to switch between Cornish and American now that there’s no Welsh in the mix. However it was hard to do Dick doing an American accent as mine is already so bad.
He was disappointingly not that excited about the lighthouse! He thought it was a weird place to go.
In fact he wasn’t as keen as usual to read the next Famous Five, and said he was bored of them. I pretty much ignored that and said we’d give the next one a go. Unfortunately I forgot just how long it takes them to actually GET to the lighthouse! It was over six chapters. I kept (inaccurately) saying They’ll be off to the lighthouse in just one more chapter… but eventually, on our fourth night of reading they actually got to Demon’s Rocks and he became as enthralled as ever.
He was pragmatic about the household problems – The Five will just have to go and stay somewhere else.
He liked to provide the car noises as mine apparently weren’t very good. The cheek! My seagull noises also didn’t impress.
I showed him Beachy Head lighthouse, as although he said I know what a lighthouse is! I wanted him to understand about the rocks and it being out to sea. He asked Is that the real lighthouse from the book? and I told him that it’s my theory that she based it on that one. He declared then that it was that very lighthouse, end of discussion.
He loved Jeremiah Boogle’s name and kept correcting me every time the text called him just Jeremiah. Jeremiah BOOGLE! It got to the point I was actually adding Boogle in just to keep him happy (when I remembered, anyway).
He kept asking Who’s talking? when Blyton addresses the Five (which she does quite a few times) as clearly he can’t tell the difference between me making comments and Blyton’s voice!
When Anne suggests the things they should buy when they go out the next day he interrupted with And post cards!
He was suspicious at Jeremiah (Boogle) saying he had story – namely that we wouldn’t hear it. It always says that, and then we don’t hear it. But in this case we do get to hear the story.
He guessed it was the policeman shouting up the stairs. Perhaps aided by me using the same voice as I’d used for him earlier. In my best Cornish-ish accent, naturally.
From the picture he thought Mischief had found a ring – obviously he doesn’t think Soper drew coins well! And after a moment the treasure!
Whenever the Five mentioned looking for the other way into the underground passages – or wondered how they were going to get out of the lighthouse he (with increasing despair) said Down the shaft! But he did also accuse the locksmith of coming along and locking them in.
He agreed with Julian that they had been in worse fixes than this – he thought that being trapped underground at Finniston Farm (or – the place where the thing burnt down as he described it) – with NO FOOD AT ALL – was worse.
He asked what kind of hammer hits a bell – like a tool hammer?
Has anyone heard the bell/seen the light? No, I don’t think so. He’s such a pessimist!
His favourite characters were: Dick, George, Timmy, Jeremiah Boogle, the policeman, the doctor(?), Timmy, the boy, Mischief… I had to remind him about Julian!
He liked the book but was disappointed that we didn’t get to see the boys recover the rest of the treasure. Who’s saying goodbye? Why is she saying good bye, it cant be the end, they haven’t found the treasure yet?
He also wasn’t too impressed with the lighthouse as he likes it best when the Five have a proper adventure – camping and surviving outdoors. The lighthouse was just like staying in a house. His favourite part was them ringing the bell and lighting the lamp – which is my favourite part too.
Things we looked up this time: The lighthouse at Alexandria. He asked if it was still there before Dick did.
Fiona
pippastef
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