The Famous Five 2020s Style: The Curse of Kirrin Island

Posted on February 25, 2024 by Fiona

Stef was up visiting me so we thought we’d subject ourselves to the new Famous Five adaptation. Neither of us had seen it before. This would probably have made an interesting livestream but as neither of us have had any desire to record ourselves, ever, I just typed notes on what we said throughout.

In an attempt to avoid my usual thing of summarising the entire episode I am going to try to stick to what we said, with occasional context, based on the extremely hurried notes I typed while we talked.

I warn you now – we had a LOT of questions, and very few answers.

Here be spoilers!

[The opening credits, with synth music plays.]

Fiona: Why do I feel like I’m in the 80s?

Stef: Is the plan for this to be a slightly modernised mix? Looks lovely, though. Germany maybe?

Fiona: Yeah, very nice but not my idea of Kirrin Beach. It’s too narrow and rocky. You couldn’t dig holes in the sand to sit in there.

Fiona: George’s boat has a sail. Funny how it never had a sail in the books, until which one was it? Wonderful Time when they’re going to Red’s place and it has one.

Fiona: Oh, we have a mystery boat. Hang on, no Timmy yet? Is she going to rescue him somewhere? She doesn’t have him yet?

Fiona: She’s wearing converse? (I’ve done some research since and there were shoes like this in the 30s -I’ve found Keds from America with a similar look (for boys, of course) but I haven’t seen anything UK-based. I imagine these would also be quite expensive even if they aren’t totally anachronistic. Thing is, though, if you’re trying to portray a particular time period often it’s safer to not include perfectly accurate details if they’re going to be mistaken for too modern.)

Stef: Well, she’s wearing jeans on the promo picture.

Fiona: I was going to ask how she knows he’s Timmy but it’s on his collar.

Stef: Definitely more a Connal than a Toddy

Fiona: And not like the books. But more important he can act than matches.

[Timmy sounds like he almost talks]

Both: Laughing

[Uncle Quentin tells George to be nice, or, If you can’t be nice pretend to be nice.]

Both: Laughing

[Anne says Careful with my luggage, don’t drop it. DON’T put it on the ground! to Julian and Aunt Fanny.]

Stef: Bossy much? That’s not Anne. So far Julian is the only one who could be called like the books.

Fiona (Sarcastically): Oh no!! Tubing!!

Stef: A diving suit. Though it actually looks like a body.

[The cousins meet and George asks them if they want to see a dead body.]

Fiona (Sarcastically, again): Well this is going well. Not very Famous-Five-ish is it?

Stef: At least Julian’s being responsible… I bet Timmy has a secret in his collar.

Stef: He looks like a nazi.

Fiona: Very Adventure/Secret TV series, cutting away to bad guys with binoculars etc. The books never showed us the baddies on their own. (I realise now that the Famous Five 90s Series did this at least to a certain degree, though.)

[Mr Boswell has gone to report to his boss, Mr Wentworth.]

Fiona: OMG how pantomime.

Fiona: OMG it IS actually a dead body? (I had sort of thought it might just have been an empty diving suit, as you never find dead bodies in an Enid Blyton adventure!)

Fiona: So it is supposed to be set in Dorset.

Stef: Dick is not that timid.

Fiona: I think they’ve made him the geeky brain box

Stef: Not that he wasn’t always smart –  but he was the comic relief.

Stef: Why do they say the island is cursed? – Because it is?

Fiona: Are the ancient Knights Templar really a way to modernise and make it appeal?

Stef: So they’ve swapped… Anne is the sassy one, Dick is the scared one, and Julian is the only one like his character.

Stef: This might just be the boys’ heights but Julian –

Both: Looks a lot older. (We Googled but there’s a lack of info on the cast out there.)

Stef: Where the flip is the castle… oh, there…

Fiona: Not a sandy inlet, but I suppose the geography can’t always match.

Fiona: Why is he carrying her?

[Anne moans about being hungry, asking are we there yet?]

Fiona: Why is she turning into Dick? OMG she’s a pampered princess. Julian in the book would not have stood for that.

Stef: I really don’t like this adaptation of Anne. She has to do some major changing.

Fiona: I can see them wanting to give a personality other than just scared homemaker but they didn’t have to make her annoying.

Stef (correcting me): A brat

Stef: George and Julian look significantly older than Dick and Anne, but George not quite as old as Julian.

Stef: What? He’s carrying  great big chunk of rope.

Fiona: But, I mean, it’s not round his waist.

Stef: That might be later. Oh so the pampered princess decided she was going down.

Fiona: Julian would have sent Dick down first.

Stef: Who’s going to lower Julian down? Or Julian would have gone first.

Stef: The mushroom thing… There’s being clever and there’s being… obnoxious.

Fiona: Not just brainy but geeky.

Fiona: Has he gone in with his shoes on?

Stef: I think they all have!

Fiona: Wet and soggy socks and shoes. That’s not a brainy idea, tasting it. You don’t just drink water that could be stagnant…Why do I feel like there’s going to be a giant booby trap?

Stef: Indiana Jones style.

Fiona: You’re not going to need Mr Roland to translate the Latin.

Stef: To be fair in Adventuring Again Dick and Julian are learning Latin.

Fiona: GEORGE DROP IT!!!

Fiona: It’s the holy grail and here comes the booby trap.

Stef: What’s the dog going to do?

Both: UHOH.

Stef (laughing loudly): Not once did Anne ever say I think we’re going to die.

Fiona: Usually these things are not easily reset as they want to trap you and kill you.

Stef: Ah cool, four dead children then. Presumably this works as there’s four of them and adults would have gone alone?

Fiona: Mhmm… It’s a flipping slip and slide!

Stef: Laughing (possibly more at me than the episode)… He’s still got his rucksack on! Hope it’s a waterproof bag.

[Back at Kirrin Cottage they examine what’s on the chalice.]

Fiona: I don’t think that needed a magnifying glass.

Stef: Anne stop being not Anne!

[Mr Boswell comes to talk to Uncle Q about buying the island.]

Fiona: Julian’s so grown up he gets given a business card.

Stef: Well, he shook hands. What’s the tattoo on the wrist mean?

Fiona: It’s a shame – they don’t seen to be lighting Aunt Fanny well. She has darker skin and you couldn’t see her well sitting on the sofa – but maybe it was intentional to have her in the background?

Stef: It was the same in an earlier scene.

[We had to pause the episode to discuss this – however on rewatching on my laptop it seems better, so it may have been partly the colour balance/brightness settings on my TV]

[One of the baddies says don’t underestimate children.]

Fiona: Certainly not these children.

Stef: I’m not keen on this soft focus they’re using. (This turned out to be terrible for taking screenshots too!)

Fiona: There is a lot of it. I’m also not really interested in the baddie’s masochistic ramblings.

Stef: How come Timmy is somehow inside the house? (Uncle Q and Aunt F are against keeping Timmy and before now he has been kept in George’s den/shed.)

[The other three disagree with Julian strongly, and all end up travelling to a church in London.]

Stef: They’re all against him. Which is strange – especially in the first book they never gang up on Julian.

Fiona: How are they going to get into this guy’s tomb?

Stef: That’s not London it’s Gloucester. Those are the Gloucester cloisters.

Fiona: Is this where some of Harry Potter was filmed?

Stef: Yep.

Fiona: How did they get Timmy in the church?

Stef: Maybe the tomb is downstairs.

Fiona: Maybe the key is the key.

[Mr Wentworth approaches them dressed as a priest, and asks them where they found the goblet. George answers “What is it to do with you?”]

Fiona: They would never be that outright rude to an adult.

Stef: That is a Catholic priest and they are in a Protestant place.

Stef: Idiot children!

Fiona: Never follow the creepy priest underground!

Fiona: Those are not priest shoes!

[They find a hidden button in wall, press it and a secret passage appears.]

Stef: Now the whole of the Gloucester Cathedral is going to know that things are moving. Gordon Bennet!

Fiona: Totally Indiana Jones again. Just need all the insects. Is he going to shut them in?

Stef: Probably.

Stef: Julian would not do that. They’d all go or none of them. EURGH spider webs. He IS going to shut them in.

Fiona: It’s going to be the classic give me the thing! No, let us out, then we’ll give you the thing. No, give me the thing and then I’ll let you out. Then he won’t let them out.

Stef: I suppose, send the children in then take what they find is a normal trope.

Stef: Dick’s noticed the tattoo.

Stef: So, Julian is strong enough to move a marble slab on his own?

Fiona: I think taking the sword really does count as theft.

Stef: I reckon it’s the gem which isn’t dusty at all.

[Fake priest holds Dick hostage and demands the others hand over the sword.]

Stef: Kick ’em, Dick!!

Fiona: This is not our Dick though…

Stef: They’re going to lock them in now.

Stef (derisively to the Five): What did you think was going to happen?

Fiona: Of course there will be another way out. There’s always another way out.

Stef: Jack Gleeson was on Game of Thrones and from what I can tell his character there was the exact same as the moron he’s playing now.

Stef: I’m sorry but Transport for London would have blocked that off!

Fiona: Oh so we don’t actually get to see them risking their lives jumping onto the tracks. (On reflection this is probably to stop it looking like they are encouraging children to do the same.)

Stef: Interesting that they were close enough to go to Julian’s home.

Stef: Is this pre WW2? That thing on the telly would suggest so.

Fiona: But how many people had TVs pre WW2? (Apparently the answer is 20,000 and all in the South of England as the BBC didn’t transmit to the Midlands until 1948, Northern England in 1951 and Scotland in 1952. Shocking, if getting very off-topic.)

Fiona: Ooh they’re trying to explain it! (It being the two families not having contact, which turns out to be that Quentin and Jack had a sister who died.)

Stef: None of them have had a bath!

Fiona: Where are the grown ups?

Stef: Surely there’d have been even a maid.

[Mr Wentworth’s house again.]

Stef: What does he look like?

Fiona: I don’t even know!

[The butler brings out a silver tray of identical sunglasses]

Both: What??

[The Five ‘sneak’ across a wide open driveway by ducking.]

Fiona: You’re not INVISIBLE!!

Stef: My brain hurts.

Fiona: This is like breaking and entering at this point.

Stef: Fair’s fair – they do it in the books, when the go after Dick that’s fairly breaking and entering, Red Tower’s, its ok because they are bad guys.

Fiona: I think it’s different if you’re rescuing people.

Stef: They break into the artists’ bedrooms.

Fiona: They follow a secret passage and find themselves there, plus they knew they’d stolen stuff.

[The Five are on a mezzanine /balcony indoors while there are people on the floor below.]

Stef: It’s a bannister!

Fiona: It’s see through!

[The bad guy sets up the sword to shine a light through the gem, in front of an audience.]

Fiona: Now I see why the sunglasses were needed. This is indiana jones again with the sun shining on the map.

[Julian declares this is total madness.]

Stef: I’m with Julian on this one.

Fiona: It’s the outline of kirrin island?

[The Five are caught by Mr Wentworth.]

Stef: You’ve not even asked them how they got out of the crypt!

Fiona: Does you you actually know [where the treasure is]?

Stef: It’s the creepy little moustache.

Fiona: This seems like a lot of people to let into your secret.

[Julian says That guy’s completely insane.]

Fiona (sarcastically): I mean what gave you that clue?

[Mr Wentworth’s mother brings them a trolley of food.]

Fiona This is the first time we’ve seen them get fed. Look at those cakes – so bad and garish.

Fiona: Look at her [George’s] blouse, it was filthy earlier, across the shoulders now it’s clean.

[Mr Wentworth sits cross legged, eyes shut, oblivious to the Five creeping about.]

Fiona: He is much better at meditating than I am.

Fiona: Oh look, she [George] is dirty again now!

[Somehow we lose the ability to form coherent sentences around the time that George pulls the sword from its block of stone.]

Stef: Go and help her!

Fiona: I hope that’s not sharp.

Stef: Why is he not [responding, I probably meant]… is he pretending?

Fiona: Just stab him!

[Julian tosses a load of golf balls on the floor and Mr Boswell slips on them, groaning ‘balls’].

Fiona: Balls!?

Fiona: Timmy hasn’t covered himself in glory yet.

[Mr Wentworth calls out Professor Bernard, Mrs Bernard as they suddenly arrive – and the captions back this up. IMDB has them as Barnards, however. Also look how clean George is. The boys are grubby but not as filthy as earlier.]

Stef: Is that Aunt Fanny and Uncle Quentin he means?

Fiona: Bernards? Not even Barnards! How does Kirrin everything belong to Uncle Q if he’s a Barnard? They had ample opportunity to solve it and make it not confusing and they messed it up.

[We discuss this, at far too much length to have typed out. Upshot is, it doesn’t make much sense. They could have had Quentin Kirrin and his sister who marries Mr Barnard/Bernard. They could have had Quentin and Jack Kirrin… They could have left out Quentin’s family having owned Kirrin forever…]

Fiona: Julian’s shirt – the white patch is back, it wasn’t in last scene.

Stef: Her [Mrs Wentworth] dress is ripped under the arm – look.

Fiona: Why is he [Uncle Quentin] sporting bride of Frankenstein hair?

Stef: Nutty professor?

Fiona at 67 minutes in: Can I draw your attention back to what happened to the dead body on the beach?

Stef: No policeman involved in how or why he died? Even the incompetent Goon manages to get in the way of adventures. Not that the police did much more than arrive at the end to take the baddies away, the only other one I remember is the dismissive one from Hike.

Fiona: They do come in Fall Into Adventure to investigate the break in.

Fiona: Makes me think, it didn’t need to be a body just a helmet or something weird rather than a body forgotten about.

[Quentin tells George more about her late Aunt Annie and her explorations of Kirrin Island, which led to her death.]

Stef: You’ve just given George the answer!

Fiona: Yep.

Fiona: George has to be a bit inconsiderate to go and take the exact same risk.

Fiona: Their bodies were found? Whose?

Stef: The police searchers.

Fiona: But not Annie’s?

Stef: Is she the baddie’s mum?

Fiona: That’s what I was thinking but that’d be weird.

Fiona: You’d think he’d [Uncle Q] not have not allowed her to go [to the island, where her Aunt died] in the first place, not allowed her a boat.

Stef: What’s she going to do?

[The baddies are blasting with dynamite on the island.]

Fiona: Not very discreet is it?

[They find another passage in a cove.]

Fiona: Julian would never be the last one in.

Fiona: Do they not have clean clothes?? Even the 90s kids changed their clothes.

Stef: Yeah, Marco had like ten different pullovers.

Fiona: Sometimes they changed outfits just by walking behind a rock.

Stef: For a change Anne is not being a wimp.

Stef: Timmy knows, that’s where his diving person went, presumably.

Fiona: If it’s that dangerous to divers what chance do children have?

Stef: George knows the tides.

Fiona: But he had a diving suit on!

Fiona: Mushroom spores? Are they going to die of something toxic?

Stef: Unless it’s supposed to be uranium or something?

Stef: Ohh booby trap, lovely!

Fiona: The spikes are literally bending… I feel like they could easily squeeze out.

[They find a cave full of old treasures.]

Stef: Not quite as satisfying as ingots.

[Mr Wentworth uses the chalice to drink from a font.]

Stef: Please tell me it’s poisoned or something. But maybe as he’s already stark raving bonkers it won’t matter.

Fiona: Oh is he having visions of WW2? So it’s obviously set in the run up to WW2 but she’s wearing converse.

[Mr Wentworth runs off with a lit stick of dynamite.]

Stef: That fuse went off extremely quickly?

Stef: Why is there always another way out?

[The children climb on the font to escape.]

Fiona: Ohh sacrilegious!

Stef: Finally Julian’s taking charge! I’ve only been waiting an hour and a half!

[They climb out onto the island somewhere different.]

Fiona: Just another random hole in the ground.

Stef: What’s he got with him?

Fiona: A sack of treasure? Where did that come from?

[Dick tells the others that the water was contaminated with fungal spores.]

Fiona: I did call mushroom spores.

Stef: How are they going to get the island back? (Quentin sold it to Mr Wentworth earlier).

Fiona (on a wild tangent): Timmy might belong to someone, the diver might have had a wife…

[Quentin says the Five appear to be getting on famously.]

Both: Laughing.

Fiona: Where is this, a hospital?

Stef: His home?

Fiona: Why is he wearing a straight jacket at home?

Fiona: Peril on the Night Train, what the heck? What book is that supposed to be from?

I’ve a part two in the works with some (hopefully) more coherent reviewing.

 

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Fan fic Friday: Cunningham and Petrov: Bill and Allie’s Great Adventure, chapter 1

Posted on February 23, 2024 by Fiona

We have been writing Cunningham and Petrov fiction since 2020, filling in the gaps in the Adventure Series books to show what Bill was getting up to off-page. As he was around for a lot of The Island of Adventure, and didn’t know anything was up until he fell into, and was present for, the ending of The Castle of Adventure, we skipped those.

So we started with The Mystery of the Missing Aeroplane which is set during The Valley of Adventure and covers Bill’s search for the missing children after they disappear from the aerodrome, then adds some detail to the chapters where Bill and his men round up the enemy.

Then we wrote The Mystery of the Missing Agent, set during The Sea of Adventure, mostly chronicling what the Petrov half of the partnership was up to in the search for Bill, with some bits about Bill’s time in captivity.

Our most recent was was The Mystery of The Missing Children which, naturally, is set during The Mountain of Adventure and details Bill’s search for the children in the Welsh valleys.

The next book, of course, is The Ship of Adventure, but Bill is so fully embroiled in that one that it was hard to find any gaps to fill in order to write a story. So our minds turned to something that happened off-page, shortly after the events of Ship. We couldn’t make it fit the Mystery of the Missing… format, but never mind.

“I don’t see why you can’t marry each other?”

Lucy-Ann’s clear voice was still ringing in Bill’s ears as Allie walked him out to his car that evening. His “do you think it’s a good idea?” had not been the sort of proposal he had been planning at all, but Lucy-Ann had thrown the idea out there so neatly… and Allie hadn’t rebuffed it. 

In fact she had looked as if she had been positively encouraging it. It would have been impossible for him to have dismissed the notion at this point so there had been nothing for it but to propose. Casually of course, as he hadn’t wanted to give the game away that it was already on his mind and that he had been planning to ask Allie for a while now. However he wasn’t entirely sure that he had managed to sound casual about it. Despite Allie’s smile he hadn’t been all that sure that she would accept after the children’s latest adventure under his watch. 

Turning back to Allie after unlocking his car door Bill had the grace to look abashed as he cleared his throat and said, “That wasn’t how I had planned to ask you to marry me.” 

“But you were planning on asking me?” she asked softly, reaching for his hand and giving it a squeeze. 

Bill thought of the engagement ring that was sitting safely in his suitcase in the car boot, just in case he had gotten the chance to use it when he saw Allie again. “Yes. I didn’t have all the details worked out, but it was going to be just a touch more romantic,” he said wryly. 

“How long-” Allie began, but Bill put his hand up to stop her. 

“I’m not revealing my secrets.”

“But you don’t know what I was going to ask!” 

“You were going to ask me how long I had been planning to ask you to marry me,” he retorted smugly. 

Allie folded her arms, smiled equally smugly and with a teasing glint in her eyes, “No actually. I was going to ask you how long you were going to make me wait.”

Bill whistled through his teeth, “Oh, just until you had forgiven me for my latest misdemeanour. Whatever it might have been at the time.” 

“So, almost never then,” Allie laughed. “As you seem to go round and round in circles with trouble? The same as my children!” 

“Just as well that Lucy-Ann said something then, isn’t it?” Bill asked, his eyes glinting now. 

“Very much so.” 

Bill pressed  a quick kiss to her lips. “You’d better get back inside, it looks like rain. How about I take you out to dinner tomorrow and we can celebrate?”

“I’d like that very much,” Allie said, stepping back so he could open the driver’s door. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she added as Bill beamed at her. He saluted before sliding into his seat and then waved over his shoulder as he pulled away.

Allie returned indoors, glad that the children had already gone up to bed and mercifully had taken Kiki with them. The bird had been chanting all through dinner “God save the King!” and “Pop goes the weasel!” along with any other phrases she could remember, driving everyone mad to the extent that even Jack had told her to be quiet. 

The next evening Bill arrived to collect Allie for dinner. “A vision as always,” he said as she opened the door, dressed for an evening out in a deep blue evening dress. Looking past her he saw Philip coming down the stairs in a surprisingly smart getup, and in the middle of knotting his tie.

He looked quizzically at Philip and then at Allie. “Philip!” Allie said. “I told you, it’s just Bill and I going for dinner tonight. There’s a cold pie and some other bits in the larder for you all.”

“But Mother,” he protested as the other three came down the stairs, similarly smartly attired. “I do think we ought to be allowed along as well. After all, getting married was all Lucy-Ann’s idea in the first place!”

“That’s an argument for Lucy-Ann to come, not all four of you,” Bill replied, thinking of his bank balance. 

“You did agree to take on the four of them on, as well as me,” Allie reminded him. 

Bill held up his hands. “All right, but my reservation was only for two! I’m not sure they can accommodate six.”

“And a parrot,” Jack reminded him.

“And a m-”

“No!” both Bill and Allie said very firmly.

 “There is no restaurant in England that would accept a monkey as one of the party,” Bill said. “If you want to come it’ll have to be without Micky.”

With Micky safely shut in the boys’ bedroom the six headed out to dinner. When they returned Allie sent the children inside to get ready for bed, and instructed the boys to clear up any mess Micky had made. 

She went inside only long enough to pour them both a glass of sherry which they took outside into the garden. Bill had already lit his pipe and puffed contentedly on it as Allie put her free arm through his and guided him across the lawn to the bench overlooking a small pond. 

“I’m glad Kiki was better behaved tonight,” Allie murmured. There had only been one outburst of hip-hip-hoorays this time after another table had sung happy birthday. 

“Yes, I think the old dear was quite pleased at having a parrot join in on the well wishes,” Bill said with a laugh. “But really, I’m just glad she approves of us.”

He pulled the pipe from his mouth before letting out a billow of smoke. He looked down at Allie through the haze. “I hope that you do too,” he added, his voice thick with emotion. He knocked out his pipe and stowed it in one pocket before reaching into another and withdrawing a small velvet box.

“Shall we make this official?” he asked as he opened the box to show her the simple solitaire diamond ring with a plain gold band. 

“Oh Bill,” she breathed, taken aback that he already had a ring ready for her. “Of course we can make it official.”

Bill grinned like a fool and slipped the ring (which was thankfully the right size) onto her left ring finger. He had noticed that she had no longer been wearing her late husband’s rings recently but he suspected that she may have moved them to the chain round her neck. He cupped her face in his hands and then lent in to kiss her the way he had wanted to kiss her since he had casually asked her to marry him the night before. 

Allie let him kiss her, and kissed him back, her hands on his chest. When they stopped she pulled back a little and teasingly asked:

“You didn’t feel the need to go down on one knee, then?”

“Not with my knees,” Bill laughed. “You’d have to help me up again, Allie, love.”

She laughed and he kissed her again. Before they had finished this time a cackling floated over the night air and a large white bird settled on the fence next to them, cawing delightedly. “Silly Billy, hip-hip-hooray! God save the King!” 

“Oh Kiki,” Allie exclaimed. “How did you get out?”

“The boys must have opened their window,” Bill said darkly. “Away with you Kiki, old girl. Nothing to see here!” He waved a hand towards her as he spoke. Kiki lazily flapped her wings and took flight still chanting “Hip-hip-hooray!” Bill and Allie had no choice but to laugh. 

On his way home that evening Bill gave a sigh of relief. Allie had liked the ring he had chosen. He’d had a rough idea of what he had been looking for when he had visited the jeweller’s – something simple and understated, but elegant at the same time. And yet when he had been shown a selection of rings he had suddenly realised that he had come woefully unprepared. He had known that diamonds came in different carats and cuts, and that there were other stones to choose from. What he had not considered was that these factors could be combined in quite so many different ways. And then he found himself looking at trays and trays of rings, wondering how on earth he was supposed to choose. He hadn’t wanted to look like a fool so he had taken his time and considered the full array carefully. When the sales assistant had suggested that perhaps he could begin by ruling out any stones or styles he didn’t like, he had realised that perhaps he was making a fool of himself regardless.

With a little guidance from the assistant he had been able to narrow down the selection to just a few, choosing to rule out anything too similar to her first engagement ring, whilst also not picking anything outrageously different. 

At least he had known the size of the ring he needed. It had not been difficult to secretly measure Allie’s wedding ring when she had taken it off to wash the dishes one evening. 

He had then, in a moment of doubt, asked Anatoly for a second opinion. Why he had asked Anatoly of all people, he did not know. He hardly expected the boy to have any real input on the matter. Yet he found himself a trifle embarrassed to ask anyone else. Marrying at his age for the first time marked him out as different as it was, he didn’t need anyone thinking he couldn’t even choose a ring for his prospective bride. Besides, if Allie said no, he didn’t want it getting around that he was unmarriable. 

So he had held the ring out for inspection. “Da, that is a ring,” Anatoly had confirmed after staring at it with what had looked like serious concentration for several seconds. Bill had cuffed him on the shoulder for that. 

“I know it’s a ring. But is it the right ring?”

Anatoly had looked doubtful, leading Bill to worry. “I am not sure that I am the right person to ask. It is Allie’s opinion that will matter.”

“Yes I know that,” Bill had said as patiently as he could manage. “But asking her would rather give the game away now, wouldn’t it?”

Anatoly had given a non-committal noise in response. “I think you know her better than most people and if you have spent time choosing a ring for her, it is probably not too far from the perfect one.”

Bill had chosen to accept that mostly positive answer, and had sent Anatoly back to whatever it was he had been supposed to be doing when he had summoned him. Gone were the days where Anatoly was at Bill’s beck and call for work matters. He had his own special areas of expertise now, and usually went out alone. Bill missed their teamwork, and he worried sometimes that Anatoly had thrown himself too much into the job. It could be a lonely life. He himself had spent many lonely years already, never having found love before, though he did have colleagues that he considered friends, and some distant relatives that he saw semi-regularly. He had often wished that he had found someone earlier, when he was younger (and had more hair). But now he knew that it would not have been Allie, and therefore no longer wished such a thing. Allie had been more than worth waiting for.

To be continued.

 

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Monday #567

Posted on February 20, 2024 by Fiona

To prove I do get things written/posted eventually this week we’ll have some of the fanfic I’ve been talking about for the past nine months and a review of a TV episode from December.

Cunningham and Petrov: Bill and Allie’s great adventure

and

The Famous Five 2020s Style: The Curse of Kirrin Island

It was a smashing movie, Mummy.

The movie Brodie watched happened to be the recent Super Mario Bros Movie, but the language was pure Blyton.

 

 

 

 

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Reading the Famous Five to Brodie, part 2

Posted on February 16, 2024 by Fiona

I have written one post already with some of Brodie’s comments on Five on a Treasure Island (and his love of the series in general). We are all the way up to Mystery Moor now, and I find him making Famous Five related comments quite often which I absolutely love. So I thought it was time to make another post looking at the next couple of books – having sent Stef updates every evening after story time.

Five Go Adventuring Again

Although he loved the first book we didn’t immediately jump into the second. I had thought we might read one every so often, and so we read two Dick King-Smith books before, two weeks later, we decided on Five Go Adventuring Again.

The first thing I have recorded him saying is that Mr and Mrs Sanders must be evil smugglers because they have a hidey-hole behind the sliding panel in the hall. I couldn’t help but laugh at that. Maybe it was my attempt at an elderly all-purpose Cornishesque accent that misled him? I was trying for sweet and kindly.

He was more astute in his second prediction. He looked at the picture of the linen scrap and said “that’s a clue to the secret path! It must be in the farm house!” I thought it was interesting that he used the words secret path as those are one of the translations suggested by Mr Roland – a secret path, or a secret road.

I sometimes ask him questions to gauge what he’s thinking, especially when there’s something potentially misleading going on. So I asked him, quite casually, what he thought of Mr Roland. By this point George is well against him, while the others trust him and I wondered which side Brodie would fall on.

“I like Mr Roland, but I haven’t seen his lips.”

I loved that response! He remembered George talking about Mr Roland’s thin lips, but couldn’t make his own judgement as he hadn’t seen them.

(It was this point that I said to Stef that I should start a blog about his comments, and well, here we are.)

After Mr Roland has lied about knowing the artists he declared that “[Mr Roland] must be one of the smuggler family!” 

I’m not sure why he was so obsessed with smugglers and smuggling because there aren’t actually any references to it in the first two books.

I tried to get him to say Enid Blyton after one chunk of bedtime reading and the result was hysterical. The closest he could get was Elin Blightning. I apologise as there’s a bit of me speaking in my dulcet Dundonian in the clip below, too, but you can perhaps get an idea of why I struggle doing convincing accents!

Back to Brodie’s comments! As soon as George spotted the eight panels above the fire he said “that must be the entrance to the secret passage!” I’m thinking (with typical motherly pride) how smart he is and then he comes out with “It was on the tinfoil!”

So now, in Brodie’s mind, Mr Roland has been upgraded to a robber, though earlier he was sure it was George as she was the only one to have been in the study. He also twigged that Mr Roland had already attempted a theft the night he was caught by Timmy, and thinks he wants to do his own experiments using the stolen pages.

Another night he guessed that the secret way went to “Kirrin Farmhouse, where they found the tinfoil!” so again, he manages to sound both smart and silly in the same sentence. He thought the passage coming into the cupboard behind the secret door was “all very weird.” We ended on the cliff-hanger of the men coming up to find the doors locked.

“It’s a good thing they locked the doors. There’s only one key – only two keys – and it’s a good thing they’re on the inside!” but after a pause “but maybe the men can push the doors open. With an axe!”

At this point in the book he said his favourite character was “the boy, Julian” now ( he had said it was George before) because “he’s so clever and he is always the one saying things.” I suggested that Julian’s bossy and Brodie agreed “he’s a bossy boots.”

On finishing the book I asked him a few questions. His favourite part was when they were in the secret passage because that was the most exciting and George is his favourite now, because she’s the fiercest

He asked me how many more to go and I said 19.

“Yeah!! I’m going to read all 19!!”

Five Run Away Together

There was no gap between Five Go Adventuring Again and Five Run Away Together. We finished one on Wednesday night and he started the next on Thursday night. He asked me why it was called Five Run Away Together, and then, as he so often does, he answered his own question.

“I know, because they run away from a ghost!!”

I think we all know that this won’t be his last wild prediction for the series!

He really liked the Georgie Porgie song and laughed like anything at it – I suppose on its own it’s kind of a funny song. Perhaps aided by me singing it as mockingly as I could.

I asked Brodie where he thought Aunt Fanny and and Uncle Quentin were (just as George finds the house empty) and he said “They’re locked away somewhere! I know, Kirrin farmhouse with the artists!”

I reminded him that the artists had been arrested in the last book. “Oh yeah, then there must be another baddie around!” Then, after the note from Uncle Quentin, and Julian pulling Edgar’s nose he said “I bet that note wasn’t real. I think Edgar wrote it! He must have them locked up somewhere!” This is actually quite a clever guess, though unfortunately not right – he was so disappointed to be wrong.

(At this point Stef said “You need to blog these” and I told her that I was using the chat with her to log what he’d said so I didn’t forget.)

His next guess was better – he correctly guessed that George’s plan was to go to her island. I laughed like anything when George bought her supplies and Julian wonders what she’s up to, and Brodie said, in an isn’t-it-obvious sort of voice – “she’s doing her plan!!”

Upon discovering that the only whole room in the castle has fallen in and asking Where will they sleep? he immediately said “The pirate ship!” To be fair the Five do investigate the wreck as a possibility.

Someone has been on Kirrin Island. “I know! It was the man with the fire! But how did he get there, through the rocks? He must have parachuted from a plane!” One point to Brodie!

The Five guess that someone in the village has been collecting smuggled goods from the island. “Mrs Stick! She’s the smuggler!” Another point to Brodie.

I was amused at him being slightly disdainful that the Five hadn’t found the hole to the cave before. (And I kind of agree, especially seeing as George insists she knows every inch of her island!)

[Despairingly]”Oh Juuulian! He always comes up with the ideas.”

I asked him why this was a bad thing – “He doesn’t let anyone else have the ideas.” I said that he’s bossy. “Yes he is bossy. But he is the oldest, that means he has to be the leader.” At least he didn’t say it’s because he’s a boy.

Brodie’s list of things they would need to take to the island: Food, a stove, and chairs. Obviously not a fan of roughing it and sitting on the floor!

When Dick asks why they don’t always have meals like this he said “Yes it all goes so well together.” Tinned meat sandwiches, pineapple chunks, and then sardines dug out of the tin with biscuits… Ok then.

A rather intelligent comment I thought – when they put knots in the rope for getting in and out of the cave – “But that will make the rope shorter.”

When ?Dick says he hopes they hear/see something of the smugglers – “I don’t. I want to hear more about Anne playing houses in the cave.” I always like those bits too!

When they couldn’t find the tin opener he remembered from like four chapters and two nights before “It’s in their pocket!”

We had a lack of comments one night, I think he was too engrossed in the story. But he did find the animal noises in the dungeon hilarious and insisted on making the echo sound effects to my noises.

Before bed that night he said

“Mummy… I absolutely… LIKE the Famous Five.”

High praise indeed!

For all his astute remarks Brodie is six and has some pretty wild thought processes. He thought that cows could a) pick up mud in their mouths and throw it at people by shaking their heads and b) might steal cushions and blankets for a nice place to sleep.

Upon the reveal of the girls’ clothes in the trunk he came to the conclusion that Mrs Stick is having a baby girl and they want to have it without a doctor knowing. He couldn’t explain why, though.

He had me laughing again with a conversation about tongue. I had read a meal description that included tongue and he interrupted me. “TONGUE?” and showed me his tongue to make sure I understood. I explained it would be cow’s tongue. He considered this .“Does it have saliva on it?”

He couldn’t guess what the girl’s scream meant, unless it was a doll that could talk but he did know what the word kidnappers meant.

While reading this the schools went strike so we played schools at home (complete with school bell sound from YouTube) and finished the book as our literacy work. (Yes we are both in our pyjamas. Pretend school at home doesn’t require real clothes.)

The school had sent us some different activities including the one below.

Choose a story to enjoy with an adult. As the adult reads, listen for new or interesting words. Ask what they mean. Talk about the different characters and who you liked best. You could try retelling the story afterwards. Try drawing pictures of the beginning, middle and end of the story. Now try writing a sentence under each picture to explain what is happening.

Picture 1: George finds a letter – She is reaching up to the mirror which has the letter tucked into it, and Edgar is on the sofa.

Picture 2: Julian climbs down the rope – The rope has a lot of knots in it, then there are the four blankets for sleeping and their tins and food on the rocky shelf.

Picture 3: Jennifer is rescued – She is saying thank you.

He didn’t think it was very fair on Edgar to get locked up, as he didn’t do any of the kidnapping. But “it was the only thing they could do”.

At the end of this book Julian is back to being his favourite.

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2023 birthday and Christmas present round up

Posted on February 15, 2024 by Fiona

I’m rather late writing this up this year but better late than never.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that my family and friends would have run out of Enid Blyton themed gifts for me, but they haven’t quite – yet. I think it does get harder for them every year, though!

First up, there was this Adventure Series jigsaw. It’s one of those ones where the box doesn’t show the picture and it comes with a little booklet which sets you a mystery to solve in the finished jigsaw. I haven’t done it yet, but I’ll be sure to show you when I have.

Then, from the appropriately-named Georgina the Librarian‘s site, this magnetic notebook with a Famous Five quote on it. This’ll go on the fridge for shopping lists as soon as the current one is finished.

Actually from last Christmas but I got them a bit late so I’m including them now, were these Swanage/Corfe postcards. I have quite the collection of these now so I need to find space on the walls for these new ones.

Moving to the more Blyton adjacent than strictly Blyton I also got this collection of Malcolm Saville short stories, published by Girls Gone By.

Plus this nice book about lighthouses (my interest in those mainly stemming from Demon’s Rocks, of course).

Did you get anything Blyton-y over Christmas?

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Monday #566

Posted on February 12, 2024 by Fiona

Turns out that I was right to guess that I wouldn’t write anything last week! Who’d have guessed?

Stef has returned to the far end of the UK (blow!) so I can’t use her as an excuse this week. I have developed my second lurgy of the year, though, (yes, already). But I will try not to let that get in the way too much. I did get some fresh sea air over the weekend but I don’t think it works so well while you are actually unwell, as opposed to when you are getting better.

Christmas and birthday present round up 2023

and

Reading the Famous Five to Brodie part 2

 

I found this very Kiki-like brooch in a quirky little shop selling magickal items, vintage finds and gifts.

I resisted buying it, but I couldn’t resist taking a picture to share.

 

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Monday #565

Posted on February 5, 2024 by Fiona

After a spotty January in terms of posting, I don’t think there will be anything this week either as Stef will be up visiting me. I have read all the suggestions for future content though, and have taken them on board. Of course I know that I can’t please all the people all the time, but I can at least try to write things that people want to read!

Henry, or Henrietta as George would say, is someone we don’t get to know very well unfortunately. We know that’s she’s tall and wiry and is able to trick Julian and Dick into thinking that she’s a boy. She’s also very boastful, to the point that few people believe half of what she says. Of course George hates her on sight – she likes to think she’s the only girl who can pull of dressing as a boy. It’s not clear if Henry feels the same, but she certainly rises and responds to George’s teasing and name-calling with equal fervour.

Henry’s coming to the rescue at the end of Five Go to Mystery Moor means that, like with Jo, George has to grudgingly admit she’s not all bad. But unlike Jo, Henry doesn’t get to appear again to continue a friendship with George.

 

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January 2024 round up

Posted on February 2, 2024 by Fiona

The first round up of 2024 already. January seems to have simultaneously dragged and rushed by!

What I have read

I read quite a bit this month, and finished on 12/100. When I wasn’t well I did some comfort listening by going back to Jodi Taylor yet again, this is my fifth time reading the early St Mary’s books.

What I have read:

  • The Nightingale Daughters (Nightingales #12) – Donna Douglas
  • The Ghost Woods – C J Cooke
  • The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers’ Journey Through Curiosities of History – Oliver Tearle
  • Five on a Hike Together
  • The Bookshop of Second Chances – Jackie Fraser
  • Why Mummy Drinks at Christmas (Why Mummy #5) – Gill Sims
  • Five Have a Wonderful Time
  • The Something Girl (Frogmorton Farm #2) – Jodi Taylor
  • Just One Damned Thing After Another (Chronicles of St Mary’s #1) – Jodi Taylor
  • The Little Bookshop by the Sea – Eliza J Scott
  • A Symphony of Echoes (Chronicles of St Mary’s #2) – Jodi Taylor
  • The Actress Unscripted (Heather Bay Romance #5) – Amber Eve

And I’m still working on:

  • Five Go Down to the Sea
  • We Are the Baby-Sitters Club: Essays and Artwork from Grown Up Readers – Marisa Crawford
  • Tilly and the Map of Stories (Pages & Co #3) – Anna James
  • A Demon’s Guide to Wooing a Witch (Glimmer Falls #2) – Sarah Hawley
  • The Secret Book Club – Shauna Robinson
  • A Second Chance (Chronicles of St Mary’s #3) – Jodi Taylor

What I have watched

  • A few Christmas things crept into early January. Brodie and I watched The Muppets Christmas Carol before he went back to school, as we hadn’t managed to fit it in in December, and I caught up on Call the Midwife’s Christmas special. There was also the Taskmaster New Year Special.
  • I’ve been watching Call the Midwife Series 13 since, as well as ER season 3 and 4, and some of the TV show of Time Traveller’s Wife. Disappointingly this was cancelled after one season so it hasn’t really encouraged me to finish it, yet.
  • Tuesday night we have been watching season two of And Just Like That (the Sex and the City sequel) and it’s just as bad as the first season.
  • We’ve managed a few family movies this month – Jurassic World Dominion which none of us had seen before, then we went right back to the original Jurassic Park which I’ve seen dozens of times but Brodie hadn’t. He also begged for the next Harry Potter, which was Order of the Phoenix. Which he then asked questions all the way through as it’s a bit more complicated than the earlier ones. I also watched The Railway Children Return which wasn’t as good as either of the earlier films, despite still having Jenny Agutter in it.
  • We also decided to put Gladiators on one weekend, and after Brodie being adamant that he didn’t want to watch it he was transfixed by it. We’ve now gone back to catch up on the first episode and had many Gladiator-style reenactments in the house.

What I have done

  • It has been rather a quiet month with a lot of staying at home, partly due to all the storms and partly because of not being well.
  • We made it out for walks twice, once was foggy and once was bitterly cold.
  • I managed to complete two jigsaws both combining other interests I have – one a tricky Lego jigsaw and the other a very tricky Jaws one (all that blue!)
  • I also had two Lego builds, both Harry Potter ones. The Gryffindor common room I got for my Christmas, then I treated myself to the Charms Classroom as it has been discontinued. (The common room build was accompanied by a bowl of trifle and Call the Midwife). Brodie then helped me create a giant Hogwarts with all my sets on my new jigsawing table.

What I bought

I saw the newish Hodder collection of Five Minute Stories on Kindle for 99p and thought I’d get it. I had sort of assumed that this might be a new version of Five Minute Tales, and I suppose it is, but it’s not the same stories. But I’m sure I can review it or compare it to at least some of the original stories anyway.

How was your January?

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Enid Blyton references in other works of fiction part 3

Posted on January 31, 2024 by Fiona

I’ve done two of these posts already, but here I am with enough material for a third post. Books about bookshops, libraries, booklovers and so on are always full of literary references. However, most of them are references to works in the public domain – lots of Jane Austin, the Brontës, Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, and so on. It’s not exactly rare, but it’s less common for copyright protected works to be mentioned – there’s probably a risk (however small) of complaints coming in about it. And yet – Blyton is quite often.

Of the 150 books I read this year, 9 mentioned Blyton – that’s 6%. (One was non-fiction and so will be included in a non-fiction post). Some of them are perhaps expected, Children’s books set in a bookshop, for example. Others perhaps less so. I think it says a lot that Blyton is still referenced so often, by all sorts of different authors.

Tilly and the Bookwanderers – Anna James

This is the first in a series of books about Tilly, who lives above her family’s bookshop and who can wander into books. She never wanders into an Enid Blyton book as that’s pretty risky copyright infringement-wise. But she does still get a couple of mentions.

Jack, the bookshop 19 year old café cook is always trying to recreate cakes from books.

“He’s trying to make pop cakes, like the ones in the Enid Blyton books Tilly explained. “But he’s run out of vanilla.”

…

“Why do you have honey on your forehead?”
“I’m experimenting with pop cakes,” he said, holding up an ice cube tray filled with sticky honey. Remember in the Faraway Tree books by Enid Blyton, they eat those cakes that explode with honey when you bite into them? I’m going to freeze the honey so that I can bake it in the middle of the cupcakes. At least, that’s the plan. The honey is proving… well, a little uncooperative.”

The Library of Lost and Found – Phaedra Patrick

This is quite an interesting story about Martha, a librarian whose life is almost being overtaken by all the things she does to help other people. Then she finds a mysterious book of fairytales with a dedication from her late grandmother (Zelda) and starts to delve into her difficult family’s past.

She has some help from Owen, a second-hand bookshop owner as she tries to work out where the book came from.

She was pleased to find that her and Owen’s conversation wasn’t stilted at all, as they resumed their discussion about books. This time they talked about ones from their childhoods.

Martha chose Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree because she loved the idea that creatures lived in a tree, in an everyday forest. Owen preferred Treasure Island. It offers true escapism, buccaneers and buried gold,’ he said. ‘What more could a boy want from a book?’

…

She peered in through the window at the display, at a vintage edition of The Hobbit, old train magazines and a full series of Famous Fives piled haphazardly. The sight of Anne and Timmy on the covers made her heart flip. They were her favourite characters, though Zelda said they were too middle class and that she preferred the tomboy, George.

Something New at the Borrow A Bookshop – Kiley Dunbar

Joy is staying at the Borrow a Bookshop to set up a computerised till system and online presence, and she has her daughter Radia with her. Radia is almost six and hasn’t ever been to school or nursery, and has only just discovered that children her age usually have started school.

She’d been outraged at the discovery, and after watching every episode of Mallory Towers and The Worst Witch on iPlayer (shows she wasn’t really old enough for but she’d insisted she was), she’d developed a deeply romantic notion of what school would be like if only they stayed somewhere long enough for her to actually go.

A nice reference despite the misspelling – and not the first time I’ve seen Malory misspelled in a professional publication.

A Ration Book Childhood – Jean Fullerton

This is set during WW2 and is the third book in a series following the Brogan family.

The ack-ack gun on the Isle of Dogs sent the ground trembling as they let off another round skyward. Mattie sighed and rolled onto her side. In the mute glow of Alicia’s Noddy night-light she gazed through the wire lattice at the twelve-by twelve basement space that was the McCarthy’s nightly shelter.

This reference is anachronistic, however, as Noddy first appeared in 1949, and the events of this book take place in 1941.

The Accidental Investigator – Amber Eve

This book is chock-full of references. I often see Noddy  the Famous Five and the Enchanted Wood mentioned but this time there’s the Five Find-Outers too. It’s not much of a surprise, the author has a personal blog and has previously written about her love for Blyton.

This is her third book set in the Scottish village of Heather Bay, and sees Scarlett, a journalist, trying to track down an influencer that she’s convinced is not only in the local area but is also in trouble.

First she likens Dylan, the village’s only policeman to Mr Goon.

another awkward encounter with Heather Bay’s answer to Mr. Goon, the unfriendly policeman from Enid Blyton’s Five Find-Outers series

…

“He’s like a modern-day Mr. Goon.” I’m about to explain to the perplexed Katie that Mr. Goon was the bungling policeman from one of my favourite children’s books when that blasted doorbell starts clamouring for attention yet again.

Scarlet, I think rather channels the author at times:

I wanted to be a detective, like Nancy Drew, or Frederick “Fatty” Trotteville of The Five Find-Outers. I wanted to solve mysteries, and have adventures, and eat lots of barley sugar, which I would always just happen to have in my pocket, along with a torch and a box of matches.

A few of the references are more vague, but clearly Blyton-inspired:

No local scandals to uncover. No mysterious lights shining from the windows of a supposedly abandoned house. Not even a smuggler or anything. I mean, what do you have to do to find a smuggler in this town, I ask you?

…

I’m out here in the dark. Alone. Without so much as a faithful animal companion or a potted meat sandwich to keep me company, let alone a convenient farmhouse with a cheerful farmer’s wife who insists on putting me up for the night, before sending me on my way in the morning after a lavish breakfast.

…

Looks like the adventure books I used to love so much were lying to me the whole time. Trust me to have to risk life and limb on the side of a mountain to find that out.

Scarlet lamenting how life is not like Blyton’s books becomes a common theme:

Ada and her Instagram account, which, okay, might not be anything like as interesting as that time the Famous Five stumbled across a ghost train on the moors (It turned out to be smugglers, naturally .It always turned out to be smugglers for the Five.).

…

I think the main thing I’ve learned from this little impromptu adventure is that adventuring is only fun in books, when you have a mug of steaming coffee in front of you — or if you’re in the Famous Five, say ,and the smugglers are mostly harmless.

…

I know the Famous Five always took things like ginger beer and bags of barley sugar with them when they went camping, but my fridge contains only Prosecco and cheese, while the cupboards are a testament to my take-away habit .

And half-a-dozen other miscellaneous references:

Tonight I toss and turn for half the night, before drifting into a restless dream in which PC Goon from the Five Find-Outers is helping me.

…

When I was talking to Ruby, I felt like Nancy Drew, or one of the Famous Five, teetering on the edge of some thrilling mystery.

…

I give him my best George-from-the-Famous-Five scowl.

…

Sitting by the loch, looking out to the little island in the middle — the one with the ruined castle that I always think looks like Kirrin Castle in The Famous Five.

…

“We could steal a boat,” I suggest hopefully. “That’s what The Five would do.”

“The Five would end up having to get arrested by the coastguard,” he says, grinning at me.

…

And you better believe I’m not coming this far, just to be left behind at the last minute, like George and Anne in the Famous Five, left to make supper while the boys went out to investigate the light in the old tower at midnight.

I really enjoyed this book on its own merits, all the Blyton references just made it extra fun.

A Change of Heart for the Cornish Midwife – Jo Bartlett

Gwen, one of the midwives is organising her older cousin’s funeral, and is discussing the difficulties in writing the eulogy as her cousin lived such a quiet life.

She spent all her spare time reading the same sort of books we read when we were kids and, after she retired, she just doubled down on that. I think she must have read all the Enid Blytons about a hundred times each.

She also makes a few more “mature” comments!

I like to think that maybe she read the odd racy story in between the Enid Blytons and got her kicks like that.

…

It can’t all have been lashings of ginger beer, can it? I’m sure she must have discovered Fifty Shades of Grey at some point and read about some lashings of an entirely different sort.

There’s that famous but (as far as the books go) non-existent phrase about lashings of ginger beer again. Blyton did use lashings, but never for ginger beer.

Lashings of tomatoes √

Lashings of ginger beer X

The Bookshop of Second Chances – Jackie Fraser

Another bookshop-themed book.

Thea visits a private Scottish beach and thinks to herself that:

It’s pretty much perfect, like something from the Famous Five.

Later, in the titular shop:

Next there’s an older couple buying some Noddy books in hardback.

Why Mummy Drinks at Christmas – Gill Sims

Gill Sims must be a Blyton fan as this isn’t the first time that she has mentioned the Famous Five in this series. Ellen, the Mummy of the story, regularly laments how her children do not behave in the way that the Famous Five did.

Summers were one thing, despite Famous Five efforts at japes and frolics. Why would my children never frolic satisfactorily in a seasonally appropriate way.

…

“This is an adventure,” I said. “Think of it like camping.”

“I hate camping,” wailed Jane.

In fairness to her, I also loathe camping. “Well not camping then, definitely an adventure, poppet. Like the Famous Five.”

“Are there going to be smugglers?” whimpered Jane.

“No, of course not. All right, not the Famous Five. Err, like, the Railway Children.”

And that’s all I have, for now. But with another hundred or so books still to read this year I’m sure I’ll find more!

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Monday #564

Posted on January 29, 2024 by Fiona

I’m back, having mostly recovered from my first lurgy of the year. Another one so kindly brought home from school and shared around. How I longed for someone to suggest I needed some fresh country air and a week (or two) of rest somewhere peaceful and idyllic, and to make it a reality. But no such luck!

Enid Blyton references in other fiction, part 3

and

January round up

This has been rumoured for a long time and may still never come about, but the proposed film adaptation of the Magic Faraway Tree has made progress! There’s a script, a director, casting is apparently underway, so we will see.

‘The Magic Faraway Tree’ Adaptation Heads Towards Production With Neal Street, Elysian, Ashland Hill & ‘Wonka’ Scribe Simon Farnaby — EFM

 

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My 2023 in books and Blyton

Posted on January 18, 2024 by Fiona

This is my fifth full-year round up, so I think you’ll know what to expect from it.

I’ve seen a lot of debate online recently about reading goals – many people can’t understand why anyone would make a goal as they find it takes the fun out of reading. I like goals, though, as they motivate me to read instead of scrolling on my phone and they encourage me to pick different things to read. If it wasn’t fun, I wouldn’t do it!

Goal: read at least 100 books

As always I set my initial goal at 100 books. By late December I was on something like 146 and had mentally made up my mind to reach for 150, so to motivate myself to really go for it I changed the goal online.

And… I made it – just. I finished book #150 on Hogmanay.

Aside from 2020 when I was off work for a huge chunk of the year this is my best result since having Brodie.

Goal: read more new books than rereads

I always caveat this goal by saying I LOVE rereading books and think that rereads can be just as beneficial as reading a new book. But, for me, I know it’s too easy to stick with books I know (and have often read many, many times) and not challenge myself with something new.

I did well with 111 new books and 39 rereads.

Amongst those were 53 new authors (and 82 different ones in total). Perhaps this goal could become more new books and new authors?

Some of them were responsible for my favourite reads this year – Lea Booth, Amber Eve, Bonnie Garmus, Casey McQuiston, AJ Pearce and Rainbow Rowell.

Amongst my reread books are some familiar author names to the blog.

Jodi Taylor (11 books), Donna Douglas (10 books), Roald Dahl (2 books) and of course Enid Blyton (12 books), but more on her later.

Goal: read some books I’ve always meant to

This one covers quite a few goals really. To read at least one grown-up classic (children’s classics are a bonus), to tick off books I’ve had on my list for a long time, to read books I’ve seen adapted for film or TV, and this year to read more of my favourite kind of book – books about bookshops or libraries!

I’ll start with the classics.

My grown-up classic was Wuthering Heights. I did not like it any more than I liked Jane Eyre. But at least I now know what it’s about and have an opinion if it comes up in conversation.

I also read a few children’s ones – Treasure Island (this also counts for the movie adaptations, as I watched The Muppets Treasure Island and the 1950 Disney movie shortly after reading the book), Anne of Green Gables, T H White’s Sword in the Stone ( another movie adaptation as it was the main inspiration for the Disney movie, which I adore), and a modern classic Because of Winn-Dixie.

Aside from the above books there wasn’t really anything I ticked off this year – certainly no big blockbuster reads like Jaws, Jurassic Park or the Dan Brown books. Similarly while there are other books I read which have movie or TV adaptations I haven’t seen them and didn’t read them for that reason.

That’s probably because I focussed pretty heavily on books about bookshops and libraries. In 2022 I read 14. In 2023 I read 33! I also found another bookish genre I love – books about writing, recording or publishing books and read 6 of those.

Goal: Find a good balance between books for children and books for grown ups

This is similar to the previous goal, in that I love children’s books and think they have great value no matter your age. But they are usually easier to read and I can find myself sticking with them too much instead of reaching for something more complex and challenging.

In 2023 I read 110 books for adults, 7 for teens/young adults and 33 for children. I’m pleased that I ended up exceeding my original goal of 100 books with adult books alone.

Read more non-fiction

This is one goal I probably achieved, but didn’t exactly smash. Looking back I did do better than last year, though, but not a good as some previous years.

Included in this goal is to specifically read books on feminism and race, and I didn’t do very well on those.

I read 14 non fiction books which isn’t bad at all, I think I just ended up feeling like I hadn’t read many that were particularly thought-provoking.

Four of my non fic reads were memoirs/autobiographies I’ve read before – James Herriot and Roald Dahl, and three were new – Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy), Sarah Henshaw and Chris Paling.

My feminist books were A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf (she raised many excellent points and was really ahead of her time, but this was a bit of a slog to get through) and Gender Rebels by Anneka Harry (despite the wonderful array of women this featured, and the interesting nuggets of information it contained the zany writing style made this truly awful and I can scarcely believe that I tortured myself by finishing it).

My only book about racial issues was Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly. Fantastic topic, but written in a very dull way which meant I found myself unmotivated to keep picking it up.

Other reading stats

Those were all my goals, but since 2020 I’ve noted the number of physical books vs ebooks vs audiobooks that I’ve read. They’re all equally valid ways to read so this is just me liking statistics.

I took out a Kindle Unlimited subscription in April so I was expecting this years ebook total to be quite high – but perhaps not as high as they actually are!

I read 62 physical books, 59 ebooks and 29 audiobooks. If I’d had Kindle Unlimited for the full year I’d no doubt have read more ebooks than physical ones.

I checked and I read 31 books on KU in 8 months, so around 3-4 books a month at a cost of £2.50 a book. Not everything I’d want to read is on KU but there’s a pretty good catalogue and I’ve always found something to read.

A new stat I decided to record this year was how many books I borrowed from the library, which turned out to be 43 books. Of those 9 were actually ebooks, including most of the classics I mentioned earlier.

The Wake Up Call - Beth O'Leary / Hex and the City - Kate Johnson / The Burnout - Sophie Kinsella

Library reservations are like buses. You wait for them to come in for ages then three turn up at once.

Which got me to thinking, I wonder how many books of the 150 I read that I actually bought this year. Without spending ages trawling through my past online orders I can’t be totally sure.

Obviously I pay for my Audible and Kindle Unlimited subscriptions so those books are not free – but they sort of feel free as I don’t spend money per title. I pay £69.99 up front for Audible (£5.80 a month) for which I can choose 12 books a year (though I do get a lot of buy-one-get-one-free offers, and there’s a lot of books free in the plus catalogue) and Kindle Unlimited is £9.49 a month. I’ve definitely bought a couple of Audible books on sale (usually £2.99), and I know that I’ve bought 4 Kindle books. I’ve got a couple of Audible books in my library that I haven’t listened to yet, though, and probably Kindle ones too.

I was going to say that I absolutely only bought two physical books (for myself) this year – Silver and Gold and a Nancy Drew, but then I remembered that I bought around 6 or 7 Angel novels. This was quite good of me as there were 12 that I didn’t have. Though it is also possibly quite bad of me as I haven’t read any of them yet. And then there were the two Collin’s Seagull Library titles I also bought but did not read… but does money spent on books you didn’t read even count? I read a few books in 2023 that I bought in 2022 or earlier, so they were pretty much free books. Right?

The Blytons

Blyton was my second most-read author of the year which is kind of surprising. I’ve actually read very few in the five years that I’ve been doing this round up.

2019 – 5
2020 – 5
2021 – 6
2022 – 6

And 2023? 13!

I feel like I’ve been taken back to my childhood a bit, as I read Five Are Together Again early in the year, and then went on to start at the beginning again. I read the first nine Famous Fives to Brodie – the fastest I’ve read them in goodness knows how long.

 

The other books I read were The Secret Island, Holiday Stories and Silver and Gold.

By E.H. Davie

I really should have counted The Christmas Book and Enid Blyton’s Christmas Stories but I didn’t think to at the time and it’s too late now! If I had, Blyton would be my most-read author as I read 14 Jodi Taylor books.

Blyton-adjacent books I read were:

First Class Murder by Robin Stevens and King’s Ransom by Helen Moss, both authors recommended by me if you like Blyton.

That turned out to be a more thorough examination of last year’s reading than I had intended.

I’ve made more or less the same goals for this year, but I’ve started using a couple of new apps to track my reading (Bookmory and Storygraph) so I’ll hopefully have some new and interesting images and stats to share next year.

Did you set a reading goal for last year, if so, how did you get on? Have you set one for 2024?

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Monday #562

Posted on January 15, 2024 by Fiona

We are heading into an extremely cold week where I am, consistently below freezing and feeling as low as -10. If I can thaw myself out enough to type, here’s what I have planned for this week. (I have made a note of your requests from last week’s post, don’t worry.)

My 2023 in books and in Blyton

and

Enid Blyton references in other fiction, part 3

Can you believe that it has been ten years (and a week) since we posted our interview with Jemima Rooper? I’m not sure we’ve done anything quite so exciting since.

I told Brodie that I had met Jemima Rooper and he didn’t believe me…

World of Blyton Exclusive Interview with JEMIMA ROOPER

 

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Enid Blyton’s Christmas Stories then and now, part 9

Posted on January 14, 2024 by Fiona

This is unseasonably late, but I really didn’t want to leave it until Christmas 2024!

Santa Claus Gets Busy

This was first published in the Sunday Graphic in 1947, and the illustrations were uncredited. It was then reprinted in Enid Blyton’s Bright Story Book in 1952 with illustrations by Eileen Soper. It has also appeared in Enid Blyton’s Ruby Storybook (1980), and two editions of The Little Brown Bear and Other Stories (1985 and 2004).

There is another short story with the same title, first found in Sunny Stories and reprinted in the Tenth Holiday Book and the Purnell Holiday Book, and also a Wheaton musical play from 1939.

Unlike in The Little Reindeer Bell, all of Santa’s reindeer are ill, not just one. They are sneezing their heads off. Santa is, naturally, dismissive of the suggestion that he should use a helicopter, and instead telephones London Zoo to ask about borrowing some reindeer for the night. The zoo keeper is understandably suspicious until Santa looks up his name in his book (conveniently there is only one John Robins in the world) and can tell him what he got for Christmas 25 years ago.

As the zoos reindeer are of the hooves-firmly-on-the-ground kind he asks the zoo keeper to whisper annimaloolipatahmakaroo in their ears and to put fly-paint on their hooves. Problem solved!

Not much to say about the changes as there are barely any.

A correction is made as Zoo is always capitalised in the original, but it doesn’t need to be.

Oddly a hyphen is inserted into the magic word (annimal-oolipatahmakaroo), but only the first time it is used. I can only imagine that the word had been wrapped across two lines with a hyphen inserted, but the page was reformatted, moving the word onto one line but leaving the hyphen.

A Family Christmas Part Eleven: Christmas Day

This is a very short chapter, barely three pages.

Despite their late night the children are awake at 7am – isn’t that always the way, though? They are not expecting anything in their stockings as they saw Santa Claus fly off without filling them. But to their delight they are full of lovely things.

Blyton more lists than describes the day – Mother takes a piece of the Yule log for next year. Daddy lights the brandy pudding on fire and Ann gets the silver thimble, while the other children get threepenny bits. They light the Christmas tree candles in the evening.

It ends with Blyton’s common tactic of speaking directly to the reader. Ann declares she loves Christmas even more now she’s learned so much about it, and wishes someone would put it all into a book.

So I have—and here it is. And now we must leave Ann and her family with the lighted Christmas tree. The candles are almost burnt down. Christmas is nearly over. But it will come again with all its love and kindliness, the birthday of the little Jesus born so many hundreds of years ago, and we will say once more, with the angels,
“GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST; AND ON EARTH PEACE, GOODWILL TOWARDS MEN!”

As it is a short chapter there was not much to change.

The opening quote was

So now is come our joyfullest feast;
Let every man be jolly.
– George Wither

These are the opening lines of his poem A Christmas Carol.

Two expected changes first, queer to strange and Mother twice to Mummy (still inconsistently, though.)

Instead of threepenny bits the children find silver coins in the Christmas pudding.

Dreamt is changed to dreamed, and the fairy who looked down smilingly now looked down smiling.

I think it’s slightly odd, actually, that they didn’t use this as the last chapter of the book Blyton’s message to the reader has a certain air of finality to it.

The Christmas Tree Fairy

This one was a bit of a mystery to me. The acknowledgements credit this story as coming from The Enid Blyton Holiday Book, information which is repeated in the Cave. However, when I finally picked that up it’s not the same story at all. The story in The Holiday Book is about Dame Trit-Trot who gives a real-life fairy to her granddaughter Jane, but everyone else thinks it’s just a doll.

The story in the new collection is quite different. It is about a tiny tree which worries it will never be bought (so similar to The Tiny Christmas Tree from earlier in the book). This one’s not bought, but instead taken home by the woodman and decorated for his children, then planted in their garden for the next year. It does not mention fairies at any point, leading me to believe that they’ve put the wrong name and acknowledgement in the book.

I have found the story in the Cave of Books after a lot of searching. It was titled The Little Christmas Tree Brought Joy (or The Little Christmas Tree) and appeared in The Sunday Mail on December 24, 1944. It was illustrated by Frank McKenna and later appeared in The Big Bedtime Book (1951).

Very sloppy work, Hodder.

And just like that, I’m finally done with this series.

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December 2023 round up

Posted on January 11, 2024 by Fiona

We are a whole week into January so it is definitely time for me to jot down what I got up to in December. Naturally this will be rather Christmas-heavy.

What I have read

I embraced the Christmas romance novel this month, mostly thanks to Kindle unlimited, and decided to up my reading goal to 150, which I made, just.

What I have read:

  • The Ordeal of the Haunted Room (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #11.5) – Jodi Taylor
  • A Bookshop Christmas – Rachel Burton
  • Christmas at Corner Cottage – Sarah Hope
  • Thank You for Listening – Julia Whelan
  • Five Get Into Trouble 
  • The Perfect Christmas Village – Bella Osborne
  • A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon (Glimmer Falls #1) – Sarah Hawley
  • The Oddest Little Cornish Christmas Shop – Beth Good
  • Adrift: The Curious Case of the Lego Lost at Sea – Tracey Williams
  • Christmas Pie (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #14.5) – Jodi Taylor
  • Christmas Secrets in the Scottish Highlands – Donna Ashcroft
  • A Child is Born (Nightingales #3.5) – Donna Douglas
  • Five Fall Into Adventure
  • Gender Rebels – Anneka Harry

And I’m still working on:

  • Why Mummy Drinks at Christmas (Why Mummy #5) – Gill Sims

What I have watched

  • I carried on with The Simpsons season 12, and we also watched ER series 1 and 2 and Only Connect (including the Christmas specials)
  • Our Tuesday night movies were Love Hard, Last Christmas and Best Christmas Ever!
  • As we were off work and school we had time for plenty of movies, many of them Christmas-themed. Brodie chose Home Alone 1 & 2 and The Grinch, all of which he has seen before. We also watched the first three Harry Potter films and Chicken Run 2.
  • On Christmas Day we watched the classic Wallace and Grommet episodes, A Grand Day Out, The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave.
  • I also managed to watch both episodes of the Malory Towers Christmas special and review them – part one and part two.

What I have done

  • We kept up our annual traditions – visiting a local country park for Christmas crafts, a walk to find the hidden reindeer, visiting Santa and having hot chocolate – visiting a nearby cafe and Christmas tree farm to have more hot chocolate and look at all the ornaments and lights, and to post Brodie’s letter to Santa.
  • Elf made his daily visit to check on Brodie
  • We had a couple of days of snow over the first weekend of December so we decided to take Brodie sledging instead of ice-skating, and I took along a hot chocolate in my travel mug to keep me warm as I watched.
  • For my birthday I decided on a trip to an antique centre for a wander and lunch – I did not buy anything though, not even the Noddy things I found. But lunch was very nice! I also got tickets for The Little Mermaid on Ice at our local ice arena. It was a mix of competitive and amateur skaters, including some pretty young kids but it was very entertaining and there was some incredible skating.
  • We checked out the Christmas activities in the city centre, though they were pretty poor. Brodie did some colouring and had a ride on a little carousel.
  • I went to see Brodie’s school’s Christmas concert, held at a local church as the school can’t hold a big enough audience (it was built in the 1870s), and there was a Christmas party at the library that evening too.
  • Between my birthday and my Christmas I got five Harry Potter Lego sets so I built four of them in December, and also did one of my new jigsaws.
  • We also got together with family over Christmas and the week after, lots of food, lots of card and board games, lots of fun.

How was your December?

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Monday #561

Posted on January 8, 2024 by Fiona

Happy New Year to all my readers! I hope everyone had a good festive period and the return to work hasn’t been too arduous. (Assuming you were off, that is. I remember working Christmas in retail only too well…)

I hadn’t really planned to take a blogging break over Christmas – I had in fact been intending to finish the Christmas stories series before the New Year. But there were jigsaws to do, and Lego to build… so I ended up taking rather a long break. You’ll have to put up with a tiny bit more Christmas content now, just so I can get that series complete.

December round up

and

Enid Blyton’s Christmas Stories then and now, part 9

I rarely use this heading, and when I have it has been to answer a question that has come in from a reader.

This week the question is – what do I have planned for the blog this year?

As usual, the answer is that I don’t really know!

But I have a few ideas for some content, such as:

  • Watching and reviewing the new Famous Five TV episode (and the other two which I think come out this year) and series 3 and 4 of Malory Towers.
  • Putting together Brodie’s comments and questions on the Famous Five books
  • Finally reading and reviewing books on my shelves like Andrew Maunder’s Literary Life, the Malory Towers TV novel, and Sheila Ray’s Blyton Phenomenon,
  • Something about Enid Blyton Jigsaws
  • Reviewing the Naughtiest Girl books and the Secret Series (maybe Malory Towers and St Clares)

Some of these have been on my list of ideas for a very long time, though!

What would you like to see me write? Let me know in the comments below.

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Enid Blyton’s Christmas Stories then and now, part 8

Posted on December 24, 2023 by Fiona

I was so close to finishing this in time for Christmas, like I intended to. But we’ve all been feeling ill this week, so that on top of the wrapping and other last-minute Christmas preparations was too much. That means there’ll be one more post between Christmas and New Year (hopefully).

The Christmas-Tree Party

This was first published in Sunny Stories #50 in 1937, with uncredited illustrations. I then have the first reprinting of it, which was in the 1950 story collection Tricky the Goblin and Other Stories, with illustrations by Eileen Soper. It was also in Enid Blyton Readers 12 in 1950, with Soper’s illustrations (from what I can make out the same book was printed with a different title, one for the public and one for educators to use). Aside from those it has appeared in two editions of The Brave Toy Soldier and Other Stories, in 1996 and 2015.

This is a simple but sweet story. Janey excitedly watches the neighbours across the street preparing for a Christmas party. Although she would dearly love to go, she makes the best of just watching, while her brother scoffs and huffs jealously in the background.

As she is watching so intently, she notices the Christmas tree is about to fall on the table which is laid with all the party food. She is then rewarded for rushing over to warn them, by being invited to the party. Her brother – who said serves them right – and didn’t go over to warn them, isn’t invited, another of Blyton’s little morals there.

This has a surprising number of updates, starting with the title. The Christmas-Tree party is now The Christmas Tree party. Normally, Christmas tree needs no hyphen. But we do often hyphenate two words when they describe another, and we want to make it clear. So it’s a Christmas-tree party, not a Christmas tree-party. I’m not sure I’ve explained that well – but this site does it better.

Plenty of modernising in the story – green-grocers, bakers and maids are out, and things are mysteriously done by nobody or just somebody. There are so many changes in the chapter I’m often just going to quote the two pieces without too much context – the original will always come first.

She had seen the green-grocer leave an enormous Christmas tree there / She had seen an enormous Christmas tree arriving there.

She had seen the baker deliver a most beautiful Christmas cake too / She had seen a most beautiful Christmas cake being taken in.

Bakers still bake and deliver cakes, however.

The maid is just someone, then The Maid who put out dishes of sandwiches is cut entirely, and it just becomes a list of things on the table, starting with Plates of Sandwiches. Lists are fine, but it just doesn’t fit with the previous sentence where Janey counts how many chairs are at the table. Additionally, changing dishes to plates is petty and pointless. In In the middle of the table she put [the cake] – the she put refers to the maid and is also cut, and replaced with In the middle of the table was [the cake].

Nurses are also out.

And when they went for a walk in the park they had their nurse with them and she wouldn’t let them talk to children they didn’t know / And their mother wouldn’t let them play with children they didn’t know.

That seems an unnecessary amount of chances. Why not just replace nurse with mother – or indeed, nanny, as many children do have nannies today and they are the modern equivalent of the nurse mentioned. Later children arriving at the party are with their nurse which is changed to their mother.

Despite the main family story having a Christmas tree with candles on it, this tree is updated to having lights.

The tree had unlighted candles, now lights. This leads to a strange change later. Janey notes that the tea is ready and the Christmas tree was only to have its candles lighted. For some reason now the Christmas tree was waiting with its lights twinkling. The tree  was waiting to be lit, like a table waiting to be laid. Now the tree is waiting for the children. Why not have the tree just waiting for its lights to be switched on?

Talking of lighting (candles on the cake), lighted is changed to lit.

Phew OK, more modernising.

Blanc-manges become trifles. A real motor-car is just a car – but the motor-car on the tree is still a motor-car. The girls’ blue silk frocks become blue party frocks, and their cloaks become capes. Do children never wear silk to parties now? Do children not know what silk is? Would the world silk throw them into a wild confusion about the cost of clothing? Are cloaks and capes not pretty similar? Do children today know enough about the differences between cloaks and capes to care which word is used a single time in a story? I have way more questions than answers.

The boys no longer arrive with their party shoes in a bag, but with their father instead.

Some common changes are queer to peculiar, two uses of italics are removed. Mother is changed to Mummy on one occasion.

A couple of very petty and pointless changes are made:

The children are arriving / They’re arriving

Here is another car / Here’s another car

Thank you so much, little girl / Thank you so much.

Two mistakes crop up:

the mother / the other

minutes / ninutes

A little correction is made twice:

the Mother / the mother

the Daddy / the father (but this could have been left as a lowercase daddy.)

A Family Christmas Part Ten: The Story of Santa Claus – The Christmas Book

This chapter is fairly straightforward, if a bit odd. Santa Claus sits back and tells the children the story of how he began to give presents, presumably while still a human and before he became a saint. It’s obviously set very far in the past and is therefore a bit awkward with women needing to marry to be taken care of, and being commodities owned by their father and able to be sold, but Santa Claus gives them money each and thus begins his gifting ways.

Then there’s a brief discussion about celebrating Christmas.

The opening quote is from The Night Before Christmas again.

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere they drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a Good-night!”

Clement Moore

Despite some uncomfortable old-fashioned notions about women, not a lot is changed here.

The father doesn’t just think to sell his daughters, but to sell his daughters as slaves. 

It’s no longer What a disgrace to be sold, but How terrible to be sold.

Santa says I could not go to the father and offer him money, an explanation is added – for I knew he would not accept a gift like that.

There are a few small changes – the reindeer no longer get restive but restless, queer is strange twice, the Britains are the Britons.

And oddly the church did not keep Christmas at all is changed to the church did not celebrate Christmas at all, but it’s still Cousin Jeanie doesn’t keep Christmas. That’s annoying for two reasons – one, the inconsistency. Either keep is an acceptable word for celebrate or not, why change it in some sentences but not others?

Secondly, it wasn’t correct that Scottish people didn’t keep Christmas when the book was written, let alone now. Christmas was quieter, due to the Church disapproving, but it was still celebrated by many – if not Jeannie’s family! It still seems to be ‘fact’ online that Scots didn’t celebrate Christmas until it became a public holiday in 1958 but there are plenty of people sharing memories of 1940s and early 1950s Christmases – such as Bob from Glasgow, and Patricia, also from Glasgow.

It’s true that Hogmanay and New Years was, for many, a bigger celebration as this wasn’t frowned upon by the church, and New Years is still a bigger deal in Scotland than it is in England – we get the 1st and the 2nd as public holidays, and you’ll find very, very few shops and businesses open on the 1st in Scotland.

By 2015 the statement becomes absolutely laughable, so if they were changing so many other things why not finally make that correct?

 

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Malory Towers on TV – The Christmas specials part 2

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Fiona

Last time I made a few predictions as to what I thought might happen in part two. Let’s see how well I did.

Christmas lights SOS

Episode two starts right where we left off last time, with the girls huddled together in the dining room.

Mary-Lou thinks the noises are a ghost while Gwen, somehow practical for now, thinks it’s an intruder.

Darrell doesn’t pick a side, but wants to tell the grown-ups. But how, without a phone?

Smarty pants Ellen drifts over to the Christmas tree and looks at the lights…

One point to me as Ellen rigs up a way to make the lights flash in morse code (without her having to turn them on/off either, all automatic. Very impressive). I liked the girls’ different reactions to this. Mary-Lou just thought it was pretty, Gwen, derisive as ever, asked what good it was, while sensible Sally identified not only morse code but the letters it was spelling too.

The ghost/intruder and a fight

I was glad to have watched this in the early evening while Ewan was in the kitchen cooking. I’m also glad that a few others have said they found it very spooky watching and it isn’t just me. Anyway, the girls and the viewer see a figure crossing the hall. Looks like a little old lady to me, am I heading for a second point?

Having barricaded themselves in the dining room, their attention turns back to food, but Gwen doesn’t want them to touch anything in her hamper.

I’m not entirely sure about her motivation here. Is she just being sentimental, not wanting anyone to share the last gift she gets from her parents when they were together, practical, and not wanting to share what might be the last generous gift she gets if her parents are to split (does she think her father won’t provide for them any more?) or is she thinking that she will need to keep the food for running away?

Darrell and Gwen have a row over it – and I think Darrell’s behaviour is some of the closest to the book we’ve seen from her. She’s angry and impulsive, and although she doesn’t slap anyone, she really lets rip.

No wonder your parents don’t want you for Christmas with your mean spirit. If that’s how you’re going to be then we don’t want you either.

It’s just a shame that instead of doling out a sharp shock to Gwen when she really deserves it, she’s just sounding mean as she doesn’t have the full picture.

In her favour, she retains book-Darrell’s sense of right and wrong and (somewhat pigheadedly) insists that she is the only person who can put things right. This means going off alone to search for Gwen later, when they can’t find her in the school.

Christmas stockings, missing school girls and lassie the horse

In a sweet moment we see Mary-Lou hanging some brown school socks by the fire – it is Christmas eve, after all. Darrell says Mary-Lou, never change! and I have to agree with that sentiment.

Sadly come morning the socks are still empty, and Gwen is gone. Given that the girls are sleeping uncomfortably on the floor with just a few cushions and blankets, and there was a big heavy table in front of the door I wonder just how Gwen got out without waking anyone. But perhaps we are supposed to assume it is a ghostly kidnapping.

In our second scene at Bill’s we see Thunder whinnying and rearing, almost breaking his rope, seemingly in response to the SOS coming from Malory Towers. The lights are phenomenally and unrealistically bright, seeing as it’s now daylight.

The girls conversation sort of mimics the one that took place in the dining room, with Bill noting that the lights are flashing, Irene pointing out that they are making a tune (or a pattern), and Jean recognising the SOS code.

Two points to me as Bill and Thunder find Matron and Miss Grayling still asleep in the car – must be very comfortable for them! However I did not predict that Miss Grayling would commandeer Thunder and ride off to Malory Towers.

Bill rode ahead for speed while supposedly Irene and Jean are coming behind on other horses, but we don’t get to see that. Either they can’t ride or the budget didn’t stretch to three horses. We don’t actually see Bill riding either, actually, but we do see her on Thunder’s back and then dismounting – I assume we see her (or her double?) riding him in series 3. So not quite the dramatic ride to the rescue I was picturing, but it did happen, just off screen.

We also see Miss Grayling ride off – though only from the back so I assume a double was used here. We do see her sitting on Thunder after she arrives at the school, at least.

Tying up loose ends

In a true horror-movie moment the girls find Mary-Lou’s socks have been filled with toys, most noticeably a creepy doll. I am convinced by this point that it’s great granny Mary, particularly as the girls notice the names on the stockings are those of Miss Grayling’s family.

Continuing the horror theme with a moment that reminded me of The Others, the girls turn to see a figure standing by the window shrouded in a tartan blanket, just like Gwen earlier. They think it’s Gwen. I’m shouting IT’S NOT HER at the screen.

Spoilers!!

It’s great granny Mary! Perhaps even scarier than the supposed haunting is that Mary clearly has some form of dementia and thinks she is back working at the big house. She has followed her old routine, opening windows in the nursery and school room, putting presents in the empty stockings, and so on.

Everyone reunites after this. Ron and his brother turn up looking for their great granny. Matron, Bill, Jean and Irene arrive – with the food of course.

Darrell brings back Gwen, having found her waiting for a bus that was never going to arrive seeing as it’s Christmas day.

And lastly, poor Mary-Lou who, bless her, has been locked out since Darrell left earlier, manages to climb in a window and join them too.

The girls, kind as ever, try to make Gwen feel better by pointing out that they don’t all come from conventional families either. Ellen doesn’t see her parents and lives with her aunt, Irene only has her Papa, Sally’s mother has remarried.

And to bookmark these specials, we end on a song – We Wish You A Merry Christmas.

Other thoughts

Mary-Lou getting locked out was quite funny and rather on-character. Nobody noticed she was missing. I knew she had been locked out but as the scenes changed between Darrell and Gwen/Sally, Ellen and Mary/Miss Grayling arriving and so on, even I didn’t notice she wasn’t amongst them later. Her understated “Oh bother” when she realises the door was locked was very funny, as was her climbing in the window later.

We see a new bit of Malory Towers (though it may well have been in series 3 of course) a sort courtyard area where Mary-Lou gets locked out and Miss Grayling arrives on Thunder.

Mr Lacey comes off even worse by the end of this episode, despite not appearing again. Miss Grayling reveals that he’d implied that he’d already told Gwen about the divorce, when he’d done no such thing and was planning to let her find out from her mother’s letter.

One nitpick – great granny Mary is in the dining room (I picture it as being on the ground floor, first left as you come in) with Sally and Ellen, but when Miss Grayling arrives she is sitting on the ledge of an open window on the first floor (the one in the screencap above). It’s obviously not the same room, as the dining room window is a very large bay window covered in lights, the other is a smaller arched window with snowflakes on it. In the next scene at the school they are all in the dining room again, but the establishing shot beforehand is of the outside of what could be the dining room window, only without any lights on it.

Final thoughts

I enjoyed these Christmas specials more than I thought I might. As I said in my review of part one, the fact that there is no canon to deviate from helps. I couldn’t even find much in the way of nitpicks. There are a few contrivances and conveniences to ensure the girls are left alone (the car breaking down, the phone lines going down, the wind stopping the grown-ups making their way back on foot etc), but these are necessary for the story, and not too unbelievable.

I noticed that they are not the most Christmassy episodes, as the main plot is the ‘ghost’ and Gwen’s turmoil, but there are festive touches here and there. This probably makes them more watchable at other times of year.

The acting, as always, was superb, and the sets, props and costumes looked great.

I did find them very spooky, even going back to grab screencaps and only skimming through to find the moments I wanted to share.

I’m pleased that I predicted so much right as I’m normally not good at that (I know it’s a children’s programme, but still.) I’m not sure how many children would have worked out who the ghost was, so they might have had more of a shock when it wasn’t Gwen under the blanket.

 

 

 

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Monday #558

Posted on December 18, 2023 by Fiona

Last Monday before Christmas. I’m thinking about all the blogging I have planned for this week, but also all the wrapping that I have to do, and wondering if there are enough hours in the day(s).

Malory Towers: The Christmas specials, part 2

and

Enid Blyton’s Christmas Stories then and now, part 8

You are going to help me fix this car. Do you have a belt or braces on?

Without context this might sound like an odd question for Matron to ask Bill in part two of the Christmas special!

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Enid Blyton’s Christmas Stories then and now, part 7

Posted on December 17, 2023 by Fiona

We are at part 7 of 8, which means there’s only one blogging week until Christmas! I ran out of time this week, though, so only managed three stories instead of four. That means I have to try to squeeze in five stories next week…

In Santa Claus’s Castle

This is slightly different from the other short stories, as it is actually an extract from a longer short story. Enid Blyton’s Omnibus was published in 1952 with five stories all based on existing series, long enough to have chapters, but not long enough to be a full novel in their own right. One of those is titled The Faraway Tree, and like the others was originally serialised in Sunny Stories earlier in 1952. In Santa Claus’s Castle is the fourth, and final, chapter of the Faraway Tree story. Dorothy M Wheeler’s illustrations from Sunny Stories were (I assume) reused for the omnibus, and there have been no other printings of this title.

The Faraway Tree books are quite episodic, with adventures which take a chapter, or a few chapters, and many could be read as stand-alone stories. Chapter four of this story doesn’t quite work so well as it is the culmination in a four-chapter arc. Because of this the new version has had to include a summary of what came before:

In this adventure from The Enchanted wood [yes, wood with a small w], Joe, Beth and Frannie are stuck in the Land of Toys with Moon-Face, Saucepan Silky the Fairy. They have been turned into toys themselves, and Silky is nearly captured by Mr Oom-Boom-Boom, a spell-maker they go to for help. Joe has tied the man to a table with his own beard, and the six of them are making their escape…

Helpful as it saves me having to read and summarise three extra chapters for you!

With Mr Oom-Boom-Boom in pursuit the children dive into a friendly Golliwog’s car, and he suggests that they go to the Land of Santa Claus, as he may be able to turn them back into real children/fairies/whatever Moonface is. It makes sense, I suppose. Who knows toys better than Santa Claus?

Apparently there’s a train which runs to the Land of Santa Claus, though I cannot picture how that could possibly work… and perhaps to avoid having to describe the journey, Blyton has them all fall asleep so that they don’t witness it.

At Santa Claus’ castle there are imps and goblins adding finishing touches to real toys, and they mistake the new arrivals for toys. But luckily Santa Claus can tell straight away they they’re not toys made in his castle. What’s more, in an astonishingly meta conversation, he tells them that he’s heard of the famous Moonface with his slippery-slip, Silky and Saucepan Man too. Children write to him to ask for more books about them, which he has also read!

Santa’s sleigh is easier to imagine flying from his land to the tree, and Santa Claus enchants the slippery-slip to turn them back to their usual selves.

The first change is that the children’s names are changed in line with the main series – Jo, Fanny and Bessie are Joe, Frannie and Beth.

Given that the many of the stories in this book have been reprinted before, it’s difficult to know what changes were made previously, and which were made for this specific print. For this story, though, we know that the changes were made for this collection… and boy did they really go to town!

This seems to have had the most modernising of the language of all the chapters so far. The two queers are of course changed, one to peculiar and the other to strange, but that’s happened all through the book. Wakened becomes woke.

In addition, ought (which appears several times in other chapters) becomes should. I say! is changed too, twice to Goodness! and once, tragically, to Wow! 

Fine is changed, to lovely, and to nice, while darling is also changed to lovely.

Santa Claus is called sir on several occasions and these are all removed.

It’s rather odd, having read quite a lot of old fashioned phrases in the previous 17 chapters, for it to then be modernised so much.

Other changes I can’t really ascribe to modernising, so they just seem petty and pointless.

None more so than:

WhoooooOOOOOsh! becoming WhoooooOOOOOOsh!

Yep – they stuck an extra capital O in there. I mean, who does that? Who looks at a made-up spelling of a sound and goes, no, can’t have five lowercase os and five uppercase. We’ll have to add another uppercase one… You could also ask who’s counting the os!? and the answer would be me – because I know this is the kind of thing they change sometimes! Interestingly, my spell-checker has underlined the spelling with the extra o, but not the original spelling!

Of course it could just have been a typo, but that’s less fun to rant about.

The imps are changed to pixies – I’m unaware of any negative connotations of imps, so if there are any let me know!

Being what you aren’t becomes being what you’re not. They both mean the same…

A bear was dressed just like a footman, now he’s dressed like a footman. 

How do you know about us? becomes How do you know us?

And a bit of Santa Claus’ dialogue is cut from this sentence:

They keep asking me for books about you, to go into their stockings – let’s see, there are three books about you – and they all looked so exciting that I read them all.

The cut text is everything between the dashes, as I suppose there are more than three books about those characters now.

A few changes could be called corrections. Moonface is changed to Moon-Face, which is how his name was written in The Enchanted Wood. Blyton was not very consistent when it came to capitalising and hyphenating names like Moon-Face and Mr Pink-Whistle.

“What!” asked Jo is changed to “What?”,  while the castle of the toy soldiers is changed to the fort of the toy soldiers. This ties in with it being called a fort in the earlier chapters, but as these chapters do not appear in the collection, the correction is hardly needed.

A couple of style changes that match the rest of the book – Christmas Tree vs Christmas tree, and my Land vs my land. Two uses of italics are removed, but far more remain.

And lastly, the golliwog problem. Of course they edit out the golliwogs, that’s absolutely standard and expected. So what I’m looking at really, is how they do it.

The golliwog in the car becomes a toy rabbit, or sometimes just rabbit.

Saucepan has become a golliwog too. The first reference to this is removed entirely, so at first I couldn’t remember what he had changed into instead:

“Is your face black enough?” cried another imp, running up with a large brush and a pot of black paint, and looking up at Saucepan’s black face. “Another dab or two, sir?”

“Go away” said Saucepan. “I’m not a golliwog. Don’t you DARE to dab me with that paint.”

After that it’s mentioned that he’s also a toy rabbit. I think it might have been better for him to have been something else, something where he did have a painted face, then the interaction about could have been retained, simply changing black to whatever colour. Or even if only his cheeks or ears were painted, that’d mean only changing two words.

Him being a rabbit also means other changes at the end when he becomes himself again:

Hurrah, his face isn’t black! (that’s such an unfortunate sentence I actually hate that I’ve had to type it out) is now Hurrah he’s back to normal! Again, we could have had wording closer to the original had they left his face painted a different colour. Or they could have had Hurrah, his face isn’t furry!

As a golliwog he had a mop of hair so instead of lamenting that he’s not got his mop of hair they say he’s lost his floppy ears. It annoys me to no end when they not only change the “necessary” things, but the rest of the wording too. What’s wrong with he’s not got his floppy ears?

And lastly I liked him with all that hair becomes I liked him with those long ears. Makes you wonder how he wore his Saucepan hat over those long ears, doesn’t it?

A Family Christmas Part Nine: A Visitor in the Night

Given that it is Christmas Eve, the visitor can only be one person!

The chapter begins with them hanging their stockings, and Ann planning to stay up to ask Santa Claus his story.

Mother isn’t sure on the exact origins of stockings, but tells them that French and Dutch children used to put out their wooden shoes—their sabots—on Christmas Eve for presents to be put into them. 

Although Ann does try to sleep she’s still awake after midnight, so she hears the jingle of bells as their visitor arrives. Bravely she creeps downstairs, thinking he’ll come down the biggest chimney into the large fireplace where they burned the yule log.

Santa emerges from the chimney, bringing his sack of toys, and Ann is so overcome with a desire to give him a gift that she gets out some sweets she had bought and frightens the life of of the poor old man. (The whole thing puts paid to the idea that Santa only comes if you’re asleep, of course!)

Suddenly wondering if she’s dreaming she fetches her sister and brothers down too, and they all have biscuits and cocoa with their visitor. And then the interrogation begins:

“Santa Claus, we’ve often wondered who you really are,” said Peter shyly. “How did you get your name? Is it really Claus? And what does Santa mean? And why do you come so secretly into people’s houses? How was it you began to give presents?”

The answers begin with his real name being Saint Nicolas, or San Nicolaas in Dutch, which, in an American accent, sounded like Santa Claus. (A bit like saying Space Ghettos in an American accent sounds like a Scot saying Spice Girls.)

He was a bishop, away in Lycia, and I was tortured and put into prison because I believed in Jesus Christ, and His teaching. Then he was made a saint, even though doesn’t believe in saints, which seems rather odd. But he’s the patron saint of travellers, sailors and children.

His full story has to wait for another chapter, though.

The quote at the start of the chapter is one most people will recognise – the beginning of the 1823 Clement (C or Clarke) Moore poem A Visit from St. Nicholas (though it’s often titled The Night Before Christmas, and wasn’t attributed to Moore until 1837)

’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse,
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care
In the hope that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

Nothing of real significance is changed here.

The boys’ football stockings become football socks, though Ann still borrows one of Daddy’s stockings.

Mother is no longer carrying a candle when she comes into the room.

Also cut is jingle bells like the ones Ann and Peter had on their reins. I have to admit I’m confused by that anyway, because it seems like Ann and Peter are at least five or six, and surely too old for reins!

Ann has bought sweets for her aunt instead of Cook – though they’re still in a bottle rather than a jar.

Waked up is changed to woken up. 

Mother is changed to Mummy a few times.

Santa says before I come down the chimney instead of the original down a chimney – but he’s talking about in general, how he puts blankets on their reindeer before going down chimneys. A chimney was fine! Likewise originally he called softly up the chimney. Now he called up the chimney. It’s the middle of the night and he doesn’t want to wake the parents, so he’s not going to be shouting. If we’re talking about it being unrealistic that flying reindeer on a roof would hear a soft call up a chimney from Santa Claus, I think we’re looking at it too deeply.

What They Did at Miss Brown’s School

This is also a little different from the majority of the short stories in the collection. It is one part of a serialised story, originally printed in Enid Blyton’s Book of the Year in 1941. The Book of the Year is more of a teaching aid than a “normal” book, containing nature-themed stories, poems, plays and puzzles for each week of the year. Many of them came from Teachers World, while others were specially written. There is a specially written chapter about Miss Brown’s school for each month, with this one coming from December. It had illustrations by Harry Rountree, and has never been reprinted anywhere else.

This is a second story about making a little Christmas tree for birds, and I think it should have been left for a different Christmas collection. There are some similarities between other stories – Santa always has a reindeer and a sleigh, he often gets ‘caught’ by children who should be asleep, but somehow two Christmas trees for birds seems more similar somehow.

Anyway, the children at Miss Brown’s School are asking what they are doing to mark December, and that is to gift the birds with Christmas cake and a Christmas tree, just like the children have had.

The cake is more of a traybake with seeds and nuts suspended in melted fat, no cooking required. Then the tree is much the same as the previous one, with sprays of millet seed, chunks of coconut and pieces of bacon-rind.

It’s more educational than The Tiny Christmas Tree as they talk about which birds like which foods, other foods they’ll like – and how children should never eat bird food.

In a complete U-turn, this chapter has barely been touched.

Coco-nuts and pea-nuts lose their hyphens, gay is wonderful and one use of italics is removed. And that’s it.

The Christmas tree still costs ninepence, the millet sprays twopence each and Susan gets sixpence to buy them. There’s a fire in the school room, Miss Brown has a tray of dripping on the fire.

I mean how can you justify all the modernising in the previous chapter, yet have Christmas trees costing ninepence?

 

 

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Malory Towers on TV – The Christmas specials

Posted on December 14, 2023 by Fiona

I normally avoid watching or reading things out of order, but as I’m way behind on the Malory Towers on TV reviews I figured it couldn’t hurt to watch the Christmas specials while it’s seasonally appropriate.

Having seen it was specials, plural, I had thought there was one in between series 2 and 3, and another between 3 and 4, but it turns out there are two between 3 and 4. I’ve only watched series 1 and 2 so far, so I’m hoping these Christmas specials are stand-alone enough not to spoil too much of series 3 for me.

Anyway, the two episodes are The Ghost of Christmas Present and The Ghost of Christmas Past, each running for 25 minutes.

Christmas at Malory Towers?

Without having even seen a trailer for this I can say that it’s not going to be based on anything Blyton wrote. We never had a Christmas at Malory Towers, for the obvious reason that the school is closed for the holiday.

Christmas is mentioned twice in Second Form – the girls are looking forward to the holidays but have to get through the two French plays first, and Gwen is disappointed not to have an invitation to spend the holidays with Daphne.

It is mentioned ten times in In the Fifth, as the girls are putting on the Christmas entertainment in the form of the pantomime.

Though neither year is there any mention of decorations, gifts etc. The holidays are four weeks long, however, so could start quite early in December, perhaps too early for such things.

I’m willing to let this slide, however, as I suppose it is kind of fanfictiony in a way. A “What if some of the girls had to stay at school for the Christmas holidays.” And you know how much I like a bit of fanfiction.

The end of term, for some

Episode one opens with some of the girls singing a sort of parody of Twelve Days of Christmas. It’s the end of term and there’s a small party before the girls go home, attended by parents as well as Ron the garden boy and his gran.

The girls’ song is amusing so I have included it below:

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
12 lost lacrosse balls
11 full tuck boxes
10 topping team-mates
9 sleepy dormers
8 ginger beers
7 school girls swimming
6 staff a-teaching
5 perfect pranks
4 tall towers
3 French preps
2 midnight feasts
and 1 matron snoring in the san

I noticed straight away the while we had five of our main cast there (Darrell, Ellen, Irene (playing the piano) Gwen and Jean) plus the new girl Bill, there were 6 other girls behind as opposed to just making it up of the main cast. I know that Alicia left after second form, but we still have Sally and Mary-Lou.

So for one we actually have a number of extras! Not only the six other girls singing, but several relatives too – possibly the most extras we’ve seen at one time. This may have been possible as for the remainder of the episode the cast is very limited.

So the first question is – how do some of the girls end up not going home for the holidays?

First up – Gwen. Gwen’s father is there (It’s the first time that I’ve seen him, though he is in series 3). Gwen is dismayed to hear that her mother couldn’t come as things are a little complicated. Apparently it’s all explained in a letter from Mrs Lacey, which he gives Gwen. Unfortunately she doesn’t read it. Perhaps Mrs Lacey broke the news more sensitively than her husband. Gwen’s parents are – oh the scandal! – getting divorced. If that’s not bad enough, she’s to stay at Malory Towers for the holidays. I was cursing at him at this point – imaging driving all the way to your child’s school at the end of term and then leaving them there, especially after that bombshell.

Mr Lacey is obviously one of those stiff upper lip fellows, though you can see there’s at least a spark of something in his eyes. He apologises – stiffly – but also says:

Come now, don’t make a scene. Stiff upper lip and all that, what?

His parting words are Ahem. Carry on. Ahem.

Next – Darrell. Her parents are supposed to have been at the party, but are not. She discovers that they have been held up on a journey back from France, due to the weather, and Darrell, too is to stay at Malory Towers. Bill invites her to her house, as Jean and Irene are going to her anyway, but Mr Rivers has asked that she stay at school so Miss Grayling can’t go against his wishes.

As a side note Miss Grayling is back to being played by Jennifer Wigmore as opposed to Birgitte Solem, who played her in series 2 and 3.

Anyway, we now have two girls who have to stay at school for the hols, though Gwen tells Darrell that she is mistaken, and that she (Gwen) is going home after all.

The other girls go off to the station and Miss Grayling and Matron go off to collect the Christmas food (I hope they’ve budgeted for enough for two unexpected girls!) Matron’s face at the thought of all that food is a hoot. There are no staff left – presumably they’ve all gone off to see their own families.

Two girls aren’t enough to carry a whole episode so the train has left Porthmallory without three girls… Ellen, Sally and Mary-Lou. Ellen, feeling bad for Darrell having to stay (and not really looking forward to the hols with her aunt) decided to head back. Sally and Mary-Lou go looking for her and accidentally miss the train. There are no more trains before Christmas (implying this is more like the 23rd or 24th of December), but it’s only an hour’s walk back to the school, no big deal. (Of course I was thinking that there’d be a panic at the other end when the three of them weren’t there to be collected).

This isn’t what I was imagining, I has though that bad weather would have prevented the last few girls leaving on the bus for the station, or the bus would have broken down, stopping them catching the train (the last few of course being Darrell and some of her classmates.)

Ghostly happenings

Now we’ve got rid of most of the girls and all the adults it’s time for the promised ghost.

Darrell thinks she’s in the building alone (she doesn’t know that Gwen is around too) and a door opens seemingly by itself. I know this is for children but I honestly found it quite  spooky and maybe not something I should have watched at night when everyone else was in bed. (I don’t do horror movies for obvious reasons.)

Darrell, being Darrell, grabs a broom and wields it defensively. We see Gwen, alone, up in the attic room, so she can’t have opened the door downstairs. (I’m not sure what Gwen’s plan was – to hide in the attic and live off the hampers hidden up there, in order to save face? Doesn’t she know that Matron and Miss Grayling would kick up a fuss if she disappeared?)

Up in the dorm Darrell (still wielding her broom) finds the window wide open – again, not Gwen. (I’m getting spooked rewatching this at 7pm as I’m home alone… and I KNOW what’s about to happen).

The dorm door bursts open and… in spills Ellen, Sally and Mary-Lou (who somehow managed to silently climb the stairs and come along the hallway). Darrell’s very glad to see them.

They head back downstairs for a little music and fun, which Gwen discovers. Briefly, Gwen IS the ghost as she turns out the lights on the girls then hides, not very well.

As Matron and Miss Graying have not yet returned (more on them later) the girls go in search of food. Foolishly (by horror movie standards anyway) they split up. Mary-Lou chooses to stay in the study by the phone, and jams a chair under the door handle.

Darrell and Sally find their dorm-room window is open, again. But Darrell securely shut it earlier. Seems like we have a ghost who enjoys a bit of fresh air.

Meanwhile, Mary-Lou remembers Gwen’s hamper and ventures out, too late to catch up with the others. Bravely she heads upstairs and gets a fright when she discovers Gwen. Her scream brings the others running. Darrell still has her broom, though what good a broom is against the supernatural, I don’t know. Mind you, her previous experience of a ‘ghost’ at Malory Towers was flesh-and-blood fellow first former Emily, and I think that we can safely assume that this ghost is similarly alive, though probably not a first former. So the broom is actually rather sensible.

Quote of the episode has to go to Gwen for:

You’re such a hooligan, Darrell.

Though it was Sally who threw the blanket over her and drove her to the ground, and Darrell didn’t hit her with the broom at all.

Gwen continues the lies, telling them that there was a flood at her parents’ house and she will be joining them soon. She even lets the others believe that she was hiding so she could be greedy and didn’t have to share her hamper. Mary-Lou saw the letter, though she didn’t have time to read much of it so I’m not sure how much of the truth she knows.

She at least admits to turning the lights off, but she didn’t open the windows or do any of the humming that Darrell has heard. There’s a brief ‘why should we believe you’ moment, but a far-off clatter and singing proves there’s someone else around. Darrell says it’ll be OK as they are all together.

But as Ellen says, most ominously:

Someone, or something is in here with us…

Dun dun dun.

Miss Grayling and Matron

So what has kept these two away from the school? Only a broken-down car.

They’re on their way back with the food – Miss Grayling driving – when the engine goes.

Impressively Matron knows her way round a broken fan belt as she drove ambulances in the war. She always carries a stocking substitute (I assume primarily for her legs, as she probably doesn’t have much use for fan belts on the average day at work) and they are good to go again.

Until the stocking also breaks – Matron must buy cheap ones. By now the wind has picked up as a storm blows in and it’s too dangerous to walk the cliff path back to the school. All they can do is call from the phone box and give half a message before the line goes dead.

Bill and the others

We also get one tiny scene at Bill’s stable. They look across the cliffs and see Malory Towers, its Christmas lights ablaze. She says that the school is only an hour away on horseback.

I was wondering about the purpose of this scene, but later I had the sudden image of the girls spelling out SOS or flashing morse code with the lights, and Bill riding to the rescue on Thunder. How likely is that, though?

What do I think is going on?

Usually I have no clue, but this time I think I might have worked it out. I could be very wrong of course.

I think it’s Ron’s great granny Mary.

Who, you ask?

Well, at the beginning, in what seemed like an unimportant one-minute scene, we see Ron, his little brother, and his great granny at the party.

My reasonings are as follows:

  1. There must be a reason to have included two new characters.
  2. She is established as being confused – she doesn’t recognise that the girls were parodying the Twelve Days song, and thought they were just getting the words wrong.
  3. The ghost is humming and singing the Twelve Days song
  4. When Ron leaves the party he says that his great granny and brother must have already left but we don’t see them go
  5. Great granny used to live at Malory Towers as Miss Grayling’s nursemaid – so she would know her way around. And she might even open the upstairs windows if that had been her quarters or the nursery.

But we’ll see! Those could all be red herrings.

A few last points

Although I wasn’t sure, upon checking, Mrs Lacey’s voice (as she reads the start of her letter out) was provided by Naomi Sheldon, and she is back again in series 4 as Mrs Lacey. I was worried that by getting Mr Lacey instead that either the character was finished with, or the actress wasn’t coming back.

There was a reference to Ellen having moved up a class, which must have happened during series 3.

The mince pies Darrell is handing out at the party are are huge.

And lastly, I found it funny how ominous Darrell sounded when she said

We’ll have to be each other’s family tonight.

Ok, one more lastly:

What exactly this ornament??

My thoughts

I actually thought this was pretty good! I think not having it based on any book material is actually a good thing as then there’s no room for complaint about them straying from the plots.

If I had to nitpick:

The girls being stranded at the school without the staff is a little contrived – but at least they mostly had different reasons to be there. And these things are necessary to have the story at all.

The ghost plot has been done before with Emily, but this is much spookier. With Emily there was the legend of Lady Malory, which was clearly Alicia stuffing up the girls, and at all times the school was full of other people. The girls being alone with a storm raging outside is actually very atmospheric.

Over all this was intriguing and spooky, with just enough Christmas to make it festive and I’m looking forward to part 2 to see if I’m right about the ghost.

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