Famous Five 2020s Style: Peril on the Night Train part 2

Posted on October 25, 2025 by Fiona

I am expecting this to be shorter than my usual lengthy posts when it comes to books and TV adaptations that I have not liked. I can hear the collective sighs of relief already.

I think I had such low expectations of Peril on the Night Train and it was so consistently bad that I actually don’t really care that it was bad?

I also can’t be bothered re-watching even to fact-check so there’s that.

Spoilers ahead, and they’ll probably be more coherent than the spoilers in our live reaction post. Probably.

Five Go Adventuring Again

Despite the title and the fact that the programme barely resembled the second Famous Five book, it was obviously loosely based on it. The word loosely is doing some very heavy lifting here.

We can tell it’s supposed to be FGAA as Mr Roland is in it, but the similarities more or less end there. The first 25 minutes you could class as being loosely based on the book. Mr Roland is a holiday tutor (but he is not staying at Kirrin Cottage). George and Timmy get on the wrong side of Mr Roland, there’s a suggestion that someone could be after Quentin’s invention (rather than his formulae) and Mr Roland is caught sneaking around Kirrin Cottage in the night (though the children set a trap for him rather than Timmy going for him).

Even with those links to the book it’s not all that similar. The Sanders at Kirrin Farm are replaced by Mrs Sassoon and her boarding house. There is no scrap of parchment, no search for the via occulta.

There is an attempt throughout the episode to have a sense of George being against her cousins. In the book this is a clear and understandable rift brought about by her being set against Mr Roland while the others like him, on screen it makes less sense as it starts with her being wildly convinced that Mr Roland is a thief (rather than building from a general dislike) and then later is more to do with her liking someone and the others being suspicious, amongst other things.

And then at the thirty minute mark the book gets torn up as Mr Roland reveals he’s actually a secret agent trying to protect Quentin’s invention. I actually don’t mind that – it’s got a Blyton-feel to it as [spoiler alert?] she did the same with Mr King in The Rockingdown Mystery. When adapting a book for a TV series generally something is done differently, to make a fresh story or to allow for limitations in weather/locations/casting. What comes after that, though, is less forgivable.

The Night Train

Because of the title we were genuinely convinced that this was going to be based on Five Go Off to Camp and the spook train featured in that book. Given that they threw away most of the pages in Five on a Treasure Island when they adapted their first episode, it didn’t seem a wild idea that they’d then jump to book #7. And it sort of made sense, you could adapt Camp and include more of the train – having all Five kidnapped on it at one point.

Had they called this Peril on the Sleeper Train it would have sounded less like a spook-train and more like it actually is, the Caledonian Sleeper.

To explain how a train is involved at all (something we puzzled over in the first half hour), Mr Roland, aka Agent Keats insists that Quentin and his invention are taken somewhere safe. Fanny insists that they all go. Hence boarding a sleeper train where they would be trapped alongside any invention-stealing enemies that may also have bought tickets. So far, so good.

Red herrings will be served in the dining carriage

I will credit the writers that the mystery of who is after the invention is quite elaborate and complex. Perhaps too complicated at times for the target audience? There were many red herrings, lots of potential culprits (we even wondered if Roland/Keats was a double crosser and a baddie after all) and honestly I’m still not entirely sure who was working with who and why. Then again, Stef and I did talk through a lot of it, and I was then also typing everything we said and so my attention was not 100% focussed on the screen. Maybe children who were paying attention would have understood it just fine.

(I now realise I don’t know how all the baddies knew that Quentin et al would be on that train in the first place…)

There’s also the matter of the secret switch – where the invention and a humble typewriter are swapped over – but there had been half a dozen opportunities for this to have been done earlier in the story and when it finally happened it felt like an anti-climax.

[Spoiler alert!] Given the lack of resemblance to the book, having a female villain was a pleasant surprise, particularly as she was clearly very intelligent, calculating and cunning even if she was no match for the Five in the end.

A couple of tiny high points include Anne remarking on the wooden panelling on the train (a call-back to the 8 panels leading to the via occulta) and the mad gun/umbrella wielding scene at the end.

The characters

I just briefly want to touch on the characterisation of the Five, which was no better than it was in the first episode.

I can see they wanted to balance out who was in charge, who had the ideas etc, but given the lack of time we had to really get to know any of the children all this did was make them weaker.

Julian melted into the background as a follower, Dick didn’t do a whole lot either. Anne was annoying, smug, bossy and generally unlikeable, and George made a hash of most of the things she did.

Fanny and Quentin were OK but weren’t in it much – in fact they spend a portion of the episode in a drugged sleep, which is a different way of keeping them from interfering, I suppose!

Mr Roland was good, Ed Speelers did a creditable job as a jobsworth tutor you wouldn’t like to be lumbered with in the hols. Sadly he also succumbed to the drugged tea and therefore was missing from a big chunk of the episode which was a waste of his talents.

And there you have it. Not much over 1,000 words which is very restrained for me (though this is still somehow a shade longer than my review of The Curse of Kirrin Island). I will just end by saying the same thing I’ve said many times before – if this had been an all-new children’s adventure (present day or set in the past) it might have been quite enjoyable. But shoe-horning in an unrecognisable Famous Five and basing 1/3 of it loosely on a book before taking off in an entirely different direction just doesn’t work for me.

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Letters to Enid part 77: From volume 4, issue 14.

Posted on October 23, 2025 by Fiona

Previous letters pages can be found here.

Letters page from Volume 4, issue 14.
August 1st – 14th, 1956.

OUR

LETTER PAGE

A letter from Janine Pike, Falmouth, Cornwall.
Dear Enid Blyton,
During my stay in Northern Rhodesia I often went out crocodile hunting with Daddy on Lake Bangweulu, which was near our house. It is a big lake, sixteen miles long. One day I went out on our home-made raft. I must have gone about 30 yards when I suddenly saw the nose of a crocodile approaching me. I knew its trick, it would swing its tail on to the raft and sweep me off. What a horrible thought! When the crocodile was about five yards away, I heard the hum of an engine. It was a boat, and as it came nearer it made such a loud noise that it frightened the crocodile away and I was saved. Some crocodiles measure up to 20 feet long. The natives cut off the tail, hang it up, and make it into soup when it is completely bad. I don’t think I would like to taste it!
Love from
Janine Pike.

(It isn’t often we have a letter about crocodiles, Janine! Yours is so well written and exciting that I have awarded you my letter prize this week.)

A letter from Anne Hardy, Edinburgh 12.
Dear Enid Blyton,
We have two nests in our garage. One day my little sister found two baby birds on the ground near the nests, and we think that a mother cuckoo may have laid her egg in one nest, and when the baby grew big it pushed out the tiny birds. We picked them up, and put them into a box on our wall. Their mother and father came back and fed them—and now they are almost ready to fly !
Yours faithfully,
Anne Hardy (Busy Bee).

(I must say you are a good Busy Bee, Anne! Thank you for a most interesting letter.)

A letter from Anne Taylor, Jersey, C.I.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I have something very amusing to tell you. I am a Busy Bee and am always collecting silver paper, for which I keep a large box in my room. Last week our black cat had twins. One is a sweet black one and the other a tortoiseshell one – and where do you think she had them? In my box of silver paper! From your Busy Bee,
Anne Taylor.

(A very amusing little story, Anne-and what a wonderful surprise for you!)

Definitely an interesting and unusual letter in first place this week! Most animal letters are about household pets or garden birds – not crocodiles! I wonder if Janine ever went out alone on a raft again after that?

Thanks to a commenter explaining on a previous letters page I now know that Edinburgh 12 will refer to what is now EH12, postcodes in the Corstorphine/Gyle/Sighthill areas. Anyway – a nice letter from Anne Hardy. Although the mother cuckoo is clearly in the wrong here, I can’t help but feel bad for the unhatched cuckoo egg!

No fund-raising letters this week, though I assume Anne Taylor’s silver paper was part of a fund-raising campaign.

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Monday #772

Posted on October 20, 2025 by Fiona

Having been on holiday last week (to Burntisland, which is neither burnt nor an island, go figure) I, at the last minute, thought I should get on with my Monday post before it became Tuesday. And that’s when I noticed that that part 77 of Letter to Enid – the one I’d remarked on being so timely, lining up with Monday 770, was not in fact published. I wrote it – I just failed to hit the schedule/publish button. Ugh, so close!

Well, I suppose that means I have something already written for this week, but somehow 77 and 772 isn’t quite the same.

Letters to Enid part 77

and

Peril on the Night Train (a definitely lengthy and perhaps somewhat inaccurate rant)

Last week’s holiday wasn’t terribly Blyton-ish. We did take the train a few times (but not steam) and we didn’t find any caves or likely spots for secret passages (though Edinburgh castle MUST have had a few somewhere). I also didn’t buy any books!

A long-ago holiday back when the blog was only a few years old, though, I had a very Blyton-related holiday.

How every part of my holiday reminded me of Blyton

 

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September 2025 round up

Posted on October 8, 2025 by Fiona

The year is flying by – it’s already October and shops are full of both Halloween and Christmas stuff!

What I read

September was also a bit slow for reading, I did a lot of listening, though. I’ve dropped back to 9 ahead for my target of 150, so I can’t afford to slack too much for the rest of the year.

There was one library book, and one BABAL* which isn’t bad, but also seven of the ten were re-reads. (For anyone wondering how I can enjoy re-reading so much, I am on my fourth reading of the Harper Connelly books and yet I still couldn’t remember who the killers were… so it’s often very much like enjoying them for the first time.)

I read:

  • Q is for Quarry (Kinsey Millhone #17) – Sue Grafton
  • Wedding Bells for the East End Library Girls (Library Girls #5) – Patricia McBride
  • Mr Galliano’s Circus
  • R is for Ricochet (Kinsey Millhone #18) – Sue Grafton
  • Grave Sight (Harper Connelly #1) – Charlaine Harris
  • Grave Surprise (Harper Connelly #2) – Charlaine Harris
  • The Phantom Tollbooth – Norton Juster
  • Meet Me at the Seaside Cottages – Jenny Colgan
  • S is for Silence (Kinsey Millhone #19) – Sue Grafton
  • T is for Trespass (Kinsey Millhone #20) – Sue Grafton

I ended the month still working through:

  • Hollow Tree House
  • The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6) – Dan Brown
  • A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder – Holly Jackson

What I watched

  • We have been watching Only Connect and Richard Osman’s House of Games as well as Taskmaster.
  • With Brodie we have watched Ninja Warrior UK, The Floor is Lava, and Lego Masters Jr. We also watched Lord of the Rings The Two Towers and Return of the King together.
  • I’ve watched a bit of Byker Grove but I’m still in the late 90s.
  • My sister and I still didn’t finish And Just Like That – but we’re nearly there.
  • I got together with my mum and sister (and plenty of snacks) to watch The Thursday Murder Club. The consensus was that although it was enjoyable it wasn’t as good as the book.

What I did

  • We went bowling, the first time since a bowling alley opened here a couple of years ago. I played with the bumpers on and still didn’t score all that well.
  • Stef visited me, but we had a fairly quiet time as I think we were both tired! We of course went to St Andrews (and had our traditional Nando’s, which goes back about 12 or 13 years and a time when there were no Nando’s in this part of the world and so we always had one when I visited London). We also did exciting things like go to a garden centre for lunch and a wander, and also an antiques centre, also for lunch and a wander.
  • We went on a much longer walk than we expected and didn’t find any geocaches, but we did spot 8 pumpkins on a pumpkin trail.

How was your September?

*Books About Bookshops and Libraries

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Monday #770

Posted on October 6, 2025 by Fiona

It’s October, it’s autumn and the schools are off. I did think about trying to write a fuller review of Peril on the Night Train this week, but (like last time) I don’t think I can bear to revisit it. I think that tells you a lot about what I think of it, to be fair. I know the longer I put it off the more rewatching I will have to do to refresh my memory.

Besides it seems fitting to have part 77 of Letters to Enid the same week as Monday 770 – it’s a sign!

September round up

and

Letters to Enid part 77

We are reading Hollow Tree House at the moment, and although we also read The Secret Island not too long ago Brodie hasn’t said anything about the similarities between them. I still notice them, but also other things I don’t think I’ve picked up on before.

Comparing Hollow Tree House and The Secret Island

 

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The Secret Seven covers through the years, part 3

Posted on September 25, 2025 by Fiona

I’ve already done two posts here and here, and this is the final one.

Continuing from where we left off

We may have entered a new millenium, but the first Secret Seven covers don’t change drastically from the last 90s set. In fact, there’s something distinctly 50s-ish about them.

Yes, these are another set of cropped Hodder covers! They have swapped around Blyton’s name, the book title and the series title, plus changed the colour of the banner. They’ve also added a logo to indicate that these are full-colour editions. I appreciate that it makes sense to redesign the covers to differentiate these from the previous, non-full-colour ones, but I have to wonder how time time and money was spent given that they end up very similar.

The worst phase

While there are some dubious entries earlier, these two sets have to be the worst.

First we have a Hodder set from 2002 with artwork by Stuart Williams. These are oil paintings, you can see more of his works here. I initially thought they might be digital art but I think that’s because the facial expressions/poses remind me of digital art used on the Famous Five series. That particular style may be more ‘of its time’ rather than to do with the process of creating it.

Anyway, this series starts with a few covers where there are children doing the sort of thing you might expect on the covers of a Secret Seven book. They hold torches, they look down from a tree house, they look shocked by a box of… junk? OK, that one I can’t explain.

Then there’s a run of covers really focussed on hands. The hands pick a note, a Secret Seven badge, an envelope,  light fireworks… (There are other parts of the body on two but the hands are very much the focus.)

Then we return to children doing things like holding a toy aeroplane and a torch, before we get a dog (Scamper) and a raven (??), then back to a child, then some medals (no hands or any other body parts) and finally the Seven together for the first time on the final book.

All in all it’s weird selection of images. Most of them convey nothing about the story and do nothing to suggest it will be exciting.

This is followed by another set of Hodders in 2006. These are definitely digital art, and look like they are aimed at pre-schoolers. Like with many artists I’ve looked up – their other works generally look a million times better than the stuff they do for Blyton’s books and I can only imagine that the final product is shaped largely by the publisher’s instructions. You can see more of Stephen Hanson’s work here.

Many of them feature night-time scenes which makes it hard to tell what’s going on, and the extremely cartoonish characters make it seem very cheap and childish even for children’s books. The Secret Seven is (are?) aimed at younger readers, 7-10 say, while the Famous Five is more like 9-12, but even so, these look like cheap TV animations for toddlers.

The Tony Ross era

Now I remember Tony Ross from my childhood – he wrote and illustrated the Little Princess books and illustrated the Dr Xargle books by Jeanne Willis. (To this day my family still quote and misquote the poops I pipped on a furball and bloken all my pegs page from Dr Xargle’s Book of Earth Tiggers. He is also well-known for illustrating the Horrid Henry books by Francesca Simon.

I associate him with the distinctive style of the Little Princess and Dr Zargle books – lots of short, fat children with round faces and pink cheeks, watercolours with lots of multi-hued shading – though his style is adapted to suit different works.

I look at the Secret Seven books, though, and think of Quentin Blake. I also think of Mark Beecher who also reminds me of Quentin Blake. I think it’s the sketchy nature of them.

Anyway, this first set of Tony Ross covers are from Hodder in 2013. They remind me a bit of the 60s Armada’s with their solid colour background. I don’t dislike these, actually, though I’m not sure they’re quite right for the Secret Seven – or Blyton.

After this I’m rather making it up as I go along as the Cave lacks publishing info. There are definitely three further sets – you can tell as one book is in all four, so it’s not a case of a set using two or more different styles.

The second set of Tony Ross covers obviously come some time after 2013, and are probably by Hodder again. They are just a re-use of the previous Tony Ross covers but on a white background. Five books were done in this style – 1-3 and 5-6. Oddly the tree is flipped on Secret Seven Adventure – none of the rest are changed.

The third set are from some time after, after 2013. These again use the same artwork as the previous two, but with a different background colour. Again, not all books got this design, in fact only three did, 5 and 10-11.

The fourth set – after, after, after 2013, also same artwork, also different colour, also not all books. The difference here is that the background is a solid colour overlayed by a faint enlargement of the main artwork, almost like a shadow or projection (except book #4 as it has a black background. The text layout has changed which is how you can tell it’s part of this set and not the third). Ten books were done here, 1, 4-5, 9, 12 and 14-15.

I made a handy table below mostly for myself to be able to figure out what was going on, but why not share it here too? It doesn’t explain the logic though – probably to do with which books were more popular and sold out (but are redesigns really necessary, couldn’t more of an existing style been produced?)

What the chart shows more easily is that only one book (#5) got all four styles, while one (#7) didn’t get any redesigns. Most books (9) got two designs, a couple 1 and 3, but mostly 1 and 4, and it was only the early books (1, 2-6) which had more than two designs.

1 1 2 4
2 1 2
3 1 2 4
4
5 1 2 3 4
6 1 2 4
7 1
8 1 4
9 1 4
10 1 3
11 1 3
12 1 4
13 1 4
14 1 4
15 1 4

 A return to the classics

And finally, the final set. Again, I unfortunately have no publishing info. But these come after 2013 and three more sets were published so I’d guess we were in the 2020s by now.

Not all books appear to have been redone again, which is a shame as these are another version of the original covers.

We do have books 2, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 and 15.

The colours have been mucked about with, but they are still far better than most of the modern covers.

And that’s it – for now. What will the Secret Seven look like next – your guess is as good as mine!

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Monday #678

Posted on September 22, 2025 by Fiona

Stef and I obviously had many, many thoughts on Peril on the Night Train as the transcription of our watch ran to some 3,000 words. And yes, I feel like there’s still more to say. So this week’s list may feel a bit like deja vu, but I promise it’ll be different.

The Secret Seven covers through the years part 3

and

More thoughts on The Peril on the Night Train

It’s officially the other kind of Autumn now so let’s stick with that as a theme and revisit Bourne End in the autumn.

Enid’s Inspiration: Bourne End in the autumn

Beautiful Autumn Leaves at Bourne End

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Famous Five 2020s Style: Peril on the Night Train

Posted on September 21, 2025 by Fiona

Last time Stef came to visit me we subjected ourselves to the first episode of the new Famous Five series. That was over a year ago and neither of us had watched any more – until Stef came back up for another visit and we watched episode 2 together. I had thought, that, seeing as Jemima Rooper is in an episode maybe we could watch another. She is in episode 4 however, and neither of us felt like watching episode 3 just to get to episode 4 and Jemima Rooper, no matter how much we love her. (Watching them out of order was out of question, obviously.)

So just like last time I have recorded as much as I could of all the things we shouted at the TV while watching.

Here be many spoilers!

[Opening credits]

Fiona: Well, they have the same horrendous titles

Stef: It hurts my eyes

Fiona: Ed Speelers… he’s in Outlander.

Stef: I recognise the name

Stef: So slightly based on Five Go Off to Camp?

Fiona: Very very loosely perhaps

[At Kirrin Cottage. A man is creeping through the house in the dark.]

Stef: I swear that’s the same cottage Jennifer Armstrong is kidnapped from in Five Run Away Together. It’s in the west country? [I’m yet to try to verify this]

Fiona: Why haunted?

Stef: Cause it’s Peril on the Night Train

Fiona: Is that Anne?

Stef: Is she going to be as insufferable as before?

Stef: Why is she in bed in her dressing gown?

Fiona: Good question.

Fiona: Also why has she got a red lamp. Why are her brothers sleeping in her room?

Together: It’s a dream??

[Spoilers, it was a dream. Or rather, a nightmare.]

Fiona: They’re trying to make it horror-filmy?

Stef: Camp is the scariest one.

Fiona: The spooook train.

Stef [In a moderately bad Scottish accent]: I’m a ninny and an eejit.

[Daytime and a man, revealed to be Mr Roland, the tutor, has arrived at Kirrin Cottage]

Stef [Back to her normal accent]: It’s Mr Roland, so it’s Five Go Adventuring Again.

Stef: Mr Roland’s supposed to be staying in the house.

Fiona: At least [him staying elsewhere] corrects the spare bedroom/no spare bedroom mistake.

Fiona: But how does a train come into… Mr Roland?

Stef: I like that they’ve given a reason for the parents to be away.

Fiona: I don’t think they needed a reason.

Stef: As an adult watching it does feel like it fills a gap.

Fiona: I suppose kids to day would better understand parents working away vs going on holiday.

Stef: It should be in the CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS.

Fiona: Have we ever seen an adaptation in snow? Well, the graphic novel but that’s AUTUMN and freak snow.

Stef: Snow is not that hard to CGI in, in 2025.

Stef: Why always the Germans, like the 70s version.

Stef: Half the 90s series was funded by Germany.

Fiona [who did not know that fact]: Were they trying to make sure the bad guys weren’t all German?

Stef: One of the boys here, I think, is actually German.

Stef: [Ed Speelers] is quite Mr Roland-y.

Fiona: Mmm he’s quite good.

Stef: The other three are supposed to like Mr Roland, but they’re falling asleep.

Fiona: We’re dumped right in – there’s no build up to why he’s so strict and confiscating the ruler.

Stef: Attention span?

Stef: Incidentally Five are listed under second name of Barnard

Stef: George was never that openly hostile.

Fiona: How is tea ready, who made tea? [I’ll explain that nitpick in a proper review later.]

[Uncle Quentin is demonstrating some kind of computing device he’s invented that’s supposed to answer any question.]

Fiona: So… it’s AI?

Fiona: There were not enough inputs for that kind of question.

Stef: Julian is bowing down, But Anne still looks older than Dick.

Fiona: And George is still wearing a ridiculously pretty blouse.

Stef: It’s too feminine. I don’t mind the headband, though.

Fiona: I’m not a fan.

Fiona: Oh no Anne’s still-

Stef: A brat.

[Anne thinks the house is haunted]

Together: Groan.

Stef: I still swear it’s the same cottage.

Fiona: Is it aspector, a ghoul – or Mr Roland?

Fiona: Why have they built a blanket fort?

Stef: I’m still trying to reconcile a train.

[The Five are up late, waiting and watching, talking about their ‘ghost’ which as far as we can tell is only in Anne’s dream.]

Fiona: She didn’t see anything – she was asleep in bed!

[George asks Timmy is anyone’s there and they go down to look]

Fiona: Mr Roland.

Stef: This is probably where Timmy gets told off for attacking Mr Roland. Why isn’t Julian going first? And why have they all got different coloured torches?

Fiona: To make it visually interesting.

Stef: So it’s not Mr Roland?

Fiona: Mr Roland in a bad disguise?

Fiona: Or one of the artists or not artists.

Stef: What’s going on with that window?

Fiona: It’s in spooky black and white.

Stef: And the clock.

Stef: What were they doing in the tutoring room?

[Next day and back to lessons]

Stef: Out of all of them Anne would be the last to fall asleep during a lesson.

Stef: She’s too sarky.

Fiona: It’s way too early for that kind of suspicion [Of Mr Roland].

Stef: Oh look Timmy’s basket’s been moved.

Fiona: The clock is the secret passage.

Stef: I feel like we’ve been dropped right in the middle of things.

Fiona: I don’t know what’s worse – absent parents or parents in the house and not paying attention.

Stef: I still don’t see how a train fits in.

Fiona: Is this [discovering the secret of the clock] to replace them finding of the via occulta note at the farm?

Fiona: I mean, god knows they couldn’t have two locations.

Stef: But if someone’s already opened the clock wouldn’t they have found it already?

Stef: Why has Dick suddenly got his knapsack with him?

Fiona: Dick just loves that bag.

Stef: Why isn’t Julian insisting on going first?

Fiona: Why is Julian going LAST?

Stef: No! Don’t close it, you…. don’t you think they might notice when the kids don’t turn up?

Fiona: What if it locks behind them?

Fiona: Who would build this?

Stef: SMUGGLERS.

Fiona: So it comes out in a random shed?

Fiona: I suppose now we have a second location.

[The farm is a boarding house run by Mrs Sassoon.]

Fiona: Mrs Sassoon – why not the Kirrins’ farm?

Stef: The Sanders.

[The Five peer in the windows of the boarding house]

Fiona: And  of course nobody notices them all pressed against the window.

Fiona: Look at all those suspects.

Fiona: Why are they so useless? Remember the railing?

Stef: Don’t have that conversation outside the window of the boarding house!

[The Five charge in to start making wild accusations]

Stef: I might have an aneurism.

Stef: Oh god.

Fiona: Talk about tipping your hand.

Fiona: Oooh she’s foreign. And there are panelled walls.

[Mrs Sassoon is both welcoming and snippy with the children.]

Fiona: Do you like these children or not?

Fiona: I wouldn’t say that Quentin’s machine is worth stealing.

Stef: Julian, you’re not much help are you?

Stef: It’s an early enigma machine.

[The Five plan a trap for Mr Roland]

Fiona: They’re going to tar and feather him?

Stef: Uncle Quentin is going to get covered in treacle and feathers.

[The Five are all asleep where they sit.]

Stef: That’s why you take it in turns to watch.

Fiona: They weren’t even watching, just sitting there.

Stef: I’m still not seeing a train.

Fiona: Is Mr Roland going to steal and run, and they have to chase him on a train for added drama?

Stef: Not the marbles!

Fiona: Not the bad hiding!

Stef: It’s Uncle Quentin… No it’s not – it IS Mr Roland.

Fiona: What is his legitimate excuse here? [Bearing in mind he isn’t staying at Kirrin Cottage].

Stef: This is not Famous Five.

Fiona: Caught him feather handed…

Fiona: Mr Roland’s going to pretend he was following the burglar.

Stef: And Timmy didn’t bark.

Stef: They’re in it together.

Fiona: Like Roland and the artists.

Stef: Why is Julian at the back?

[Someone else steals the invention and escapes via the clock passage. Mr Roland and the children take chase, and Mr Roland who reveals himself to be Agent Keats]

Stef: It’s our Julian. How did they steal our idea?? [For context, we have written grown-up Julian as an SIS agent and he sometimes uses the alias Keats.]

Fiona [The voice of reason]: Yeah somehow I don’t think they’ve read our unpublished fan fiction. It’s like Mr King from The Barney Mysteries, though.

Stef: Timmy should have got him by now.

Fiona: George knows a shortcut… but how does she know where he’s going?

Fiona: Blyton never would have had them tearing around outside in their pjs.

Stef: Oh there is three of them. [Bad guys].

Fiona: We’re 30 mins in and going wildly off piste, so that was the only bit that’s going to resemble the book.

Stef: We’re assuming Mr Roland’s telling the truth, and not just a 2nd party also after the thing.

Fiona: I still don’t know why you’d want to steal something that’s not working. [Warning, I got a total bee in my bonnet about the useless invention until Stef eventually reminded me that Quentin did get it to work.]

Stef: The potential?

Fiona: But why not wait until it works?

Fiona: How did they even know about it – does Quentin talk randomly to people about his inventions?

Stef: Guess what I’m building!

[Mr Roland convinces Uncle Quentin that he needs to be moved to safety along with his invention, and Fanny insists the whole family comes along for their safety.]

Stef: Unless the dads are still brothers here, it could have come that way.

Fiona: Mr Roland got a lot of those feathers off.

Fiona: That machine’s his life’s work??

Fiona: It’s basically a calculator, not a decoding machine. And it doesn’t even work!

[The family arrive at the train station and Dick is loudly talking about his secret agent father.

Stef: You don’t just go about saying that!

[An American man greets Quentin and claims to know him, but Quentin doesn’t remember meeting him.]

Fiona: Ooh that’s suspicious. Is it supposed to be Elbur Wright?

Stef: That woman under the umbrella is she from Sassoon’s?.

Fiona: Sassoon’s in on it, too?

Fiona: It doesn’t even WORK.

Fiona: And here was me thinking they’d have to sneak onto the train.

Fiona: They’re not all going to fit in a sleeping cabin.

Stef: There’s got to be more than Keats with them.

Fiona: Boys and girls sharing a cabin?

[We see various other passengers and staff on the train]

Fiona: So which of these three are supposed to be suss?

[The waiter has a bandaged arm]

Fiona: The hand that Mr Roland shot!

Stef: They were going to celebrate him fixing the machine.

Fiona: Oh yes, I forgot.

Fiona [unwilling to give up just yet]: But how exhaustive could his testing have been? Do we know it doesn’t still blow up after ten calculations? Twenty?

[Julian advocates for having a meal in their cabin as Keats told them to stay put]

Fiona: And you always do that you’re told Julian, as you’re such a good little boy.

Stef: Since when did Anne get  so bossy?

[Two men in the dining car are talking about a machine.]

Stef: Cause that’s not dodgy at all.

Fiona: They’re talking about a combine harvester or something.

Fiona: Ok it’s a typewriter.

Fiona: It was too obvious anyway.

Fiona: There’s going to be a swap isn’t there? [Much easier to do with a typewriter than a combine harvester…]

Stef: The whole train is full of agents.

Fiona: The train thing is done to death at this point, surely? Murder On the Orient Express, First Class Murder by Robin Stevens, Everyone On This Train Is a Suspect… [OK what I actually called it was All The Passengers Are Killers, but my point still stands.]

Stef: The Mystery of the Blue Train is a Poirot one.

Fiona: Oh, there’s that Murder She Wrote TV movie set on a train too.

Fiona: They’re throwing lots of random people at us now.

[George sits with a woman in the dining car as she says she’ll keep an eye on Timmy so that he doesn’t have to go back to their cabin.]

Fiona: Her accent is all over the shop.

Stef: She’s going to make friends with George and it’s all going to be wrong.

Fiona: George wouldn’t… well… yes if anyone likes Timmy she’ll gush all over them.

[We derail briefly to discuss how the MT series holds up against this one and MT wins hands down.]

Stef: Julian was slightly better in the first one. And George. Dick so far is on par. Anne has one a 180.

Fiona: No she’s exactly the same.

Stef: Have I blanked that out?

Fiona: The woman with George, she looks familiar. [I check IMDB. I haven’t seen her in anything though.]

Fiona: £87 in those days that’s a lot.

[Dick announces that he wants to be a secret agent like my father]

Stef: Why would you say that have you no discretion?

Fiona: That’s not the same American from the station, is it? – he didn’t get on the train.

Stef: It is him, he’s just not wearing his hat.

Stef: They’re so lax with the info they’re giving out – that’s what’s stressing me out

[Anne comments on the suspicious waiter (the one with the injured hand) and Julian blankly asks what waiter?]

Stef: JULIAN!!!

Fiona: and Dick… you’ve got eyes both of you!

[The Five decide to talk about their suspicions.]

Stef: In the middle of a busy dining cart are you guys stupid??

[The Five go to Uncle Quentin’s cabin and find he and Fanny deeply asleep.]

Stef: Drugged!

Fiona: Not dead though.

[There’s a fight and Agent Keats throws the waiter out of the window, remarking can’t get the staff these days.]

Sef: That’s a bit over the top.

Fiona: No ticket would have been a better excuse. [See Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade]

Stef: Surely you’d want to interrogate him?

Fiona: Yes, suspicious – he wanted the evidence of the guy gone.

Stef: So he’s not a good guy.

Fiona: No I don’t think he is.

[Keats picks up glass]

Stef: Don’t drink that, it might have the barbiturates in it!

Fiona: But not if he put them in the drinks.

Fiona: There’s an episode of Murder She Wrote called Who Threw The Barbiturates in Mrs Fletcher’s Chowder. [Actually it was Barbitals but close enough as barbital is a barbiturate.]

[Keats collapses.]

Fiona: Ok it was drugged and very quick acting.

Stef: He’s gone now.

Fiona: Bye bye.

[The Five discover the machine is gone.]

Stef: It’s probably still on the train.

Fiona: Julian, that’s the ****est idea I’ve ever heard. Wait for a grown up to wake up!!

[They find a note given to the  waiter by the American, reading I insist you meet me tonight… If you don’t come, you’ll regret it.]

Fiona: He didn’t give him a chance to come or not come so it can’t be him. It’s too obvious. The person who makes a big song and dance about wanting it is never the one to steal it.

Stef: Why is it all so dark?

Fiona: Comic-coloured torches again.

[The Five find the American smoking a cigar in his cabin, with a length of ash still in place.]

Stef: We don’t need a lesson on smoking, this is for children.

Fiona: Well, that’s a long winded way to prove he’s been in there the whole time.

[A couple get off the train carrying a case the size and shape of the missing machine. Sabrina, the woman from the dining car helps the Five stop them, with a gun.]

Fiona: Is she on our side?

Stef: I’m still not convinced.

Fiona: Is she just stopping it being stolen so she can steal it?

Fiona: Glenfinnan Viaduct is NOT on the way to Aberdeen or Inverness. And it’s nowhere near Gleneagles either. [Warning for second bee in the bonnet – Scottish geography].

Fiona: Also, nobody has looked in the case. Is it just the typewriter?

[With Sabrina they discuss how the couple only just heard about the machine and so couldn’t have been working with the waiter from the start.]

Fiona: He was just taking advantage.

Fiona: The tea pouring is a clue?

[Sabrina makes the same remark about biscuits as Mrs Sassoon did earlier.]

Fiona: I’d like to tell you that I knew why she was familiar, but I didn’t get that at all.

Fiona: It’s not in there… but there’s more than one person after it. More than her and the waiter.

Stef: Why is George wearing converse?

Fiona: Cause she was wearing them in the first episode.

Stef: Oh yeah, we’ve had this conversation before.

[Sabrina/Mrs Sassoon, cover blown, follows them, and the case, through the train.]

Stef: Where’s Timmy by the way?

Fiona: That’s right, just walk through a carriage with a gun. And in your dressing gown.

Fiona [sarcastic]: They’re so well hidden again.

Stef: They should have split up.

[Timmy runs up to Sabrina]

Fiona: Timmy YOU TRAITOR.

Fiona: Please tell me they switched the case.

[Sabrina decouples the carriage the Five are in]

Stef: Can you do that at speed?

Fiona: I wouldn’t recommend it.

Fiona: But they can hold up the case and laugh? If they were clever and switched the machine to a different case.

Stef: Everyone’s going to be really pissed when they realise their luggage is missing.

Fiona: Why did they get out of the carriage? [Realising that Sabrina was on the main part of the train and left the Five in the luggage carriage behind]. Oh, I thought it was the other way around for some reason.

[Anne asks how far now.]

Fiona: You’ve no idea where you are, or where you’re going to!!!

Fiona: Listen to you and your zero ideas, Julian.

[The Five are collected by a couple of army personnel in a jeep who say they are from the Cairngorms Garrison.]

Fiona: You’re not staying at the Cairngorms Garrison if the train hasn’t even reached Edinburgh yet.

[We break off to look at Google Maps and discuss just what route this train was supposed to have taken.]

Stef: Where’s Timmy? Again.

[Stef looks up the Cairngorms Garrison filming location.]

Stef: They’re using Wales as Scotland.

[Stef nearly dies of laughter.]

Fiona: Well, we all know that Wales looks more like Scotland than Scotland does.

Stef: There must be places in Scotland…

Stef: Why are they in a  tent when there’s a house?

[The Five are fed and and Anne say things are always better with plum pudding.]

Fiona: Plum pudding can’t fix this episode.

Stef: And there are much better things than plum pudding.

[Julian and George have a heart-to-heart and make up after earlier disagreements about Sabrina].

Stef: A set up for a romance??

Fiona: Surely not!

[The Five borrow a radio.]

Fiona: Of course Julian just knows how one of those works.

[Dick says Loch Ness as Lock Ness. Warning, third bee in my bonnet.]

Fiona: Cccchhh.

Stef: He’s translating morse code so fast. But he may have come in part way through the message?

[Someone says Lock Ness again.]

Fiona: Cccchhhhhh.

[Someone says Loch Ness.]

Fiona: He can say it!

Stef: I think he’s actually Scottish. But why is he obeying a small girl?

[Someone says Lock Ness.]

Fiona [nearly choking self]: CCCHHHH!!!

[Stef shows off that she can say loch correctly, presumably in case I lose it and try to harm her.]

[The Five travel to LOCH Ness and stop in at the local pub, where the landlady forces them to buy knitwear in exchange for information.]

Fiona: A nice way to carry on the cheapskate Scots stereotype.

Fiona: Oh it’s them? [The two blokes who had the typewriter on the train]. The typewriter – you think they’d have opened it again by now.

Stef: Julian’s got a couple of pounds in his pocket? If you were lucky he’d have a ten bob note.

Fiona: Especially after after buying all those scarves.

[Cut to the loch where something suspicious is rising from the water.]

Fiona: It’s a ****ing submarine – not Nessie.

Fiona: Could you even get a submarine into Loch Ness??

[We derail to discuss this. I’m of the opinion that no, you could not. You could sail to Loch Ness as it is connected via rivers and canals to the sea, but it’s not deep enough all the way to submerge a U-boat.)

Stef: Why did [Sabrina] leave [the machine] in her room?

Fiona: They’re clearly dressed as German military.

Stef: You just wouldn’t raise a German U-boat in Loch Ness in the daytime.

Fiona: There’s no war yet but that would definitely raise eyebrows. We’re in for a farcical Monty Python / Michael Palin ‘everyone’s in one it and waving guns about’ scene. [I was thinking mostly of the Ripping Yarns episode Whinfrey’s Last Case]

Fiona: Reall, toasting the kaiser in front of everyone?

Fiona: They’ve lost the invention three times now!

Stef: He’s got an umbrella!

Fiona: And he’s not afraid to use it!

Fiona: Well. everyone IS waving guns about now.

Fiona: Ugh, moral arguments and lessons, yawn.

Stef: What does George know?

[Sabrina goes off with the device in the case. George then reveals that the device is actually in the typewriter case.]

Fiona: Finally a switch!!

[The U-boat takes off, without the invention.]

Fiona: That was shocking bit of CGI. So at what point did they switch it? I can see now that they deliberately got caught.

After it ends we discuss what a waste of Ed Speelers it was. He was in the first half hour, a it in the middle and then didn’t even turn up at the end. I think we were too disgusted to say anything else!

 

 

 

 

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The Secret Seven Covers through the years part 2

Posted on September 17, 2025 by Fiona

Last time I got as far as 1987 which means we are heading into the 90s and the sort of covers which were around when I was a kid.

But first…

I missed this last time – the mystery of the Chivers edition. Secret Seven Mystery (an apt title here) has 16 editions. Every other book from #3 onwards has 15 – so where did an extra one creep in?

In 1986 when Chivers published this version, which is just the 1984 Knight edition with a different coloured background. I can only assume that this book was more popular than expected, and/or they didn’t print enough Knight copies, and someone else had to produce some. Still, a bit weird. Imagine buying this one and never being able to find matching copies of the rest of the series? Mind you, it is one of the ‘bad hallucination’ covers where a giant boy is spying a smaller version of himself, so maybe few children were desperate for more!

The Secret Seven, 90s style

There were four different versions published in the 90s, three of which you could probably describe as 90s style, and one which is both 90s and not 90s, and yes I’ll explain that enigma later.

First up was Hodder in 1990 with a series of uncredited covers. These are in a similar style to the 1991 Knight Famous Fives with the metallic title and 90s fashions.

An attempt is made (on some of them) to include action and movement. The text (probably worse on these small images) is a bit hard to read against the backgrounds, and the repetition of Secret Seven makes the titles sound silly – ie Secret Seven Go Ahead Secret Seven… or the best/worst one – Secret Seven the Secret Seven. (This is a problem on several others sets, but some are worse than others.)

Then between 1991 and 1993 Award produced a set of books – I’m pretty sure these were hardbacks – with covers first by AWP (books 1&2) and the rest by Dorothy Hamilton. These aren’t too bad and actually look to me as if they could be older than the 90s. Apart from a few which have modern clothing the others are fairly timeless.

After that it’s back to Hodder in 1993 for another set. If the art style looks familiar, that’s because David Barnett also illustrated the 1995 Hodder Famous Fives. Lots of brightly-coloured 90s clothes here, though at least the children and scenery are realistic.

I’m having deja vu here!

And now for the 90s-but-not-90s, which are 1996 Hodders and which feature the original artwork. They are not the original covers, though, they are the 9o0s version which means cutting the original down to a square and adding banners top and bottom for the title etc. Again this style is familiar and has been used on the Famous Five.

As the first ten books had a large title banner at the top it means the illustration isn’t cropped too much – though the last five start to look a bit squashed and the final book has a horse with a missing ear.

I actually don’t mind these as they at least retain most of the original, era-appropriate covers.

Next time: the Secret Seven hit the new millenium!

Posted in Illustrations and artwork | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Monday #677

Posted on September 15, 2025 by Fiona

Stef has returned home (boo), I’m back at work (ugh) it’s cold and rainy (sob).

On the plus side Stef and I watched an episode of the 90s Famous Five last week so I can bring you our thoughts on that soon.

Secret Seven covers through the years part 2

and

Peril on the Night Train

A few highlights of our conversation about the 90s episode.

Me to Stef: Do you know every single word? How many times have you watched these?

Me: UGLY PULLOVER ALERT

Also me: Who goes treasure hunting in a dungeon in a cream sweater??

 

 

 

 

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Monday #676

Posted on September 8, 2025 by Fiona

No (other) posts this week as Stef is visiting me. We have just watched Peril on the Night Train (the second episode of the new Famous Five series, not that it sounds like it) together though, so look out for a review coming soon.

Let’s have more than one to give you an idea of what you have to look forward to in our review.

Fiona: How is tea ready? Who made tea?

…

Stef: I’m still trying to reconcile a train

…

Stef: SMUGGLERS

…

Fiona: It doesn’t even WORK

…

Fiona: That would raise some eyebrows

Bet you can’t wait!

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Reading the Secret Island to Brodie

Posted on September 5, 2025 by Fiona

This one we read from October 26th to November 9th, 2024. I’m catching up, slightly! I had to double check my dates as two weeks seemed rather quick for The Secret Island, but they are correct. You can just make out the covers on my Bookmory calendar, showing the dates we read it.

Island life

Brodie was completely captivated by this book despite it not being the more typical Blyton adventure that he normally enjoys. The island is mentioned pretty early and from that moment he was desperate for them to just hurry up and run away there – though he did agree that it made sense for them to take a bit of time to pack!

He was really interested in all the little parts of their plans and nodded approvingly as they solved various problems (like putting the milk in the spring to keep it cool, which he had suggested himself). He also asked a lot of questions.

He was particularly preoccupied about the food situation – asking what they would do if they ran out of food, where they would get more from. Despite that he, too, was reticent about them eating the rabbits.

The picking of berries excited him as we regularly pick wild strawberries, raspberries and blackberries while out on walks. Often it’s hard to get Brodie to move on once he’s found a good patch of fruit!

We had quite a long conversation about mustard seed and how it becomes mustard, and why the children would bother with it.

He also worried about the winter coming, and the children getting cold and wet. That’s a very fair concern as I think they only have one (light) coat between them, and no boots or scarves or anything. Sleeping out of doors also concerned him because what if it rains? 

He thought they should have torches and proper tents. I had to explain (again) that although those things were around at the time not everyone could afford them. I think he has gotten used to the affluence of the Kirrins and the Mannering/Trents!

One thing he also asked was How can nobody else know about an island? That’s a good question – it is sort of unbelievable, and obviously not as true as Jack thought as the trippers find it.

Getting Daisy to the island astonished him – a COW, SWIMMING??

He loved willow house but I had to spend quite a bit of time looking up photos of willow houses to help him understand the building of it. I never found anything that quite matched what is desribed in the book (or at least my imagination’s picture of it).

To update or to not update

I feel as if I made less changes here than in some other books.

I left the slaps in as I think they have far more impact than scoldings alone. That’s not to say that the life they led minus the slaps, as in the modern editions, isn’t enough to run away from, but the violence adds another level. I think (for a short while at least) it made him grateful for his own life.

I did balance out the boys’ and girls’ roles where I could.

“Nora and Peggy ought to be going to school and wearing nice clothes that fit them, and having friends to tea,” said Mike to himself. “This is no life for them. They are just very hard-worked servants for Aunt Harriet, and she pays them nothing.”

Why isn’t Mike worthy of these things too? I changed the names and references from they and them to we and us.

 He wanted to go very badly—but would the two girls really be able to stand a wild life like that? No proper beds to sleep in—perhaps no proper food to eat—and suppose one of them was ill? Well, they would have to chance all that. They could always come back if things went too wrong.

Again, I included Mike and made this apply to the three children and not just the girls.

“You leave it to me,” said Jack. “I don’t like hurting things any more than you do. But  know quite well how to skin rabbits. It’s a man’s job, that, so you two girls can leave it to Mike and me. So long as you can cook the rabbits for dinner, that’s all you need worry about. 

I made this more about Jack knowing how to do it, so it was his job, not a man’s job, and Mike could learn if he wanted to.

Other than that I don’t think there was anything other than not using queer. The boys and girls jobs are somewhat stereotypical (Peggy mends and cooks, Nora looks after the chickens, the boys fish and catch rabbits and mend/build things) but it would have been a lot of work to alter that. Besides, it seems very much as if they are playing to their natural strengths. Nora doesn’t do mending or much cooking, and at no point are they told these are girls’ jobs.

A rollercoaster of a book

There are a number of tense scenes in the book, but they are balanced out by lots of moments of humour and fun. Brodie gets very tense and worried when things are going badly, and I’m sure nobody will be surprised at which scenes I highlight here.

  • The children sneaking off to run away after being told to stay in
  • The trippers visiting the island and intending to explore it
  • The policeman nearly catching Jack in the village and the children knowing that soon people will be searching for them (This, of course, reads very differently when you’ve read it before and know how it ends)
  • The searchers coming to the island and making it into the caves

At these tense moments he always asks me what happens next – especially if we end a chapter with a cliffhanger. For some reason he usually asks me if I have read the book before, and I have to say yes, but I won’t spoil things for him. Sometimes if he is upset I will tell him that things turn out OK in the end, but I won’t say how. Sometimes if he would just wait until I finish a paragraph he’d have his answer as well.

Things he laughed at included

  • Daisy scaring off the trippers, and frightening the searchers with her unexpected mooing.
  • The man who says he will eat his hat if the children are on the island, because of course they are on the island
  • The ‘boat’ that turned out to be a swan

As Jack finds Mr and Mrs Arnold and they reunite with the children he said:

It’s so happy. I’m so happy I could cry!

I know what he means. As an adult I think I almost – or sometimes even do – cry at this part of the book. I don’t think I ever did as a child, though.

Then he was super disappointed that they had to leave the island, and that the book had to end.

My reading experience

This was actually a pretty easy one to read. Very little in the way of changes needed. The worst ones are the things you forget about and you’re half-way through a sentence and have the only a second or two to find a substitute for the n-word or something while still reading aloud. Nothing in the way of accents required, and actually very few characters over-all. The boys probably sounded quite alike – though I tried to make Jack sound older and more authoritative, whilst the girls were similar but again I tried to make Peggy sound older and more confident.

I did have an additional thought/nitpick when the searchers were on the island and noticed the trampled area at the spring and possibly some footmarks. I wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a little worn footpath – like the desire lines you see where people take shortcuts across the grass – as the children would have been going back and forth to the spring multiple times a day, and probably taking the same route each time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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August 2025 round up

Posted on September 3, 2025 by Fiona

We are into September (and autumn) now so it’s time to look at what I got up to in August.

What I read

August was a bit of a slow month – only ten books read, but I’m still 13 ahead of my target so it’s fine. Ticked off a classic at least and two books read from the to-read list, but four borrowed from the library one of which was a BABAL*, so swings and roundabouts.

So I read:

  • Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
  • Insidious Intent (Tony Hill & Carol Jordan #10) – Val McDermid
  • O is for Outlaw (Kinsey Millhone #15) – Sue Grafton
  • Cherry Ames, Senior Nurse (Cherry Ames #2) – Helen Wells
  • How the Dead Speak (Tony Hill & Carol Jordan #110 – Val McDermid
  • A History of Britain in 21 Women – Jenni Murray
  • Kick Back (Kate Brannigan #2) – Val McDermid
  • P is for Peril (Kinsey Millhone #16) – Sue Grafton
  • Bikini – Amber Eve
  • Love at First Book – Jenn McKinlay

I ended the month still working through:

  • Mr Galliano’s Circus
  • Q is for Quarry (Kinsey Millhone #17) – Sue Grafton
  • Wedding Bells for the East End Library Girls (Library Girls #5) – Patricia McBride
  • Meet Me at the Seaside Cottages – Jenny Colgan

What I watched

  • We have watched a couple of episodes of Supernatural season 5 but have somewhat lost interest now. We have been watching Only Connect and Richard Osman’s House of Games instead. Some evenings we watch something with Brodie. We ran out of Gladiators and so have been watching Ninja Warrior UK and The Floor is Lava. One weekend we introduced him to Lord of the Rings with The Fellowship of the Ring. He found a couple of bits a little boring but loved the rest and went straight into play-fighting orcs.
  • I’ve been absolutely binging Byker Grove and am finally into 1998 which means I actually recognise most the cast and remember some of the storylines.
  • My sister and I are still subjecting ourselves to season three of And Just Like That. We reached episode six and I thought that must be the end of it, but no, it goes on for 12 episodes!

What I did

  • We had the first week of the month off so apart from having a big clear out of Brodie’s room to prepare for his birthday we also had time for some day trips. We visited some of our favourites like Fife Zoo and the St Andrews Aquarium, but also tried a new place – Pitmuies Gardens – which was lovely and reminded me a bit of Old Thatch.
  •  On weekends we managed to get out for a few geocaching walks (we are up to 112 finds now) and even fitted in a round of crazy golf before beginning the cache hunting one day.
  • We enjoyed the last of the really good weather in the garden and finally pulled our carrots and picked some blackberries. Some of the blackberries were probably bigger than some of the carrots…
  • Last weekend we went to a Lego event (sort of like a comic con but for Lego) and managed to be very restrained in our spending.

 

How was your August?

*Books About Bookshops and Libraries

Posted in Personal Experiences | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Monday #675

Posted on September 1, 2025 by Fiona

It’s September first today so apart from the Hogwarts Express departing from King’s Cross, it’s also the first day of autumn. It’s still fairly warm right now but I’m already wondering if my cosy cardigans will last another winter…

August round up

and

Reading The Island of Adventure to Brodie

For those of us looking forward to autumn rather than clinging onto summer (like me) why not revisit Stef’s list of autumn reads?

Autumn Reads

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The Secret Seven covers through the years

Posted on August 27, 2025 by Fiona

I’ve done several of these posts so far, but left the Secret Seven as, honestly, I don’t rate them as highly as I do most of Blyton’s other series.

Janet and Peter

For completeness sake, and as there wouldn’t be enough to do a whole post on them, we’ll start with the two prequels to the Secret Seven. At Seaside Cottage (1947) is about Peter and Janet, while Secret of the Old Mill (1948) introduces the other five and sees them begin their secret society.

Both books have beautiful Eileen Soper wrap-around dust jackets.

First editions

The Secret Seven books were published by Brockhampton between 1949 and 1963, and had three different illustrators.

First up was George Brooks with books 1-4, then George Kay with books 5-7, and finally Burgess Sharrocks completed the series with books 8-15. My initial impression is that like with the Noddy books later artists go a good job of keeping the style and look consistent, but will that hold up to a closer examination?

Interestingly there are also three different styles of first editions – though these don’t align with the changes of artist.

Book 1, The Secret Seven is the only one to have the illustration contained in a circle.

It then had a second hardback edition – also by Brockhampton – in 1950, which matched the style for books 2-10. The three below are George Brooks covers. As you can see the new edition of the first book features the same scene but in full.

Then here are three by Bruno Kay. Although not shown above, all the covers did have an illustrated spine showing either more of the scene on the front, or a vignette of another part of the story.

First edition dust jacket by Bruno Kay
First edition dust jacket
First Edition Cover of Secret Seven Win Through, Illustrated by Bruno Kay.

And three by Burgess Sharrocks, the final four books of the series dropped the banner at the top and placed the text straight on the illustration. That works fine on a pale cloudy-sky but on top of the slatted shed it’s a bit harder to read.

Having looked more carefully I think that Kay and Brooks are very difficult to tell apart, while Sharrocks is slightly different, though it’s subtle and could easily be attributed to the passage of time/changing of popular style for cover artwork.

I’ve seen the banner style covers on other books – Eric Leyland is the main one which comes to mind – although it’s hard to find good-quality pictures of his books, or much information really. I gather he was an author of adventure stories for boys around the same time Blyton was writing.

It’s also worth mentioning that the first editions had printed boards under the dustjackets. I always referred to them in my head as the paper doll covers, as that’s what the line of hand-holding children looked like to me. And then I wrote that online and someone gently pointed out that they are the Seven children of the Secret Seven. I guess that makes more sense!

All of mine are blue, but there are several other colours they came in. Books 13-15 had the painted ‘S’ on them.

Seeing double (or triple) with Knight and Brockhampton

The first paperbacks came five years after the final book was first published and were by Knight.

Books 1 and 2 had two Knight paperbacks, both using the same artwork by Derek Lucas. This was then used again by Brockhampton to produce a series of Hardbacks. Books 3-15 used the second style of Knight paperback, and the the Brockhampton Hardback.

As you can see these use the same artwork, though the positioning and colourings are slightly different, as are the title banners.

The Brockhampton ones are mostly missing from the Cave which makes me wonder if they were only produced in small numbers.

Anyway, these are pretty decent covers.

Also done in this style is a paperback (the only one as far as I know) of At Seaside Cottage. This isn’t in the Cave of Books so I don’t have a date or artist.

The uncredited era

Knight then produced three more paperback editions between 1976 and 1987, all of them with uncredited covers.

Up first are the random children from 1976, who are not from a TV series, but have been photographed as the Secret Seven. (See also the photo covers for the Five Find Outers)

I may have been unkind in my choices (I more or less picked randomly) as none of these are great covers.

First we have children in a tree. Admittedly this probably looks a lot better on a full-sized book rather than a small photo online, but it took me a minute to realise they weren’t scrambling up a grassy hill.

Then we have, at least, an action-shot, but it looks exactly what it is – staged.

And last we have children sitting about – perhaps looking at something that we can’t see -doing nothing. How thrilling!

After that, we have what I can only describe as bad hallucination covers from 1984. I do love a good optical illusion but these are wild. They’re so bad they feature in my rundown of Worst Ever Blyton Covers.

Below are three of them, not the worst ones as they’re already in the link above, but still. They remind me of bad sci-fi where improbable things like ten-foot spiders attack.

It’s as if they couldn’t decide which scene to feature so thought why not have them all? Regardless of whether it makes sense or instead makes it look as if giant children/dogs/walls are taking over the world. No wonder these are uncredited – even though the actual individual scenes are perfectly well drawn, would you want your name attached to these?

And finally, and probably the best of this uncredited Knight run from 1987 are these colourful ones. They definitely look dated now, but they at least have interesting scenes which convey action. The action-scenes combined with the 3D effect of the covers make it seem as if the characters are sometimes about to burst out of the book and into the real world.

And I will leave it there for tonight. I reckon I’ll get two more posts out of the remaining covers.

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Monday #674

Posted on August 25, 2025 by Fiona

Seeing as I’ve gotten so far behind on Brodie’s reviews I thought I’d better crack on with another one and hopefully catch up eventually. Ironically I had been thinking how fun a Byker Grove blog would be. The clothes and hairstyles alone would give me plenty to write about. I will refrain however as it would involve rewatching from the beginning again and dedicating far more time than I have! I’ll just have to hope that someone else writes one!

Secret Seven covers through the years

and

Reading The Secret Island to Brodie

While skimming through The River of Adventure last week I paused on this illustration. I haven’t uploaded this one to the blog before – at least not in full. I did use part with Bill in it for the header of our fanfic of Bill and Allie’s wedding. There wasn’t enough of Allie on this page to use so the Allie is from The Mountain of Adventure instead – but the loving look on Bill’s face was perfect.

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Reading The River of Adventure to Brodie

Posted on August 24, 2025 by Fiona

We read this from October 10th to 24th, 2024 so I’m nearly a year behind in reporting on it! I also didn’t take notes at the time so these are my best recollections. (I’m learning from my mistakes and have gone back to jotting down at least some of his comments from what we’re reading right now).

Foreworded is forearmed?

The River of Adventure is my least favourite of the series so I was a bit less enthusiastic than Brodie was about reading this.

We started with the foreword where Blyton explains that she had planned to end the series after Bill “proposes” to Allie at the end of The Ship of Adventure, but had so many letters from children that she added another two books. Those being the brilliant Circus of Adventure (and obviously the best book of the series) and this last one, River. Brodie said he was glad she didn’t end with six or else we wouldn’t be reading this book right now.

On the fly updates

I can read in my head a lot faster than I can read out loud so my eyes are usually at least half a sentence ahead of my mouth, giving me time to do things like change from one terrible accent to another as I can see who has spoken, or swap out queer for strange. Sometimes half a sentence isn’t enough and it’s a scramble to finish a sentence that’s going downhill in a way that makes sense, but I do my best.

As the Mannering-Trents are abroad through most of this book I made a lot of little word changed – a lot as in a small number of words were used a lot of times.

Throughout I called the people from the un-named country the locals or the local people rather than the natives as while there’s nothing wrong with saying native people, saying the natives has a somewhat colonial sound.

Although Tala and Oola work for the family I toned down much of the deferential language used. For example less of the sir and master from Tala and none of the Lord from Oola. Tala was asked to do things instead of ordered (the subtle difference between working for someone and serving them), and I toned down the terror and screaming about the gods coming near the end.

I also made a couple of minor changes regarding the girls needing looked after. Bill asked the children to stay together, rather than asking the boys to keep the girls with them. Likewise Philip doesn’t think of the two girls but thinks of all their safety.

The River of Surprise

I swear he was more surprised at things in this book than any of the others we’d read before.

The ladder of knives, the snake charmer, an escaping snake, Oola bringing a snake to Philip – these all had him on the edge of his seat.

He went through a whole range of feelings about the snake escape. The snakes were fake – to begin with – then they had to be real as one had got out. Then maybe they weren’t actual poisonous* snakes. Likewise the one Oola brought later must have had his mouth sewn up too, but no it hadn’t –WHY WOULD HE BRING A DANGEROUS SNAKE?? What a roller-coaster.

He was thrilled at Raya Uma thinking he’d been “poisoned” by the bargua and thought him very stupid. I don’t think Brodie always remembers that we, the readers, have knowledge that certain characters, like Uma here, don’t.

Miscellaneous interruptions

There was a distinct lack of sympathy for the children’s “colds”and I ad to explain (again) that flu is a lot worse.

He loved the idea of a convalescence and wished he could do the same (so do I for that matter!)

I gave him a chance to guess what Sinny-Town was (not all the interruptions come from him, just most of them!) but he didn’t know. I think that’s fair enough as we don’t say cine as in cine-camera etc much these days, and the cine in cinema is pronounced differently. Of course none of the book characters guess it either, but that’s only so that the surprise isn’t spoiled too soon.

He asked me what gimcrack meant. I assumed (correctly) from the context that it meant tat but I looked it up to check just in case.

Like me, he had difficulty understanding and picturing the layout of the underground scenes in the book. For a time he seemed to think they were at the bottom of the waterfall.

He loved the treasure find and said he would definitely have taken a sword, but wanted to know if there were any shields too. (It’s as if he thinks I can look around the fictional room for information not in the text sometimes…)

Lastly he was disappointed (as always) that they weren’t staying to see it all excavated. And that there’s no next book, either.

My experience

I went accent-less for this one which made a nice change. The broken English from Oola and Tala were enough to make them distinct without me attempting an unspecified Middle-East accent.

As I can’t whistle Kiki’s police whistle was a pain to replicate and sounded awful. More or less me just saying phweeeeeee in a high pitched voice.

I spotted a new nitpick on this re-read too. Jack apologises to Bill who hadn’t heard Kiki’s newest achievement (the police whistle) and yet he must have heard it the night before as she has done it in the bedroom, and Bill knocks on the door saying “Who wants the police? They’re here. Open in the name of the law!”. It’s possible he only heard her shouting for the police but given how loud and piercing the whistle is, it doesn’t seem likely.

After we finished he said his favourite characters were all of them which is his usual response – but I think it was probably the bargua as he talked about that the most often. He even drew it. Fearsome, isn’t it?

 *Snakes are venomous, not poisonous** and yes we discussed this while reading it. According to Steve Backshall – if it bites you and you die it’s venomous, but if you bite it and you die, it’s poisonous. Sort of surprising that Blyton didn’t know that, given her background with nature and wildlife.

**If we’re being pedantic there are a small number of snakes that are both poisonous and venomous but as the children were never going to be eating snakes all we had to worry about was them being bitten and thus envenomed and not poisoned.

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Letters to Enid part 76: From volume 4, issue 13.

Posted on August 20, 2025 by Fiona

Previous letters pages can be found here.

Letters page from Volume 4, issue 13.
July 18th – July 31st, 1956.

OUR

LETTER PAGE

All about Birds today!

A letter from Anne Lacey, Cardiff.
Dear Miss Blyton,
One day, over a year ago, a little blue cock budgerigar perched on my brother’s bedroom window-sill, and came in quickly when my brother spoke to it. We could not find his owner, so we bought him a cage. We kept him and called him Joey. Last February my brother was on a country walk, and he saw another blue budgy in a tree, and it was very frightened of the sparrows. My brother quickly ran home and collected the cage with Joey in it and then stood on a gate and held up the cage. The little hen bird (as she turned out to be) quickly swooped down to the cage and was happily put inside it. My father built an aviary and a nesting-box inside our shed, and after a fortnight the first egg appeared. Julie, the hen bird, laid seven eggs altogether, and she hatched out two blue boy budgies.
Love from Anne Lacey.

(I have delayed printing your letter, Anne, until I had two other short letters to go with it, because it is such a long one-but so interesting. I have sent you my letter-prize, and hope you like it.)

A letter from Barbara Groom, Chesterfield.
Dear Miss Blyton,
I am writing to tell you of a house-martins’ nest under the eaves of our house. Last year I was looking out of the window when I saw three martins flying about. Then I noticed them building the nest.
I told Mummy and Daddy, but no one else, in case they were frightened away. This year they have come again to the nest and have three babies.
Love from
Busy Bee Barbara Groom.

(I liked your letter very much, Barbara-very well written.)

A letter from Carol Frost, Rochester.
Dear Enid Blyton,
The other day I found a young sparrow that could not fly. I put it out on our lawn – and soon a lot of other sparrows found it. After a while these sparrows put the baby on to one of their backs, and bit by bit it reached its nest. Has anyone seen a thing like this before?
Yours sincerely, Carol Frost.

(Well, readers-have you seen such an interesting thing before? Let me know so that I can tell Carol.)

A little insight into how the letters page works this week – with a letter being held until it could be fitted in with two shorter ones. Did Blyton deliberately look for two short letters about birds or was it just a handy coincidence that there were two such letters? That’s assuming that Blyton read all the letters herself and didn’t have someone who picked a selection for her to choose from.

Finding one homeless budgie is interesting (we found a runaway – or should that be flyaway? – cockatoo not that long ago) but to find and adopt two? That’s surely rare.

Sparrows are common but I don’t know how many people have seen sparrows rescuing another.

House martins are also fairly common – we had a nest several years running in the eaves of our house when I was a child. I had assumed they were swallows at first, as I’d heard of swallows from stories like Thumbelina, but not house martins.

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Monday #673

Posted on August 18, 2025 by Fiona

I missed a couple of weeks – Brodie turned 8 and we have been enjoying the last couple of weeks of the school holidays before he goes into p4.

Last Monday was Enid’s birthday – she was born 128 years ago.

Letters to Enid part 76

and

Reading the River of Adventure to Brodie

In (belated) honour of Blyton’s birthday why not revisit birthdays from her books?

Blyton on birthdays

 

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July 2025 round up

Posted on August 1, 2025 by Fiona

What I read

I hit 100 books in July which is good considering my year goal was already set at 150. After take a Val McDermid break I returned to her books, but I read other things too!

but I only read two BABALS (and one about publishing.)

So I read:

  • Deadhead (Sweetpea #3) – CJ Skuse
    The Distant Echo     (Karen Pirie #1) – Val McDermid
  • Everyone on this Train is a Murderer (Ernest Cunningham #2) – Benjamin Stevenson
  • Love Theoretically – Ali Hazelwood
  • Cross and Burn (Tony Hill & Carol Jordan #8) – Val McDermid
  • The Adventurous Four
  • Report For Murder (Lindsay Gordon #1) – Val McDermid
  • A Darker Domain (Karen Pirie #2) – Val McDermid
  • Splinter the Silence (Tony Hill & Carol Jordan #9) – Val McDermid
  • Old Ellon – Linda Birnie
  • Old Collieston and Slains – Ellie Ingram
  • Old Cruden Bay and Port Erroll – Jim Buchan
  • The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Hercule Poirot #1) – Agatha Christie
  • Dead Beat (Kate Brannigan #1) – Val McDermid
  • Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her – Melanie Rehak
  • The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay #1) – John Buchan
  • Stone and Sky (Rivers of London #10) – Ben Aaronovitch
  • N is for Noose (Kinsey Millhone #14) – Sue Grafton
  • A Novel Way to Die (Nevermore Bookshop #6) – Stephanie Holmes

I ended the month still working through:

  • Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
  • Mr Galliano’s Circus
  • O is for Outlaw (Kinsey Millhone #15) – Sue Grafton
The Adventurous Four, 1st Edition Cover by E.H Davie

What I watched

  • We are still on Supernatural season 5 and have also started on the new series of Only Connect – being the first round we generally manage to get some right answers.
  • I finally chose my next watch – Byker Grove! I was going to start with the series I remember watching but couldn’t really remember what I had seen so I started back with series 1 from 1989. So far nothing is familiar except the Grove building, Geoff, Alison and (a younger than I remember) PJ and Duncan, but sooner or later I will start to recognise the plots I’m sure!
  • My sister and I are still subjecting ourselves to season three of And Just Like That. Last time I said it was season two, but I discovered this week it’s actually season three and I can scarcely believe we have made ourselves watch so much of it!
  • We watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom with Brodie which scared him a little.

What I did

  • Failed to protect our strawberries from slugs and snails but have managed to pick a few uneaten ones for ourselves. Our peas grew huge and we picked them before we went away – the pods were a bit too stringy to eat sadly but the peas were good.
  • Ewan and I have continued to play Blue Prince – a puzzle game on the Playstation (for some sort of explanation see last month’s round up). We have passed day 100 now and are hopefully closing in on the final objective – reclaiming the throne. We just need the scepter, the crown of blueprints and the cursed idol all on the same day and enter the throne room with them… this could take a while.
  • We had our family holiday in Collieston (hence the reading of the books about the area). We had fantastic weather and visited lots of nice places including Dunnottar Castle,  Aden Country Park, Hackley Bay, Ellon, New Slains Castle, Cruden Bay, Newburgh Beach, and Haddo House. We also spent time in Collieston at the harbour which is now a popular place for swimming, and did some geocaching and rockpooling.
  • I did a jigsaw of a bookshelf where all the book titles/authors were puns, and did a little more of the Famous Five Colouring Book.
Old Slains Castle
Old Slains Castle
Old Slains Castle
Old Slains Castle
Old Slains Castle
Old Slains Castle
Aden House
Aden House
Aden House
View from our holiday home balcony
Newburgh Beach
Newburgh Beach
Collieston
Collieston Harbour
Collieston Harbour
Bookshop in Ellon
Bookshop in Ellon
Dunnottar Castle
Dunnottar Castle

How was your July?

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