Malory Towers on TV series three – Episodes one and two

Posted on May 22, 2024 by Fiona

I’m late to the party but I’ve finally started watching series 3 of Malory Towers. I will try to make this more than a lengthy summary of what happens in the first two episodes but I am promising nothing.

Episode one – new arrivals

There is a new girl, or new girls pretty much every term at Malory Towers and from the book we know that the third form’s newcomers are Wilhelmina (Bill) Robinson and Zerelda Brass. I had already read that Zerelda doesn’t appear, so let’s dive in and see who and what do appear.

Book readers will remember, I’m sure, that Darrell’s father drives her and Zerelda to school for the start of term. The episode begins with a beautiful vintage car driving through some lovely countryside, with the sound of girls’ voices played over it. At first I thought that Darrell was talking to Felicity (forgetting she doesn’t join until Darrell’s in her fourth year) but it’s Mary-Lou and Gwen, and it’s Gwen’s father driving.

Bill, on Thunder, passes them so we get our first glimpse of her – and of Gwen’s outfit. Has she forgotten she’s a school girl? What on earth is she wearing?

The outfit is somewhat explained when the new teacher – Miss Johnson – mistakes Gwen for a sixth-former – mimicking Zerelda being mistaken for a teacher. The other girls remark that Miss Johnson is someone new for Gwen to go all silly over which is a nice reference to the books.

The main storylines of this episode

First up we have a lot of Gwen-centred story. Mr Lacey is about to join the board of governors for the school, making Gwen think even more of herself and throw her weight around quite unbearably. I did wonder if she was also doing so prematurely, as it would have been deserved if it fell through at the last minute, but no, it seems as if he is on the board.

There is a little of the interesting relationship between Gwen and her father – but nothing quite as cold and mean from her father as there was last series. He does say oh, to have had a son in Gwen’s earshot which is pretty rude and you can tell from her face it has upset her. He is slightly kinder in his later conversation with her, urging her to take advantage of what Malory Towers has to offer…. become someone the school can be proud of, which is somewhat similar to Miss Grayling’s message to her girls.

Then there is Bill. Bill’s horse obsession is even more apparent on screen than in the books. She takes a horse blanket to bed so she can smell Thunder’s horsy smell, and is in trouble for how much time she spends in the stables from the first day of lessons.

This is bulked out by the idea there may be horse thieves around (Ron, who now works in the stables as well as the gardens, has been hearing lots of odd noises around the stables) – I can see her getting into a LOT of trouble as it seems inevitable that she’ll be running off to the stables at all hours of the day and night to make sure that her beloved Thunder is OK.

Also added is Bill being behind the other girls, so far behind that Miss Johnson wants her to drop down to the second form – meaning that Thunder would have to go home. This is resolved (with Darrell’s help) by Bill getting extra tuition, but that leaves her with even less time to see Thunder!

Things that I liked:

Irene forgets/loses her health certificate much to Matron’s irritation – another lovely nod to the books. Sadly we don’t get to see where she had put it for safekeeping.

Bill’s line give me a horse over horse-power any day.

Bill is mistaken for her own groom (it is assumed that a groom will ride the horse over and Wilhelmina will come in a car) and this is quite a funny scene as the girls are asking her if the Wilhelmina is hoity-toity.

Bill going to see Miss Grayling in her pyjamas as Matron told her she had to change out of her jodhpurs and wouldn’t listen to her explaining that her trunk hadn’t arrived yet.

Gwen getting a bit of comeuppance when Darrell and Bill shout boo at her (not knowing it’s her) and make her fall into the manure pile – and Mr Lacey’s obvious amusement at it too.

Darrell’s word blindness gets brought up again – so the writer’s have not forgotten about it! (Though I suspect it’s just so she and Bill can have tutoring together and go up against Miss Johnson.)

Things I didn’t quite understand

Just like in the books, Sally has the mumps and will miss the first few weeks of term. In the book this allows Darrell to spend more time with Alicia and be led into bad habits and behaviours, and sets up for Alicia and Sally to be fighting for Darrell’s friendship later on. Alicia doesn’t appear in this series so I’m wondering where they’re going to take this – it seems odd to not have Sally back unless it is actually going to be a bigger part of the plot.

Gwen – well, I rarely understand Gwen. The series has done its best to make her both likeable, pitiable and plain evil, and she continues to seesaw quite a lot here.

She immediately goes up against Bill – what have you done to your hair? and sneaks her horse blanket into the wash so that it loses the smell.

Yet she also tries to go for head of form, seeming to believe that there will be girls willing to nominate her despite her all her previous behaviours. The rest of the girls are nice and they seem pretty willing to forgive – but I can’t see them wanting Gwen in charge of them.

Miss Johnson, in general. She is not the horsey teacher of the books. (I always felt this was a good parallel  – in the book Bill and Miss Johnson butted heads, and Bill thought that Miss Johnson should be more understanding, as a fellow horse-lover. But in the end Miss Johnson saves Thunder and earns Bill’s real respect and admiration. A non-horsey teacher feels a bit different).

I also couldn’t work out her motivations. From her facial expressions it looked as if she was enjoying punishing Bill and the idea of putting her into a lower form – there were several rather evil smiles. Yet she offered to give the extra tuition – yes she was put on the spot a little by Darrell, and in front of Miss Grayling too, but it seemed a genuine and kind offer.

All I can think of is that she wants to keep Bill away from the stables – perhaps she (or someone she knows) is hiding out/hiding something at the stables. If she can’t keep Bill away from them using the rules then she’ll have Thunder sent home to keep Bill away?

Episode two – the trials

I see trials and I think witches. But no, it’s lacrosse.

The main storylines

There is a mystery surrounding Mary-Lou. Suddenly she is wearing scarves and jumpers, despite the warm weather and seems preoccupied and is avoiding the other girls.

And, as per the title, the third year lacrosse trials are scheduled. Darrell is captain so she has some responsibility but Miss Johnson is in charge.

What looks like a third, minor storyline actually turns out to be part of one of the above, and that is Ron finding a girls’ uniform dress buried in the vegetable patch.

Things I liked

Gwen being true to form and hiding the lacrosse balls in an attempt to derail the trials.

The little look between Miss Grayling and Matron about how [periods] stop around my age – I’ve no doubt that the target audience would not understand it, but older woman will!

Things I didn’t understand

Obviously I never went to a 1950s boarding school but I didn’t really get the plan to trick Gwen into signing the trials sign-up sheet.

Firstly, it seemed to me like all she had to do was say she was tricked into putting her name down and she doesn’t want to take part. (She does, actually say this, but Miss Johnson, continuing to be weird, won’t accept that.)

If that fails, then Gwen is more than capable of faking an injury or turning up but performing badly.

Miss Johnson’s behaviour continues to be bizarre. She gives the girls five minutes to find the lacrosse balls (blaming Darrell, as the captain, as she is supposed to have everything organised) and then when they do find them she tells them it’s too late and the trials are off, there isn’t enough time. Surely however much time she set aside minus the 5-6 minutes is enough? She then agrees to hold them later, but not all the girls who signed up turn up – Gwen and Mary-Lou are still talking to Ron. She refuses to let them try out as not all the girls are there – but what does it matter? The girls who don’t turn up don’t get to try out and don’t make the team. Why punish all the rest of the girls?

I have, since watching, remembered a comment I had seen about Miss Johnson that could explain it all – I won’t say what it is here as it would be a bit of a spoiler (assuming anyone is slower to have watched these episodes than me!), but I will be keeping it in mind as I watch.

Why Mary-Lou was using Gwen’s hairbrush in one scene – deliberately as far as the writers were concerned, as Gwen catches her.

Things I am ambivalent about

The reveal/resolution of Mary-Lou’s problem.

I think it is important to have periods be something we can talk about openly – and that boys/men are aware of them. There’s no need in this day and age for people to be squeamish or embarrassed. So there is a place for realistic period-related storylines in TV programmes aimed at adolescent (and preadolescent) girls.

Saying that, I thought the way it was included was ridiculously heavy-handed. Mary-Lou, out of nowhere, develops plague-like spots on the back of her neck and is completely unaware of periods despite being close to her gran who appeared to be a modern woman (relative to the times).

Gwen, on her wild pendulum of behaviour, is extremely kind when she figures out what is going on and explains things to Mary-Lou. Strangely she both calls it “the curse”, and also reassures Mary-Lou that it’s all super-easy and nothing to ever worry about. Slightly conflicting, no?

The worst part is that Ron – a teenage boy – wanders past their discussion and casually asks if its Mary-Lou’s monthlies. He found the blood-stained dress so an enlightened young man may make that leap of logic, but would a 1940s teenage boy really start talking about periods to the school girls of the school he works at? As above, I’m all for men being comfortable with buying period products for any of the women in their lives, but this just strikes me as SO unlikely for the time period (no pun intended) that it really jarred.

We are also supposed (I assume) to laugh along with the girls at Matron for being so embarrassed herself when she’s asked to deliver a lecture on biology and anatomy – it’s not explicitly said but it’s obvious it’s supposed to be about periods. It was actually embarrassing, though, to see a grown woman – a matron, who cares for teenage girl’s health – no less, give a lecture that amounted to tadpoles turn into frogs, girls turn into women, and hormones… cause unidentified “changes” to the body.

The actual lacrosse playing was fairly poor. The books always made it sound so fast-paced and exciting (even the trials). On screen Gwen stands with the ball at her feet while her opponent (an unnamed, non-speaking part) moves side to side behind Darrell, apparently held off by Darrell’s tiny sidesteps. Just go round her! This goes on for long enough for Darrell to have a conversation with Gwen before any attempt to get the ball is made. It may be that until the ball is picked up it’s not in play and couldn’t be grabbed by the opponent but it just looked so silly.

Completely unrelated to anything else I just wanted to share this shot of the gardens as they’re beautiful – the series uses lots of really lovely views of the school and grounds between scenes. In real-life this is Hartland Abbey in Devon.

 

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Monday #580

Posted on May 20, 2024 by Fiona

It has been a bit of a rollercoaster weekend for us – it started out with a leaking shower/bath affecting the flat below us, moved on to us finding a lost cockatiel which Brodie named Kiki, and then ended up with Brodie being unwell.

But we’ve had some sunshine, and hopefully “Kiki” has recovered now that she’s being looked after by the SSPCA. So it wasn’t all bad!

Malory Towers on TV – Series three

and

Reading the Adventure Series to Brodie

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Reading the Famous Five to Brodie part 7

Posted on May 18, 2024 by Fiona

We have continued to get through the Famous Five books very quickly. We read Plenty of Fun over the last two weeks of February, and then Secret Trail lasted us just 10 days in mid March.

Five Have Plenty of Fun

This book he got out one day after lunch so it was ready for bedtime. That night I started reading the title to see what he would come up with.

Five Have… lots of adventures.
Five Have Plenty… of adventure!

He asked why they weren’t off camping or something as usual, and said they haven’t been at Kirrin for a while.

Then he wanted to know if time really does pass more slowly at Kirrin. I said that it just seemed that way, like how time flies when you’re having fun. He said and they do have lots of fun.

I did my best generic American accent (it comes out quite southern) for Elbur so he guessed that’s who was on the phone later. That shows that at least the accent is consistent if not convincing. At least that’s what I tell myself.

He thought that the middle of the night visit was probably a dream because Elbur didn’t come in his big car. He guessed that the girl would be coming to sleep on the camp-bed. Which girl? The American’s son. (He’s generally not good at getting he/she or other gendered terms right so he comes out with a lot of statements like that.)

His solution to Berta coming was for George to go off camping in her tent.

It turns out he was as bad as Uncle Quentin as I gave him the chance to say Berta every time Quentin forgot, but he forgot too. He did remember by the end of the chapter, though. He has started throwing Berta into any conversations about names since then, so it has obviously stuck now!

He pointed out that Berta’s accent is like Bufflo’s but not so much like her father’s. I thought I was doing the same all purpose American accent though. Around this point I said to Stef that Berta has so many lines I’m going to regret starting an accent for her aren’t I?? Spoiler: yes I regretted it!

His opinion was that Timmy wouldn’t like Sally. He had learned from earlier and shouted BERTA every time uncle Quentin forgot. I wondered how well he’d do with Leslie and Jane. As for me my American accent got ropier by the line, dipping well into a deep “southern drawl” unintentionally.

For some inexplicable reason we started the next reading session with him calling me a hearth rug as if it were an insult along the lines of silly billy. He then explained this as like the hearth rug dog from the last book.

The first line of the chapter contains peace reigned, and I spent an eternity trying to explain what reigned meant and how it is not the same as rained or horse’s reins.

I had major trouble doing Joan’s voice as it kept going American, it didn’t help that her first two lines have Ma’am in them. I had to say Oooh arrr combine harvester, (a la the Worzels, who yes, are from Bristol, which is not Cornwall, but for my purposes is close enough) in my head a bunch of times and still couldn’t get her quite right.

He thought that Julian definitely shouldn’t cut Berta’s hair, and that she should go to a hairdresser. He asked me why I kept saying Berta er Leslie and I had to explain that’s what the book says. When Dick said it’s almost as if we are in the middle of an adventure Brodie did not agree.

He did manage to grasp that Berta became Leslie and shouted Leslie every time someone forgot. But he also tried to correct me whenever I said Berta, when that’s what the narration says.

He thought that Anne must have dreamed the light/sounds on the island.

We had another conversation where I tried to explain what a blazer is (he wears a “polar” [polo] shirt, no tie and no blazer for school).

He decided that it was just visitors on the island. Then he thought the men in the motor boat were fishermen. Bad fishermen!

I eventually almost got the hang of switching between “Cornish” and “American.” Almost.

George got kidnapped and he was quite happy! Now the adventure starts! After that he asked me what the book was called and said that’s the wrong title! George got kidnapped! I don’t think that being kidnapped, or having a relative get kidnapped, sounds like a whole lot of fun to be fair. Hence ideas for my renaming of the book.

I loved this gem:

 I know why it’s always George and not Anne or Dick, because George knows all her father’s secrets.

Brodies suggestion as to how George’s trail ended in the clearing was that there was a secret passage there. He thought it might have been George throwing stones at Julian’s window, but I repeated her speaking in my most “Welsh” voice possible and he did guess the gypsy girl. My rant to Stef was as follows: I mean for goodness sake we’ve just got rid of the American accent and now I have to switch between Welsh and Cornish?? Though it actually was slightly easier to do. At the end he asked me if Spiky meant that he had spiky hair.

He knew the note was from Jo because it was dirty from her dirty hands. He got a bit worried when the boys thought George was at the fair. But how can it be a chapter book if they go and rescue George now!? There were only five chapters to go at this point. He suggested that Julian might get captured during the rescue which he was sure would make the story longer.

He was fairly convinced that they’d find George even though the caravans looked empty. When Timmy brought out the dressing gown he gasped – so George WAS there! When Julian looked at the car he immediately said that’s the car that took away George! and explained it left the blue marks on the tree. I said I was surprised he hadn’t asked about the car having wings but he just said for the wing mirrors of course!

Then he was all concerned again because I’d said there were four chapters left then it was done, and he thought I’d said the series would be finished after this book! He was pretty devastated by the thought of no more Famous Fives.

For some reason he thought that George was the one to speak from the back of the car, giving directions to her own kidnapping location (??). But he did guess that it was Jo following them around the garden/house. Of course I had to explain what coal holes were. He got a bit confused with all the rooms/doors during the rescue – and to be fair, I do too, at least trying to remember them afterwards.

He groaned and slapped a hand to his forehead saying he forgot to phone the police! at the end when Julian goes to bed instead.

Me, I  was just quite glad the Cornish/American/Welsh horror was over.

A few random other things:

He thought the phrase higgledy-piggledy was the funniest thing ever and laughed for ages. Also hilarious was Uncle Quentin’s mustard on toast and he laughed more than he’d laughed at anything else in the books so far. Custard and fish was also funny and he was literally begging for more mix-up stories.

I found it funny when he misheard hotfoot (as in hotfoot it) as hot food and was even more confused seeing as he didn’t know the expression.

In the middle of reading this he came home from school with this picture of the Famous Five, but had forgotten what else he had written on the page. I think his plan was to trick me into thinking this came out of one of my books

Another day he was playing the Famous Five, filling a basket with lovely food for camping. He was concerned, though, that he doesn’t have any dog food for Timmy. Just a (toy) tin of cat food.

Five On a Secret Trail

Incredibly we did not go straight onto this after finishing Plenty of Fun. We actually read the Island of Adventure instead! I’ll write about that in a separate post.

So, back to the Famous Five again. He said he’d missed them – but he still remembered their names! As well as the Five he said he’d also missed the accents – especially Joan’s (despite the bad Cornish/American accent she had last time), what a shame she barely speaks in this book!

When George was yelling about Timmy being hurt he asked What kind of hurt?, and said She’ll have to tell Aunt Fanny, about running away.

I asked him if he would laugh at Timmy with the collar and he did laugh at the picture and said he would laugh if he was George. (Just recently – so several weeks later – he asked me out of nowhere if I would make him a cardboard collar like Timmy. I have not yet, but next time we get anything delivered in a large box I will make one!)

He was devastated that Julian and Dick may not come to Kirrin. But they can’t have an adventure just the two girls! He was nearly in tears!

He thought the sharp sounds were just a car passing. I think I did an OK quack and cluck which he responded to by oinking. I cannot snort like a horse, however. I also can’t whistle so had to just say pheee in a high-pitched voice. My cat noise was the best, I think.

IT’S JO-JO!! he shouted when George found a face in the bush. (Obviously still had The Island of Adventure on his mind. That would have been an interesting cross-over…)

I asked him if he knew what an archaeologist was – Yesss (so very disdainfully!) someone who digs up bones. At the end of chapter George says she would like to see the boy again, wouldn’t you? And Brodie said yes he would.

When the girls first run into the other boy Brodie immediately said it’s not the same boy! in an it’s-so-obvious kind of voice. I said but they look exactly alike?

Well they must be… cousins or something then!

He thought it was the boy in the cottage at night. The next time they were confused by the two boys he said again that it was a different boy. He was concerned that Timmy’s cardboard collar wouldn’t hold up in the rain, and far less bothered about people being around in the night and peering in windows.

When Timmy runs off madly he asked what nineteen to the dozen meant. I asked him who he thought was coming along the lane and he literally yelled JULIAN AND DICK, YEEESSSSSSS! The chapter ended, and then he begged for just one more word. Which was there.

There we are, we’re here, he guessed. (It was actually There was such excitement at the arrival of the boys that at first nobody could make themselves heard.)

We had to discuss what disobedient meant – me using examples of when he is disobedient to really hammer it home.

He upgraded the boys from cousins to brothers but kept on saying it’s two different boys!! He was really exasperated at the Five for being so slow to catch on. I really thought he’d have fallen for it, at least for a while.

He was quite excited by the red colour illustration in the cottage, but thought the lights outside were snow.

He decided the best explanation for the weird lights were that they were the northern lights. Which to be fair are often blues and greens. He guessed the person was watching them through binoculars before Dick told Anne.

We talked about how Julian misled the fake farm woman without actually telling a lie – he has really picked up on the fact that they’re sticklers for honesty and initially accused Julian of lying.

The Five talk about how they miss Joan’s cooking, like sausages and mash and he said but they brought lots of Joan’s food with them. I had to explain it was cold food. But couldn’t they cook it?

As he’s learning to read I spelled out W A D E R in the way he learns his sounds (wih, ah, dih…) and he said wahder, then we did W A T E R, and he said wahter. I corrected the o sound and he got water. I checked and he knew what blueprints were.

I showed him the picture of “Guy” howling in the camp. It’s Guy – he’s fallen over and hurt himself!…

I TOLD YOU THEY WERE BROTHERS!

It turned out he didn’t know what twins are! I had to explain that, and he said he was just going to keep calling them brothers.

George wonders why water rang a bell.

Water! The spring! The secret passage is by the spring!

He got very excited when George notices the stone slabs around the spring. He had some trouble picturing the spring/slab and kept wondering if the water flowed down into the hole/tunnel and if everyone would get wet.

He was frustrated that they couldn’t open the bag there and then and he had to wait to find out what was in it.

I then had to try to explain a swollen ankle. What does swollen mean. Did it blow up like a balloon? Couldn’t he get a big round shoe to fit over it?

He was SO disappointed that the bag seemed to be empty. He thought that Paul had tricked the others, and I had to explain the phrase double-crossed to him. He seemed to twig before the reveal that there was still something in the bag. And as he pointed out – blueprints are just paper so they’d be very light and the bag would feel empty with them in it.

He actually squealed when the inspector pulls back the lining to reveal something blue. He then wanted to know what the blueprints were for – Kirrin cottage?? – and was disappointed that it’s never properly revealed.

After we finished I did the usual questions and he declared that this one was BOOOOOOOOORING! (He was hanging on every word, desperate for more every night so I’m taking that with a massive pinch of salt.) He did say it wasn’t as adventurous as most of the others which is pretty true. His favourite characters were all of them, including specifically Uncle Quentin, Aunt Fanny, Joan (she only gets about three lines which saved me from the Cornish-ish accent!), the one-eyed dog and the policeman.

Things he found particularly funny were the idea of dogs snoring and Timmy “running” as he is pulled up with the rope.

During this book he said he tried to play Famous Five in the night but It didn’t work out well. He put Rocky (from the Paw Patrol) on his legs to be like Timmy. But when he woke up Rocky was on the floor.

 

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Letters to Enid part 48: From volume 3 issue 10

Posted on May 15, 2024 by Fiona

Previous letters pages can be found here.

Letters page from Volume 3, issue 10.
May 11th – 24th, 1955.

OUR

LETTER PAGE

A letter from Nicola Gawn, Bembridge.
Dear Miss Blyton,
My friend and I have a greenhouse in which chickens were kept. Now that my Mummy and Daddy have moved them into a shed, my friend and I put all the plants we own into the greenhouse. Daddy has given me a lot of cuttings from his prize carnations, and we have ferns and cactus, as well as the seeds we bought with our pocket money. We have two boxes of seeds planted and growing, and soon we shall plant four more boxes. The money we get from the flowers we sell will be halved. Half will go to buy new plants, and half we shall send you for the little Blind Children.
Lots of love from,
Nicola Gawn.

(You sent me such an interesting letter Nicola, that I felt I must quote some of it. What a busy gardener you are! Well done.)

A letter from Penelope Gibson, London, S.W.8.
Dear Enid Blyton,
In one of your books called “My Enid Blyton Book” there is a story called “The Beautiful Pattern.” It is about snow crystals and the lovely patterns they make. One day it snowed on my way to school, and I looked at my dark blue coat and there on it were several beautiful six-sided crystals, all different. They were lovely patterns and I could not stop looking at them. Much love from,
Penelope.

(So you saw the lovely six-sided crystal patterns, Penelope! And all different too, as they always are. You were lucky!)

A letter from Mary…….., Purslow Hall, Shopshire.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I have six hens of my own and they lay me about five eggs a day. So I sell the eggs, and I am now sending you 5s. for your little children in the Home.
With lots of love from,
Mary.

(Dear me, even the hens help us, Mary! Thank you for a dear little letter. You didn’t put your surname, but it doesn’t matter, I expect you will know this letter is yours !)

Nicola surely has a green thumb – I wish we’d seen her whole letter though. Obviously the limited space means letters have to be short but I wonder how many are cut down without it being mentioned?

Both Nicola and Mary’s letters were fundraising ones – both mentioning chickens, oddly enough. I wonder where Nicola’s chickens went after the greenhouse (perhaps onto their dinner plates…)

I’m intrigued by Penelope referring to snow crystals rather than snow flakes in her letter – apparently The word “snowflake” is a more general meteorological term, used to describe several different types of winter precipitation, anything from individual snow crystals to agglomerations of many crystals that collide and stick together, falling to earth as flimsy puffballs. So now I know!

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Monday #579

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Fiona

I have the update you have all been waiting for! The sun finally came out! It was hot! We made it to the beach and even into the water!

Which got me thinking about bathing. I was just paddling but Brodie lay in the shallows and splashed around. Not swimming, but bathing?

The Five bathe a lot – I always see this as just lounging around in the water, perhaps playing a little, floating, splashing, and so on. Not really swimming, at least, not seriously – though online definitions include swimming too.

It’s a funny word – made funnier by me typing and reading it over and over until it has lost meaning. I can see why it is used – we have bathing for bathing eyes, wounds, sore feet etc, so the general use of immersing in water works for going into water. But it’s so close to bath that I’m sure some children are reading it as bath-ing rather than bathe-ing. I don’t remember if I did that – and Brodie has never asked what it means – I think it’s fairly obvious from the context.

I never quite pictured the Five making these sorts of faces when bathing, though.

Anyway – here’s hoping for more bathing weather to come as it’s cooler and hazy today with rain forecast tomorrow.

Letters to Enid part 48

and

Reading the Famous Five to Brodie part 7

Then, without even a towel to dry themselves on, they tore down to the lake-side, eager to plunge into its blue coolness.

It was very warm at the edge of the water, but further in, where it was deep, the lake was deliciously cold. All the children could swim strongly, and they splashed and yelled in delight. The bottom of the lake was sandy, so the water was as clear as crystal.

When they were tired they all came out and lay on the warm sandy bank of the lake. They dried at once in the sun. Then as soon as they felt too hot in they went again, squealing with joy at the cold water.

‘What gorgeous fun to come down here every day and bathe!’ said Dick. ‘Get away, Timmy, when I’m swimming on my back. Timmy’s enjoying the bathe as much as we are, George.’

I had to go with a bathing quote obviously, was going to use one from Five Run Away Together but there isn’t an accompanying image. So instead here’s a quote, and image, from Five Go Off in a Caravan where they do lake-bathing rather than sea-bathing.

 

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Reading the Famous Five to Brodie part 6

Posted on May 4, 2024 by Fiona

We have been making our way pretty quickly through the series, two chapters a night at least five nights a week really adds up! These three books were read between January 10th and February 16th of this year.

Five Have a Wonderful Time

Looking at the front cover before we started Brodie predicted that the Five would be going to a castle this time.

When it came to Bufflo and his whip he said What, he cracked it, broke it into pieces? and so I had to find some videos of people cracking whips to demonstrate what it really meant.

He liked the different bird calls early in the book and went to bed one night singing a little bit of bread and no cheese.

I tried to see if he would remember the significance of eyebrows when it came up, but he just said What? We ALL have eyebrows.

One night he begged and begged for another chapter as he just had to hear about the fire eating performance. (He complains when I stop reading/begs for more pretty much every evening but this was to an even greater degree than normal.)

His idea as to how the face/the scientist got up into the tower was that maybe his experiments got him up there. I asked what sort of experiments, maybe something that made him fly and he said yes… that or maybe he went up and then piled up lots of stones to block the way.

I asked him if he knew what a pitcher was and he said yes, a thing you draw and hang on the wall. I had a bit of a time trying to enunciate the difference between picture and pitcher for him and he couldn’t say pitcher himself. He did understand that the chocolate wrapper wasn’t as old as the castle, though. When they came out into the gallery he said I know what that is, a place with lots of pictures on the walls.

He had trouble with Pottersham’s name – What’s his name? Poppersham? Poshersham?

When we finished it he said That was my real favourite. Well they’re all my favourite mostly.

He liked Bufflo the most, and he liked Jo a lot. He liked the (awful) accents. And the fire eater because fire eaters are so good. And then the snake man.

He liked the exciting part most, not the boring part where they were just going off. The adventure part was best. So far he’s liked all the buildings that have been included in it, the castles and stuff.

He just likes it when people get hurt. But just pretend not real. So he liked the bit with the snake attacking the men.

He thought Timmy getting stew dropped on his nose was funny.

Five Go Down to the Sea

What will we read tonight? The Famous Five. Of course!

Julian lists the things they like to do on holidays and Brodie added and have adventures, and was not at all impressed by them all making a vow to ignore any adventures that come up.

He thought, though, that they’re going to be too joyful and say yes to the adventure – and he threatened that he was not going to hear the book unless they were going to have an adventure.

One night he started talking about the other wreckers and I couldn’t figure what he meant then I realised he meant the Barnies. He totally thought that the Barnies were all wreckers and kept on calling them the wreckers.

His other thought was that there’s a thing on the old house which collects lighting to power up a light or stores it in a jar and that’s what old grandad sees. He was definitely closer with his first guess!

The boys follow the mystery man back to the farm and after thinking about it for a minute Brodie said I can’t guess who it is… oh I do know but I can’t remember his name. The one who makes the funny noises. What’s he doing out in the night?

I had to explain the idea of two men wearing the horse suit to which he said that doesn’t sound comfortable!

He asked asked if the girls were going to go to the tower the second time, or get left behind again.

He thought that picking currents had something to do with electricity. He wasn’t that bothered by the reveal of Mr Penruthlan having no teeth, but I think he thought it was a joke. Then he did seem a bit surprised when I told him it was true.

He thought seeing a wrecking would be fun, there’d be a wreck to explore like the first book and all the loot! I called him bloodthirsty and he was very very offended and upset that I’d used bad words, called me a bad word as a child.

He found Clopper hilarious, was killing himself laughing, so I thought he’d do the same or more for Ju and Dick’s turn in the suit, but he didn’t seem to find that so funny. He did worry that they’d be trapped forever though.

There was almost a tantrum when I stopped reading as they arrived at the old house with the tower, he was desperate to know if someone was still there.

He then decided that old grandad was one of the wreckers. He ticked off the following facts on his fingers. Who has seen the light? Grandad. Who knew about the wrecking? Grandad. Who knows the wreckers way? Grandad. It’s the only explanation!

He suggested the light-man could have come down the chimney by helicopter drop.

There was lots of cheering when Yan rescued the Five from the cave.

When we finished he said that he didn’t like Sea so much because there weren’t any shipwrecks. But he liked the two secret passages. His favourite characters were George, Julian, Dick, and Yan in that order. He also liked the grown ups because they helped the Five sometimes.

Five Go to Mystery Moor

Brodie was very concerned that the Five couldn’t have an adventure if they were not together. But he thought if the girls did some camping they might bump into the boys. Or there might be a secret passage between their camp sites… He predicted that the boys would like Henry, and told me to stop shouting so much, but George kept being angry!

He wondered if the someone who was quite near the Five’s camp was the one Bartle who was still left. (If it was she’d probably have been a ghost by then!)

I had to explain hearth rugs to him and also that rugs for sleeping are more like blankets than carpets.

Interestingly he was adamant that aeroplanes weren’t around in the Famous Five’s time as it was a long, long time ago. I’ve probably explained to him so many times that the books were set a long time ago, and that’s why so many things are different and he’s gotten a bit carried away with how old they are.

He thought the light might be a signal to the plane, then that maybe it was the gypsies looking for the children if the sniffy boy had told on them.

Julian gives the others three guesses as to what’s in the parcels. I let Brodie answer. Tartan. Cheese. Feathers. Ink feathers! (I think he meant quills) When it’s revealed to be paper of some sort he said it might be scientific papers.

Before he settled to sleep one night he asked me Why doesn’t Henrietta just get the police? I mean, it’s a very valid question!

He was pretty adamant, in fact, that the police should be called. When Henry panics about walking to the rescue, I was waited for Brodie to say they should take, horses but he went for calling the police again.

His favourite characters this time: he liked the policemen. Actually he liked all the characters. Apart from Anne. (Poor Anne, I wonder if we will like her better as a tiger?) His favourite part: he couldn’t choose as it was all so exciting. Some books he said are only adventurous for a little bit but this one was exciting all the way through.

He was quite taken with the idea of making patrins, so as I said in February’s round up, we went to the park after school one day (with Stef) and he made his own patrin.

 

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April 2024 round up

Posted on May 2, 2024 by Fiona

It feels like ages since I wrote the February round up – but we are over a week into April I suppose.

What I read

What I have read:

  • Five Go to Billycock Hill
  • Witches & Words (Library Witch Mystery #4) – Elle Adams
  • Toffee Apples and Quail Feathers – Jennifer Worth
  • Letters to the Midwife – Jennifer Worth
  • The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires (Half Moon Hollow #4) – Molly Harper
  • The Midwives’ War – Chrissie Walsh
  • Hauntings & Hardcovers (Library Witch Mystery #4.5) – Elle Adams
  • Five Get Into a Fix
  • Shadows of the Workhouse (Call the Midwife #2) – Jennifer Worth
  • The Flatshare – Beth O’Leary
  • The Vile Victorians – Terry Deary
  • Celtic Cross (Mirabelle Bevan Mystery #9) – Sara Sheridan
  • Storm Christopher (Frogmorton Farm #2.6) – Jodi Taylor
  • Love Spells & Late Fees (Library Witch Mystery #5) – Elle Adams
  • A Brief Atlas of the Lighthouses at the End of the World – Gonzalez Macias
  • Five on Finniston Farm
  • Love Letters at the Borrow a Bookshop (Borrow a Bookshop #4) – Kiley Dunbar

I ended the month still working through:

  • Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
  • Five Go to Demon’s Rocks
  • The District Nurses of Victoria Walk (District Nurses #1) – Annie Groves
  • Poyums – Len Penny
  • Girl Sleuth – Melanie Rehak
  • Five Have a Puzzling Time and Other Stories
Five Have a Puzzling Time and Other Stories, Red Fox, 1997

 

What I watched

  • We are up to ER season 9 now, and are watching the latest series of Taskmaster.
  • Tuesday nights we watched The Irish Wish
  • With Brodie we watched Jumanji

What I did

  • We had our little holiday at the start of April, heading back to Stirling again. Day one was a bit of a write off due to being caught in traffic for well over an hour due to an accident, so we had an emergency Macdonald’s at a service station and arrived in Stirling with not much time to do more than wander around the city centre. We did find a Lego sculpture trail, though. Day two we went through to Glasgow to see The Tall Ship, the Kelvingrove Museum and the Lego Store (of course). We found a Great Auk at the Kelvingrove and Brodie was very excited. Day three we went to Stirling Castle (Brodie loved it and took several hundred photos!). Day four we headed home via a rather snowy Dunblane where we looked at Dunblane Cathedral, Dunblane Museum, saw Andy Murray’s gold post box and had lunch.
  • By Sunday Brodie had come out in chicken pox so we spent most of the second week of the holidays at home, except for going out for a couple of walks. We did a lot of Lego building and some video chats that week.
  • Ewan and I went to the wedding of one of my oldest friends, and luckily we had some sunshine that day!

How was your March?

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Monday #577

Posted on April 29, 2024 by Fiona

I’m having a hard time believing it’s almost May, mostly because it’s STILL chilly. The heating is still on at home, the cosy leggings and coats are still in use. It has been a little warmer now and again when the sun comes out, but that has been rare!

April round up

and

Reading the Famous Five to Brodie, part 6

I decided to look back and see what I was writing about 10 years ago this week – which turned out to be books I’d been buying (I didn’t mention the weather, even once. Strange.)

Last Monday in April

I’m pleased to note that since then I’ve actually read two of the books (the Angela Brazil and the Juliet Marais Louw)!

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Reading the Famous Five to Brodie part 5

Posted on April 27, 2024 by Fiona

Out of interest I checked the dates and we read these three Famous Fives between November 29 and January 9.

Five Get Into Trouble

Naturally Brodie demanded the next Famous Five the night after we finished the last one. I said it’s called “Five Get Into… what?” And he actually guessed Trouble.

The endpapers caught his attention (they don’t always) and he thought the Bentley coming out the gates was a prison or maybe a king’s house.

He was excited when Dick was kidnapped and said The adventure’s starting – and not in a nice way! He likes it when the adventure starts quite early!

He was puzzled by the man changing his clothes and couldn’t come up with any theories. I asked him what he thought the screeching thing was that touched George’s head was, and he said A PARROT! (close!). I gave him a nudge and asked him what the name of the place was and he remembered Owl’s Dene and changed his answer to an owl.

He thought that the Five would find a secret passage to escape Owl’s Dene. Specifically one that was built using the war to shelter people.

His guess was that the hidden snorer was a ghost who could go through walls (isn’t that all ghosts?) but with some prompting (What are the Five good at finding) he said secret passages, so he was almost there. It was very funny though when Julian finally finds the hidden opening and the book asks something like “what was on the other side?” And Brodie says, scornfully, the snorer of course!

I tried to get him to be able to say KMF 102 but he kept forgetting one or other part of it. He did however say “It’s the black Bentley!” any time I said KMF 102. His idea for escape would be to get in the car and drive it at the gates to smash through them.

He thought sparklers were fireworks (I mean totally reasonable!)

His favourite book is now all of them but after a minute thinking said but not the first one. That’s not my favourite anymore. His favourite character was all of them.

A few things he found really funny in this book were Julian telling Timmy he was too heavy because he was full of sandwiches (this made him laugh, and laugh, and laugh, for about three page) and Richard getting his hair all sooty.

Not connected directly to this book, but occurring while we were reading it, was him running round the house shouting I’m a red Indian… (thanks Jock!) and telling his Gran that his favourite books are the Famous Five. He then gave us all roles. He was Julian as always, I was George, Gran was Anne, Grandad was Dick. We were waiting to see who was Timmy but Auntie Kirsty got Aunt Fanny and Ewan was Uncle Quentin.

Five Fall Into Adventure

We went straight into the next book again. Again I asked him to guess the rest of the title. Five Fall Into… Trouble!

He immediately argued that the cook was Joanna and not Joan! Funny how he can’t remember what he did at school earlier but he can remember the name of a minor character from an earlier book (he didn’t notice the Alf/James switch, though.)

He thought that a) the Five having a lazy day is wasting their holiday b) Julian would be lazy and not lock up properly and c) that Julian could beat Jo at spitting damson stones. He also thinks he could beat her though… and now his new favourite word is ragamuffin.

He guessed that the robbers had taken George, but I had to supply the word kidnapped.

When Julian, Dick and Anne are looking for George in the woods and get lost, then Julian hears what he thinks is an animal moving around in the night, Brodie shouted out It’s a moose!! It was Jo.

He couldn’t pick a favourite character this time round – not even all of them. He couldn’t pick a favourite book as he loves them all, but this one wasn’t quite as good as the others. It was less of an adventure. His favourite part was Jo climbing the tower.

Things he thought were hilarious was Anne having to spit sand out of her mouth after Timmy’s digging and Joan’s dream about policeman eating her chocolate cake.

Again, unrelated to the book specifically but at one point he did say Daddy, I’ve just had a SMASHING idea!!

Five on a Hike Together

When Anne talks to Julian about their plans he said Yess!! Now they’re going to go off and they’ll have an adventure!

He thought that the man who only says ar might be a pirate, and the jangling bells were probably cow bells. Because you know, some cows do wear bells. Dick’s weird experience in the night was just a dream.

The next night he changed his mind and thought that Dick hadn’t dreamed it (before he found the bit of paper). I asked him what he thought Saucy Jane might be and he didn’t know. What was the last bit? Maggie? (Pointing to his nose ). No matter how many times I explained it means that Maggie was told about it he then kept saying that Nose must be Maggie’s last name.

One night I was doing some blogging and had to stop for the next chapters of Hike. Brodie asked me what I was doing so I was trying to explain my blog to him. Why don’t you write stories? I said we did some but it was mostly book reviews. That’s boring. So I told him I had been writing about him and his thoughts on the Famous Five like his favourite characters. Julian and Dick he said straight away. And George. But not Anne. She’s not as brave. I talked about how she’s possibly the bravest, doing things even though she’s scared. In the end he said she was all right but the other three and the dog are my favourite. Put that on your website, Mummy.

We were at the final three chapters when he asked how many were still left. But how can we get an adventure in just three chapters? he asked.

He was totally captivated by the jewellery they find  and how beautiful it must have been. So sparkly! He couldn’t quite understand why they had to take it to the police instead of keeping it for themselves. He also felt rather sorry for Dick and Maggie because a broken ankle and being stuck in the marsh can’t have been nice.

Things he found particularly funny were George calling Timmy clumsy and threatening to push him in the lake, Dick’s four sandwiches at once (thankfully he hasn’t tried that himself) and the phrase this is boiling up to be a big adventure.

On the way to school one morning while reading this, he was telling me about his Famous Five dream. In it he was Julian, diving down in the lake. When he came back up, the other Dick and the woman banged their boat into me. He was all right, but red all over, so they went back to the house, found the phone (it was only burnt a little bit on one corner) and called the doctor.

I also showed him pictures of the TV series casts around this time and he was not at all impressed with the actors from either TV series as they don’t look anything like he imagines. Toddy was the worst apparently.

 

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Letters to Enid part 47: From volume 3 issue 9

Posted on April 24, 2024 by Fiona

Previous letters pages can be found here.

Letters page from Volume 3, issue 9. April 27th – May 10th, 1955.

 

OUR

LETTER PAGE

A letter from Busy Bee Janet Orton, Sheffield.
Dear Enid Blyton,
This afternoon we held our 8th Lecture Club Meeting, and I lectured on your Busy Bees.
The lecture made a great impression, for after school I had twelve girls round me all wanting to join! Then I realised I had enough Bees to make a new “swarm” of Busy Bees, and would have to choose a name for it. So we called it the “Hastoe Swarm” after the name of our house.
Lots of love, from
Janet Orton.

(Well done, Janet! I wish I had heard your lecture – it must have been a very interesting one. Congratulations on your Hastoe Swarm.)

A letter from Philip Arnold, Coleshill, Birmingham.
Dear Enid Blyton,
In a recent number of your Magazine I read of an idea to start a library. My friends and I began one, and we have our book exchanges in our dining-room on Wednesday afternoons. I covered three books this afternoon, which brought our covered books up to seventeen. Daddy gave me some old card with which to make the title tickets. We have made a set of rules for members, and each promises to help old people, look after animals, especially birds, and to make children happy.
Yours sincerely,
Philip Arnold.

(A very interesting letter, Philip, and I enjoyed reading it, I am sure your library will be a great success, as it deserves to be.)

A letter from Graham Eastwood, Bradford, Yorks.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I must write and thank you for my prize of a set of Famous Five Books. What a thrill I got when a knock came at the door, and there was a parcel addressed to me, and when I opened it and found 13 books for myself, all autographed by you. I was too excited to speak – and then I wondered how I could share my good fortune with someone else, and as it is only three weeks since my birthday, I decided to send 10s. of my birthday money as a present for the little Children in your Home – a birthday gift from me.
Love, from
Graham Eastwood.

(You are one of the extremely kind prize-winners who sent a thank you letter and a gift, Graham. Your parents must be as proud of you as I am !)

 

Two letters from boys this week – it’s much less common for boys to write in (or perhaps for their letters to be chosen?) – and Philip Arnold is a great Blyton-sounding name!

It’s funny to read that a set of Famous Five books only comprised 13 titles – but of course book 14, Five Have Plenty of Fun wasn’t published until 1955, and clearly it was later than April. [I’ve just seen an advert in a later magazine saying the book would be available from 21st July]

I don’t think I’ve seen anyone refer to groups of Busy Bees as a swarm – but it makes sense!

 

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Monday #576

Posted on April 22, 2024 by Fiona

The audiobook I’ve just finished listening to had two Enid Blyton references in it, not unusual, but the strange thing is that it’s a book I’ve read before yet I hadn’t made a note of it. I have this time, though, and it’s logged beside the other ones I’ve seen recently, waiting on just a few more before I can make a whole post out of it.

In other news we were at a wedding at the weekend and apart from a little spittering when we left the house, and a little more when we got home, it did not rain! There was even some sunshine, miracle of miracles!

Letters to Enid part 47

and

Reading the Famous Five to Brodie part 5

As it is spring (despite the weather not really cooperating) I’ve chosen Stef’s recommended Spring Reads from way back in 2013.

Stef’s spring reads

 

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Letters to Enid part 46: From volume 3 issue 8

Posted on April 19, 2024 by Fiona

Previous letters pages can be found here.

Letters page from Volume 3, issue 8. April 13th-26th, 1955.

OUR

LETTER PAGE

 A letter from Hugh Morris, Aylsham, Norfolk.
Dear Enid Blyton,
In the holidays and on Saturdays, I go round with the Veterinary Surgeon in his car. I have been going with him for a long time. I hand him out the different instruments, and when I am at a farm with him, I sometimes run back to his car and fetch the drugs for the animals. One night I was out till half-past twelve watching an operation on a cow, it was very interesting. I am 12 years old, and a Busy Bee.
Love from,
Hugh Morris.

(How I would have loved to do this when I was twelve, Hugh! Are you going to be a Vet. when you grow up? I shouldn’t be surprised!)

A letter from Rosalind Jackson, Tisbury, Wilts.
Dear Miss Blyton,
I should like to know what the surnames of the “Famous Five”
are. I should like you to write “Famous Five” books as long as you live, because they are jolly interesting. Our class have dictation and compositions on them.
Yours sincerely,
Rosalind Jackson.

(Rosalind, you have asked me a question that hundreds of children ask. So now I will give the answer and set everyone’s mind at rest. The surname of the four cousins; George, Julian, Dick and Anne, is KIRRIN. That’s easy to remember, isn’t it, because of Kirrin Island. Please don’t ask me what Timmy, the dog’s surname is!)

A letter from June Hatherell, Swindon, Wilts.
Dear Enid Blyton,
Our Club has a very jolly time. We call meetings, and have a password. All our Club does the “Famous Five” puzzle in the Magazine, and we all have your Magazine, and we like it very much. We have a collection and each bring a penny and when we have saved up enough, we buy things for our Club, such as sweets, biscuits, drinks and so on. That is all for now.
Yours sincerely, June Hatherell.

(I have chosen your good little letter, June, because it is typical of many excellent ones I get, giving me news of F.F. clubs. Your Club seems a very jolly one indeed.)

I normally talk about the letters in order but today I will skip to what is quite possibly the most important thing written in any of the letters pages. The surname of all (human) members of the Five is KIRRIN. Rosalind is obviously too polite to say that she (and clearly the hundreds of other children) has noticed the Kirrin/Barnard confusion and wants answers. But what a public service Rosalind has performed, getting her letter, and the answer published. I shall now be able to respond to anyone asking that question with a definitive answer, fully referenced with Blyton, E. (1955) “Our Letter Page”, Enid Blyton’s Magazine, 3(8), p. 13.

Meanwhile, Hugh’s letter gives us a brief insight into the lack of health and safety in 1955 whereby young boys were allowed to go off with the local vet and handle the scalpels and drugs and get kicked by injured horses… I’m kidding (mostly). I’m sure it was very interesting and educational for him and it would be lovely if he did become a vet.

It is nice to see a letter which talks about saving up money and spending it on the savers for once. (The generous donation letters are nice, too, of course, but this one was a pleasant surprise.) I like the sound of June’s club – hopefully the leader is less strict than Peter as it does seem to have a Secret Seven influence too.

 

 

 

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Five Have a Puzzling Time – a joint review

Posted on April 17, 2024 by Fiona

As I was working both Monday and Tuesday evening this week I felt like I didn’t want to start the next Famous Five book (Finniston Farm) on Sunday evening. Instead I suggested we try a Famous Five short story so we could finish it it one night.

I have the 1996 Red Fox paperback, the first time ever that all the stories had been gathered together in one volume, and it lives on one of Brodie’s bookshelves as there is no room on mine beside the hardbacks. You can just see it on the top shelf, the last book on the right.

Five Have a Puzzling Time and Other Stories, Red Fox, 1997

 

For information on where these stories were first published see my series synopses – part one and part two. I have also reviewed the audio versions of these stories but focussed mostly on the voice acting and not the plots – part one and part two.

Despite those posts I’ve not really reviewed it in full. Reading it aloud made me notice a whole lot of things which I want to write down, and of course I have Brodie’s comments too, so I’ll include those as I go along.

An immediate adventure

Being a short story there is no time to waste on preliminary scene-setting. It begins with the girl already in bed at Kirrin Cottage, and by page 2 George sees a light on her island. “The adventure is beginning already,” Brodie said excitedly.

Of course George is furious and determined to set off right away, just as she was when Anne thought that she saw a light on Kirrin Island in the middle of the night in Five Have Plenty of Fun. 

Five Have Plenty of Fun (1955)

George sat up in her chair as if she had had an electric shock. “On Kirrin Island! Whatever do you mean? Nobody’s there. Nobody’s allowed there!”

“Well—I may have been mistaken,” said Anne. “I was so very sleepy. I didn’t hear the motor-boat go away. I just went back to bed.”

“You might have waked me, if you thought you saw a light on my island,” said George. “You really might!”

…

“If the boat’s ready, we’ll certainly go over to Kirrin Island today,” said George. “If any trippers are there I’ll send Timmy after them!”

Five Have a Puzzling Time (1960)

‘Anne! Quick, wake up! ANNE! Come and see! There’s a light shining out on Kirrin Island, a light, I tell you! Somebody’s there—on MY island! Anne, come and see!’

Anne sat up sleepily. ‘What’s the matter, George? What did you say?’

‘I said there’s a light on Kirrin Island! Somebody must be there—without permission too! I’ll get my boat and row out right now!’

George was very angry indeed, and Timmy gave a little growl. He would most certainly deal with whoever it was on the island!

The first investigation

As George has to go to the dentist (she was awake because of toothache) she can’t go to the island that morning. By page eight, the others have decided to go by themselves and find nobody there, but one of Anne’s sandals disappears when she takes them off for a paddle.

When George returns she insists that she and Timmy go as Timmy will obviously succeed where the cousins failed.

This, unfortunately became the beginning of a lot of repetitiveness in the story. It is only 46 pages long and they spend around 19 of those pages searching the island for the maker of the mysterious light.

On the first visit they sensibly they rule out anyone’s presence as there’s no boat, but Julian, Anne and Dick have a good look around anyway.

This only lasts a few pages and yet there are at least three inconsistencies with the rest of the series. Blyton wasn’t above making mistakes across the series, like having a room whole then the roof falling in then it being whole again, but three in almost as many pages is fairly poor. Five Go to Demon’s Rocks was published the year after this story, and I don’t think it shares the same faults, so I’m not sure we can put it down to the onset of her dementia. Perhaps the short story format made her rush?

Anyway, the inconsistencies are:

The jackdaws came down from the tower, and chacked loudly round them in a very friendly manner. Some of them flew down to the children’s feet, and walked about as tame as hens in a farm yard.

The jackdaws have always been very flighty, and were a sign that anyone had walked near them if they flew into the air. They do fly into the air soon after this and Julian asks what startled them. There’s no suggestion in any other book that the jackdaws know the Five and are so tame around them.

We’ll go up the old broken-down tower steps as far as we can, shall we? We might see something there—perhaps a lantern.

But in Five on a Treasure Island it’s established that you couldn’t do any such thing.

‘Was there an upstairs to the castle, George?’

‘Of course,’ said George. ‘But the steps that led up are gone. Look! You can see part of an upstairs room there, by the jackdaw tower. You can’t get up to it, though, because I’ve tried. I nearly broke my neck trying to get up. The stones crumble away so.’

And the Anne says;

What a lovely little island this is—and how lucky George is to own it. I wish I had an island belonging to my family, that I could call my own.

Obviously quite forgetting that George has shared her island with her cousins and says it belongs to all of them now.

The mystery deepens

In the brief interlude between visits to the islands (for lunch, of course) the Kirrin Cottage cook has reverted to being Joan rather than Joanna – except for one time where George calls her Joan. Interestingly the Faded Page version has it as Joanna each time – although they often admit to making “corrections” as they digitise it.

That’s not the real mystery, though. Joan/na is demanding to know where her oranges and grapes have gone, and Timmy’s dog biscuits. Then George noticies some chocolates missing from a box.

There has been a thief at Kirrin Cottage and Timmy didn’t notice!?

Back to the island

Another search of the island and the repetition really begins.

Naturally George wants to check for a boat as well.

George circled it deftly in the boat, being anxious herself to see that no one had hidden a boat anywhere. She pointed to where a great mass of brown seaweed had piled up on the west shore.

‘See what the wind did when we had that terrific gale on Tuesday—brought in masses of seaweed again! Now we’ll have an awful smell when it dries out!

Despite having hidden their own boat with seaweed twice, none of them wonder if the trespasser has done the same, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say that perhaps the piles weren’t quite boat-sized.

The jackdaws fly off again, perhaps startled by someone, again.

In new content Anne finds some orange peel and a grape pip, asking ‘Does that ring a bell, anyone?’ Brodie, excitedly, shouted “Yes, yes it does, Joanna’s oranges and grapes!”

Julian does what I’m beginning to notice he does second best (after being bossy) which is to instantly and incorrectly dismiss the others’ ideas, this one being that someone stole fruit from Kirrin Cottage and brought it to the island.

However, the find of the dog biscuits proves Dick was right.

Timmy, sadly, is fairly useless, as he picks up several trails and loses them – the longest one ending at the seaweed. (Mind you, it makes me wonder why he didn’t find the entrance to Uncle Quentin’s workroom in Kirrin Island Again, I suppose Uncle Q might have crisscrossed the island, but his strongest scent should have led right to the fireplace!) This made the search feel rather repetitive and hopeless.

The Five sit down and the overly tame jackdaws visit them again, along with the rabbits this time. As they are distracted by a rabbit which has been pecked by a jackdaw they fail to notice their biscuits and chocolate being stolen. Apparently even Timmy didn’t hear a thing. I find that really hard to believe, that anyone could walk up right behind them and take their things without Timmy noticing. He follows the trail again, but loses it at a tree.

The next bit of poor continuity is actually in Demon’s Rocks as the Five entirely fail to remember/mention the boy with the monkey who predates Tinker and his monkey by a year! Perhaps Bobby and Chippy inspired Tinker and Mischief as she realised a monkey would be amusing alongside Timmy – though of course Miranda and Looney had already been causing hilarity for over ten years.

Thankfully there are no more trails just a monkey to follow, and he leads them to his owner and his dog who are, hardly surprising, under the seaweed.

The ending

In my opinion the ending dragged on for far too long. Given that the story is 46 pages long, and they find the culprit on around page 30, there really was no need to take 15 pages – nearly a third of the book – to round it off. It felt like the end of the final Lord of the Rings film!

Bobby has run away because his Granpop said he’d have Chummy (the dog) put down a he bit someone. They take him back to Kirrin Cottage where (after some debate) he is allowed to stay the night, and he is firmly told by the Five that he has to train Chummy properly if he cares about him. A valid point and important lesson – but it needn’t have taken 15 pages and so much talking.

Five really do have a puzzling time

Aside from the number of times ‘following the trail’ and similar variations on the phrase were used, and the dozens of times the word seaweed appeared, the Five were also extremely puzzled.

‘Well—we’ll walk round the island and examine the rocks sticking up here and there,’ said Dick, puzzled about the jackdaws, too.

‘Of course!’ said Julian. ‘This is a puzzle! What do we do next?’

Why? George was puzzled.

‘Nor did Tim—or he would have barked,’ said George, really puzzled.

Timmy was already sniffing, looking very puzzled indeed.

‘Well, let’s hunt round a bit again,’ said Julian, more puzzled than ever.

‘Of course!’ said Julian. ‘This is a puzzle! What do we do next?’

They sat sucking the barley sugars, really puzzled.

Timmy was as puzzled as the children.

Final thoughts

Brodie listened pretty intently to the adventurous parts but he definitely got a bit restless once Bobby was found and it became a bit boring. I asked him if he enjoyed it and he said no, he couldn’t bear it not having any chapters. As a single story it is probably about two or three regular chapters long, so not too bad to read in one go, assuming one third of it doesn’t drag.

I thought the basic premise wasn’t bad – but it could have been a much shorter, tighter story. We didn’t need George to have a sore tooth, and the cousins to go first, thus exploring the island twice. We didn’t need so much toing and froing with poorly excused uselessness from Timmy. Yes the seaweed smell would have made it harder for them to find the trespassers but not to the extent of the trouble they had!

Aside from that, the idea that Bobby floated to the island on an air bed with a spade for an oar, rather stretched plausibility. We are told over and over that it is very hard to land on Kirrin Island. The local fishermen can manage it, and obviously the baddies do a few times, but a young boy on an air bed? Obviously George’s pride over her special ability to be the ‘only one’ to land on her island is exaggerated by her, but come on.

Sadly the illustrations in the Red Fox edition are poor – or at least poorly printed with very dashed lines. Brodie was horrified! I explained that it was a different illustrator and he wanted to know why Enid Blyton hadn’t drawn them this time…

It wasn’t all bad, though. The characters were well written, as they always are, George was perfectly George-ish in her fury at someone being on her island, and although it was a short story there was some nice moments like below.

‘Cheer up. We’ll all go and hunt over the island again this afternoon—and I expect you’ll find a couple of pirates, two or three robbers, a shipwrecked sailor, a …’

George gave a sudden grin. ‘Shut up, you idiot. Don’t take any notice of me for a bit. I’ll be all right soon.’

 

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Monday #575

Posted on April 15, 2024 by Fiona

Apart from going to work I have barely left the house in the past weeks due to a certain spotty little boy. We did get out at the weekend for a walk in the woods, though, where we experienced sun, rain, hail, strong wind and a double rainbow. So, a typical Spring day, really.

Five Have a Puzzling Time – a joint review

and

Letters to Enid part 46

I’m a little behind but I thought it was still worth mentioning that the second new Famous Five episode is now available to watch. It sounds even less like the books than the first one did, though!

When Uncle Quentin’s life’s work is stolen from Kirrin Cottage, the Famous Five take the night train to Scotland and are drawn into a deadly game of espionage, theft and deceit.

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Rating the Famous Five titles part 2

Posted on April 13, 2024 by Fiona

Continuing now with the remaining half of the books. Part one can be found here.

Five Have a Wonderful Time

Again, this could literally apply to all 21 books – probably why it is one of the titles I always mix up.

You might say Hang on, George didn’t have a wonderful time when she was kidnapped two books earlier or the same about Dick three books earlier, but all Five get locked in a tower in this one and left overnight! Despite the various dangers and tough times the Five face they always have a wonderful time on their adventures.

This doesn’t give you the tiniest clue about what the book contains – but I imagine that all children needed to see was that it was a Famous Five book and that was enough to sell it to them. I wonder, though, if faced with half a dozen Fives at a bookshop or library, which titled would get picked up first? I’m betting titles like Smuggler’s Top or Treasure Island would be looked at before something as vague as Wonderful Time.

Five Go to Faynights might have been better – it’s less vague and Faynights is an interesting, attractive-sounding place.

⭐

Five Go Down to the Sea

I think that this one is reasonably descriptive. They do spent a lot of time by the sea at Kirrin, of course, but they don’t really go down there. They do go to the coast for Demon’s Rocks, but not for bathing/beaches.

My only issue is that they barely spend any time by the sea! Compared to most Kirrin adventures where their bathing suits are barely off (Adventuring Again notwithstanding for obvious reasons), in Sea they go to the beach and swim exactly one time.

Tremannon Farm is not even that close to the sea! They have to walk a long way to Yan’s Grandad’s hut to even see the Sea.

So it’s descriptive but to me, it feels like it doesn’t really accurately tell you what the book is going to be about.

Five Go to Tremannon Farm would have worked (and Finniston Farm hadn’t been written yet, so it wasn’t a case of not wanting two Farm titles) or Five and the Wrecker’s Way would have been a really appealing title.

⭐⭐

Five Go to Mystery Moor

Finally, another good one! A title can only convey so much, but while we don’t know what or where Mystery Moor is I know it’s something that sounds intriguing.

 

It’s better than Five Stay at the Stables or Five Sleep in a Quarry! But we could have had Five Get Lost in the Mist!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Five Have Plenty of Fun

At the risk of sounding repetitive this could also apply to all the books. I also get muddled on this one quite often. One good way to try to remember it is to say Five have Plenny of Fun, like Berta would.

What else could we call it, though? Five and the Mistaken Identity (sounds a bit Hardy Boys, and could also apply to Get Into Trouble.), Five Meet Berta, er, Leslie, er, Jane, Five Lose George (Again)? Nothing is jumping out at me – so suggestions, please!

⭐

Five on a Secret Trail

I don’t have any issues identifying this title, though it’s not that descriptive now I think about it. The Five actually follow a lot of secret trails. But it does tell us that they go hunting for something and Secret Trail sounds mysterious and intriguing.

Other possible titles could be Five and the Mad Boy! or Five and the Stone Slab (of a Particular Size). 

⭐⭐⭐

Five Go to Billycock Hill

It’s nice and clear which book this is from the title. I’m not sure, however, how appealing this title is.

Even in the late fifties when this was published a Billycock hat (which I’ve literally just discovered is a nickname for a bowler hat, even though having Googled it before I had thought how much it looked like a bowler hat!) was a hundred years old and about twenty years out of style (unless you were a city gent, apparently). How many 7-10 year olds in 1957 knew what a Billycock hat was?

I suppose it is an interesting sounding name for a hill which might spark an interest in the book itself.

As the farm and caves are also Billycocks there’s no use switching to either of them for a title. The only other option is something like Five and the Missing Pilots which gives away perhaps a bit too much, or Five and the Run(ned) Away Pigling?

⭐⭐⭐

Five Get Into a Fix

While in reality this is another thesaurus-ed version of Five Get Into Trouble I don’t actually have any trouble identifying the book. I’m not sure why the Fix title sticks in my head but as soon as I read it I can see Eileen Soper’s Five frolicking in the snow.

In terms of appeal and descriptiveness this should really be a one star book. But as I kind of like the title I have to give it more.

Instead I suppose we could have had Five Go to Magga Glen? Or Five Go Ski-ing (hyphenated like it is in the books), though that sounds silly with the picture of them tobogganing on the cover. Perhaps Eileen Soper would have drawn them skiing, of course, had the title been different. Five Go Tobogganing is a bit of a mouthful.

In making my own version of the cover I noticed for the first time that the title letters have snow on them! How many times have I looked at it and not noticed that? I tried to replicate it the best I could in my version.

⭐⭐

Five On Finniston Farm

Surely an easy title for any reader to identify – unless they think of Tremannon Farm and get confused. While the Five must visit dozens of farms in the books – they have to get their food somewhere! – few are named, and they only stay at two.

While many of us love Blyton’s other farm stories (Willow Farm, Cherry Tree Farm, Buttercup Farm, Mistletoe Farm and so on) they are generally adventurous in a different way to the Famous Five. The fact that this is Five On makes it attractive to fans of the Famous Five, and tells us that this will be more than learning about nature and dealing with poachers. I also think that Finniston is a suitably interesting name for a farm and therefore book title.

 

What other options could we have had? The castle is not even ruined, it’s plain gone so it’s no good putting that in the title.

Five and the Obnoxious Americans? Blyton never really make it in the United States but probably not a great idea to alienate them from the title alone!

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Five Go to Demon’s Rocks

This is a thrilling title, I think. It makes it very clear which book in the series it is, and Demon’s Rocks sounds mysterious and dangerous. It might have been nice to squeeze Lighthouse into the title, but the lighthouse is on the cover and so it isn’t really needed.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Five Have a Mystery to Solve

Our last extremely vague title. The Five manage to straddle the adventure/mystery genre quite successfully. Although they are not solving a crime/disappearance/strange happening in every book in the organised clue-hunting way that the Five Find-Outers or Secret Seven do, they are often trying to find out what’s going on. This means that they more or less solve a mystery in every book.

In short, this title doesn’t identify which book it is, nor does it tell us anything specific about what to expect from this book.

Five On/Go to Whispering Island would have been much better, even if it does give away the fact that they end up on the island when they didn’t plan to.

⭐

Five Are Together Again

Whilst this is fairly vague – the Five are together, again, in every book but the first! – I think as this is the last book in the series the Together Again sounds quite poignant. It’s not really a reunion, though it is a year on since the previous book, but just the Five having one last (somewhat feeble) hurrah.

Alternatives might have been Five Go to Big Hollow, Five Camp in a Field, Five and the Circus?

⭐⭐

There we are – my opinions on all the titles along with alternative titles of varying quality. Let me know your thoughts and if you have any better ideas, and I’ll compile a final list of titles in another post.

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March 2024 round up

Posted on April 11, 2024 by Fiona

It feels like ages since I wrote the February round up – but we are over a week into April I suppose.

What I read

What I have read:

  • How to Date Your Dragon (Mystic Bayou #1) – Molly Harper
  • A Sister’s Wish (Yorkshire Blitz #2) – Donna Douglas
  • Studies (Maggie Adair #4) – Jenny Colgan
  • Boy of Chaotic Making (Whimbrel House #3) – Charlie N Holmberg
  • The Island of Adventure
  • And the Rest is History (Chronicles of St Mary’s #8) – Jodi Taylor
  • The Love Hypothesis – Ali Hazelwood
  • Five on a Secret Trail
  • Twenties Girl – Sophie Kinsella
  • The Briarmen – Joseph A Chadwick
  • A Daughter’s Hope (Yorkshire Blitz #3) – Donna Douglas

I ended the month still working through:

  • Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
  • Witches & Words (Library Witch Mystery #4) – Elle Adams
  • A Brief Atlas of the Lighthouses at the End of the World – Gonzalez Macias
  • Five Go to Billycock Hill
  • The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires (Half Moon Hollow #4) – Molly Harper

What I watched

  • We are up to ER season 8 now, and I also went back to The Crown and watched series 6 which I’d completely forgotten about. I think it dropped in two parts and I was waiting on part 2 before I watched it – but that was in December!
  • Tuesday nights we watched The Lost City (with Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum) and Crossroads (with Britney Spears).
  • With Brodie I think I half-watched the first Ant-Man movie, and definitely ET. (It’s really annoying that Disney+ doesn’t keep a log of what you’ve watched as if I don’t write it down I often forget!) I think Ewan and I also watched The Marvels.

What I did

  • I had a hen party where I got to make a floral wreath which now hangs on my front door.
  • I built my mother’s day Lego set – a Dobbie figure
  • We had our first (and only, so far) afternoon in the garden as it was actually warm enough to sit outside, and as it was Easter Sunday we rolled our eggs (well, we sort of lobbed them at the greeny poles, but the important thing is that they broke so we could start eating them.)
  • And lastly I failed to believe Brodie when he told me he had another gap in his teeth. In my defense it hadn’t been wobbly before this and it just disappeared! We think he swallowed it with his breakfast.

 

How was your March?

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Monday #574

Posted on April 8, 2024 by Fiona

I’m back after our few days away – where we had mixed weather. One day of clouds and intermittent rain, one day of constant rain, one day which started out sunny and warm (no coats needed!) then became windy and cold, and on our last day, snow. I kid you not.

We made the most of it anyway, despite the weather. We are in for a lot more rain the next few days but tomorrow we will be staying home anyway as Brodie has, quite inconveniently, come down with chicken pox.

March round up

and

Rating the Famous Five titles part 2

Nothing ground-breaking but there is a new article out about the filming of series 5 of Malory Towers.

The key point for me is that there’s a new matron. This could be a real shame as I love Ashley McGuire and think she’s the best ‘made up’ part of the show.

 

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Rating the Famous Five titles

Posted on March 30, 2024 by Fiona

A recent comment on the blog has inadvertently inspired this post. A regular reader pointed out that I had written Five Have a Wonderful Time when I actually meant Five Fall Into Adventure. It wasn’t that I had confused the plots of the two books, but I had confused the titles. Wonderful Time, Fall Into Adventure along with Plenty of Fun are particularly vague titles which give no clue as to the plot of the stories and are the three I mix up the most.

And so, while walking to work one morning after the comment politely pointing out my error I started writing (in my head) a review of all the Famous Five book titles complete with star ratings. As is always the case my written review will never match the witty brilliance of what I can come up with when I have no pen and paper, but I’ll do my best here.

I’ll also try to come up with some alternative titles – though this is very hard and I don’t think I can actually come up with anything better!

Five on a Treasure Island

I think there are a few things that are important about a book title – besides being catchy. One is that it should give prospective readers an inkling of what the book will be about, and the other is that it should be sufficiently descriptive to differentiate it from other books in a series, or from the same author.

Five on a Treasure Island does both of these things. While the children visit Kirrin island several other times in the series it is only the first book where there is treasure to be found.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Five Go Adventuring Again

This is a rather vague title. Given that the Five have twenty adventures after Treasure Island, this could really apply to any of those!

I don’t have an issue remembering this one, for some reason. Perhaps as it’s only book two and I can confidently name the order of books 1-6, though the rest I wouldn’t remember in order.

Is there a better title? I’m not very good at coming up with titles but perhaps Five Have a Winter Adventure? Five Get Snowed In? Five Go Up Against a Thief? We are  a bit limited if we want to stick to the Five Go/Have/On/Get format. Otherwise how about Five and the Stolen Papers?

One thing we have to consider is that Blyton only intended the series to run for six books. Although this doesn’t help greatly with telling prospective readers what the book is about it would have helped with keeping the titles straight in our minds. Of course Blyton was such a phenomenon that by book two I’m sure children would have read Five Have a Mildly Interesting Time, Five Play Chess or Five Go to the Shops anyway.

With that in mind, Five Go Adventuring Again would score more highly had the series ended with book six. Thankfully for us it didn’t.

⭐⭐

Five Run Away Together

This is definitely less vague. Although the Five do go off all sorts of places together this is the only time they do it in secret, the only time they actually run away. (The Five all have loving parents and comfortable homes – what on earth could they be running away from? I imagine children crying on first seeing this title.)

This could have been called Five on Kirrin Island Again, really, as it is probably the book with the second-most amount of time spent on the island. However run away is more evocative of the plot.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Five Go to Smuggler’s Top

A perfect title. Enough said?

You know I can’t miss an opportunity to expound on my favourite book from the series. It’s a simple title, telling you they go somewhere called Smuggler’s Top. This title makes it perfectly clear which plot goes with it, and the mere mention of smugglers is sure to attract readers.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Five Go Off in a Caravan

Our third Go title. It’s not terribly vague – although the Five stay in caravans in (let me think for a moment…) Wonderful Time they go to the caravans, not Go Off in them.

The only issue is that there are two caravans. Five Go Off in Caravans, admittedly, doesn’t have the same ring to it, but that’s probably because I’ve been reading the real title for over 30 years. Had the book come out as In Caravans I’m sure it would sound perfectly fine to me.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Five on Kirrin Island Again

While this doesn’t exactly describe the plot in detail, I’m struggling to think of anything else that would work. Five and the Underground Explosives? Five and the Undersea Tunnel? Five Save Kirrin Island?

As this was meant to be the final book of the series it probably worked quite well as it is – beginning with Treasure Island and ending on the island again. The Again also makes a pattern with Adventuring Again.

However, with ? more books featuring visits to Kirrin Island it isn’t the most unique title.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Five Go Off to Camp

This one does half a good job at telling us what the book is about. The Five indeed go camping, or rather off to camp to fit in with the (varying) format of the other book titles.

However, they do camp in several books. If you’re only classifying camping as staying in tents then they do this in Get Into Trouble, Secret Trail, Billycock Hill and Together Again, though they sleep out in ruined rooms, caves, cellars, and quarries in at least four other books.

What are our other options then?

Five and the Spook Train? 

Five and the Black-Marketeers?

Five Go Off to Camp by a Haunted Railway?

I can’t think of anything that really fits the loose style for the titles (there are no Five and the Blank titles in the original run, but I’m sure there are some in the Claude Voiler continuations).

⭐⭐⭐

Five Get Into Trouble

Despite describing the plot of practically every single Famous Five book, I generally know which one this is. For some reason the cover of the Knight Paperback comes firmly into mind when I see the title and I know that the gates are at Owl’s Dene and therefore which story it is.

I suppose they didn’t want to call it Five Go to Owl’s Dene because that would give away too much as the Five work out where Dick has been taken.

Five Get Kidnapped? Short, snappy, and mostly accurate. Dick is certainly kidnapped. The others more or less do break into Owl’s Dene and are held against their will – but is that strictly kidnapping? (Research tells me that no, it is not as kidnapping involves carrying someone away – it would be false imprisonment however. But as we had Caravan and not Caravans earlier, then I’m sure the inaccuracy of kidnapping would be allowed.)

Five and the Black Bentley? KMF 102 is a fairly iconic and memorable part of the book after all. Or Five and the Escaped Prisoner? perhaps that gives too much away. I know – Five Go Off on Their Bikes! 

⭐

Five Fall Into Adventure

As I said at the top of this post, this is one of the titles I regularly mix up. The Five fall into adventure 21 times, this could be literally any book – it’s as if Blyton took the previous title and ran it through a thesaurus.

Five Tumble Into Peril
Five Plunge Into Intrigue
Five Get Into a Spot of Bother
Five Don’t Go Looking For Trouble.

You get the idea.

I try to remember that Timmy FALLS from the cliff into the sea near the end of the book, and picture the dust jacket image of that scene to help but I can’t always remember to do this.

This title neither tells you (specifically) what the book is about, nor does it really help you recall it afterwards.

So what could this one be called?

If we chose Five Get Kidnapped to replace Five Get Into Trouble, we could have Only Two of the Five Gets Kidnapped This Time?… Five Minus Two? Or perhaps Five On a Wild Goose Chase? If we didn’t have to have Five at the start we could call it Jo Saves the Day!

⭐

Five on a Hike Together

This one is just about descriptive enough. The Five do go on lots of explorations but this is their only walking holiday. It doesn’t tell you an awful lot about what to expect, but the alternatives like Five Go to Gloomy Water/Two Trees, Five on a Treasure Lake, Five Search for the Saucy Jane all give away a bit too much and would spoil some of the impact of the first reading of Two Trees. Gloomy Water. Saucy Jane. And Maggie knows. 

⭐⭐⭐

Do you agree, or disagree, with any of my ratings? Do you have any better ideas for possible titles? Let me know in the comments below!

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Monday #572

Posted on March 25, 2024 by Fiona

I nearly decided to have a week off from blogging this week, as I have come down with that feels like my hundredth lurgy of 2024. (It’s probably only the fourth or fifth, but it is only March!) However I will probably be taking next week off as it’s the school holidays and we will be away for a couple of nights. I just hope we finally get some better weather.

At risk of sounding like an intrepid explorer writing a diary that will be found years later alongside my body – Temperatures are regularly below freezing. Continual rain makes the outside world a miserable, inhospitable place. Snow is forecast tonight. I have forgotten what sunshine looks like.

OK so I’m not Scott and this is not the Antarctic, so I may be exaggerating a smidge. I just really need a bit of warmth and sunshine!

Rating the titles of the Famous Five books

and

Letters to Enid part 46

A comment on an recent post suggested the Sue Welford series Adventures with George and Timmy/Just George for Brodie after we finish the Famous Five. While looking for something to highlight here I happened across this interview with none other than Sue Welford!

An interview with Sue Welford – Author of the Just George Series

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Fan fic Friday: Bill and Allie’s great adventure chapter 5

Posted on March 22, 2024 by Fiona

Parts one, two, three and four for anyone who needs to catch up.

Jack nudged Philip sharply in the side, careful not to let Dinah see what he was doing, then made a show of scratching the side of his neck, trying to let the other boy know that there was a whiskered nose poking out the collar of his white shirt. 

Philip hastily dislodged the mouse from his collar, feeling its little paws scrabbling down his front as it looked for another comfortable spot, giving Dinah a winning smile as she looked at him suspiciously.

“Philip… you haven’t!” she hissed.

“Haven’t what?” he asked innocently.

“Mother told you that you weren’t to bring ANY pets with you today!”

“What makes you think,” began Philip. He was ready to remind her that sometimes Kiki just remembered old phrases and it absolutely didn’t mean that she had seen a mouse, when his new companion decided to betray him completely by darting out of his cuff to grab a large bread crumb off the table. As quickly as it had appeared it disappeared back in to eat its prize, but not before Dinah had seen it. “She didn’t say I couldn’t pick up any new ones today,” he called over his shoulder as he hurried from his seat, though he had spared a second to take his plate so he could refill it at the buffet.

Dinah glared at her brother and shuddered a little as she thought about the mouse that Philip must have picked up in the hall. What a beastly thing for him to do when he knew she didn’t like mice. 

“How tiresome,” she sighed, sitting back in her seat. “I suppose we shall have another mouse running about the house for the rest of the holiday.”

“At least it’s not a snake, or some sort of bug,” Lucy-Ann said in agreement. “But I don’t mind Philip’s mice friends. They are so sweet.”

“As long as Kiki doesn’t think that they are lunch,” Jack chuckled. He stroked Kiki where she rested on his shoulder.

“Keep that bird under control,” Bill said, appearing by the children and putting his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Are you lot having a good time? Enough to eat?”

“Philip has just gone up for another plate of food,” Jack said jovially. “It really is a marvellous spread, Bill.”

“Everything is scrumptious,” Lucy-Ann agreed. “I can’t wait for the cake! Aunt Allie is very proud of it!”

“I vote that we give Philip a slice of the top tier,” said Dinah with a suspiciously bright smile.

“Be nice,” Bill warned her with a laugh, knowing that the top tier was actually made of cardboard decorated to look like cake, rationing not allowing for more than one tier even for a wedding.

Jack looked quizzically at them. “What’s wrong with the top layer? Did Aunt Allie mess up the recipe or something? You were just saying how pleased she was with it.”

Bill and Dinah both laughed, entirely unsurprised that Jack was oblivious. It wasn’t bird-related, after all. “It’s not cake,” Bill explained.

Jack leaned back in his chair, forcing it onto two legs as he strained for a better look. “It looks like cake,” he said at last.

Philip returned with his second plate laden with food. “You’ll split your head open, Mannering,” he barked, imitating their form-master, and even going as far as using his free hand to shove the back of Jack’s chair as the master regularly did.

The front legs of Jack’s chair slammed back down on the floor, making the cups and saucers of the table rattle. A few people looked around to discover the cause of the disturbance, and one or two at the same table began mopping up spilt tea and coffee.

Bill gave Philip a stern look, one that was mirrored by Mrs Cunningham. He then winked at his new wife, a wink that said he had it all in hand, and she returned to her conversation with Aunt Polly.

“Yes, Dinah,” he said carefully. “Make sure that Philip does get a slice from the top.”

“I was wondering when we’d get cake,” Philip said obliviously, thinking that his new mouse would probably enjoy some too.

“I’d be surprised if even you had room for cake after those enormous platefuls,” said Dinah, while Lucy-Ann sat quietly, her head turning back and forth like a spectator at a tennis match.

There was no real malice in their teasing, and she knew that Dinah was just trying to needle Philip for breaking the no pets rule. She wouldn’t cause a scene by tattling on him, but she would try to get even in other ways.

Still, Lucy-Ann didn’t like any tension between them, especially on such a happy day as this. She had been overjoyed, when, a few years earlier, Aunt Allie had taken her and Jack in, giving them a warm, loving home and a mother figure. Now she was to have a father figure too, and she couldn’t be happier. Just the thought of them all living together as a family in the next school holidays was enough to make her beam. 

Bill caught sight of her smiling face and grinned back at her. He was greatly fond of all the children, but Lucy-Ann in particular.

“The top tier is nice and light,” he said airily to Dinah before he moved on to speak to Anatoly, Johns and his other work colleagues, pausing only long enough to give Lucy-Ann a gentle squeeze on her shoulder.

“We’ll go and get the cake, once it’s cut,” Dinah said sweetly. “They should be ready to do that soon.”

It wasn’t long before there came the light sound of a fork hitting a glass to attract everyone’s attention and distract Philip from his thoughts of a third plate of food.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Bill said in a carrying tone. “Allie and I are about to cut the cake.”

Several people got to their feet and moved for a better view. “Keeping the top later for the christening?” one of Bill’s work friends called out teasingly as Allie removed it and set it to one side. 

Bill sent his colleague a glare as Allie blushed, and then quickly smiled again as Jack had raised his camera to capture the cake-cutting.

Deciding it would be too difficult to cut the cardboard layer and have it look convincing, Dinah decided to bring the whole top tier to the table. She checked first that her mother didn’t intend to use it again, then grabbed the spare knife that had been laid out.

She took the false cake, which really did look rather convincing, even up close, and put it down on the table close to Philip. “Don’t even think about cutting yourself a slice,” she said. “You’d cut massive slabs and there would be none left!” She knew that a direct order like that would be far more effective than asking her brother to do something, and so began to gather up the used plates and cutlery from the table. “Does anyone want a cup of tea with the cake?” she asked as she headed off.

Lucy-Ann had already collected four slices of cake from Mrs Cunningham and was over by the tea urn. Dinah joined her and together they watched as Philip picked up the knife and attempted to cut the cake. They saw his confusion as the top bent in a little, but did not cut. 

Anatoly watched him try again and smothered a laugh. Johns reached out and, with one large hand, lifted the cake off the plate. “Hey,” Philip objected before Johns solemnly turned it upside down and put it back, showing off the hollow interior.

Everyone began to laugh. “Dinah! Where are you, you beast!” called Philip.

“I told you not to cut the cake,” Dinah reminded him, passing him a real piece of cake as a peace offering.  

“Well it’s not cake,” Philip said, his crossness tempered by the generous slice of real cake on his plate. 

“Look, Kiki’s even more confused than you were,” Lucy-Ann said, distracting from the disagreement. They all turned to watch the parrot who had fluttered off Jack’s shoulder to examine the hollow cardboard cake, eventually pushing it off the edge of the table in disgust.

“Naughty bird,” Jack said, tapping her on the beak before picking up the decorated piece of cardboard. Kiki rustled her wings. “Poor old Kiki, poor old Kiki.”

The rest of the reception went off without a hitch, and once all the guests had left Bill drove Allie home and Anatoly brought the children. Bill had already moved most of his belongings into Allie’s house, it was larger and they didn’t want to unnecessarily disrupt the children’s lives. All that was left was some larger pieces of furniture and the few things he had needed for the morning of the wedding. 

“Now children, I don’t want to hear any arguments this evening,” Aunt Allie warned as they tumbled indoors, Anatoly following more sedately behind. He was to stay over in order to drive the children to the train station in the morning to begin their journeys back to school. Luckily the boys’ and girls’ schools resumed on the same day this term. “Everything should already be packed and all that should be left out are your wash bags and uniforms for tomorrow.” 

They all nodded tiredly. Lucy-Ann stumbled a little as she moved towards the stairs but Anatoly caught her before she could fall over. She smiled and thanked him before heading upstairs with the others to bed.

“They are going to be hard to wake in the morning I bet,” Bill said with a shake of his head.

It wasn’t the traditional sort of wedding night, not with four children, one parrot, one mouse and one junior agent/surrogate nephew clattering around the house preparing for bed, but once the children, parrot and mouse safely off to school Bill and Allie would be off to France for their honeymoon.

Allie just hoped that Bill wouldn’t drag her into another adventure this time. Getting married had been adventure enough!

The end

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