If you like Blyton: the Bobbsey Twins by Laura Lee Hope

Posted on July 15, 2020 by Fiona

This recommendation comes to you via one of my regular readers and commenters, Sean Hagins, as I have never read any Bobbsey Twins books.

Sean has reviewed these books extensively on Goodreads and so I will not duplicate them in full here, but I will provide some background information on the Bobbsey Twins and the author, as well as quoting and linking to Sean’s reviews.

Laura Lee Hope

First up – there is no such person as Laura Lee Hope. That’s a pseudonym for multiple authors writing for the Stratmeyer Syndicate, who also published the Nancy Drew books under the name Carolyn Keene, and the Hardy Boys books under the name Franklin W. Dixon.

The Bobbsey Twins

There are rather a lot of Bobbsey Twins books. The very first book came out in 1904, and that original series ran for 72 books, the last published in 1979. Much like Nancy Drew the series was refreshed in 1980 for six years, and ran for 14 books  – this is sometimes known as the Wanderer series due to the publisher being Wanderer books. Interestingly three of these were originally published as The Tollivers series, and then just had the name and other details changed to fit into the Bobbsey Twins series.

It was then refreshed again in 1987 for The New Bobbsey Twins), and this time there were 30 books published, the last in 1992.

There are in fact two sets of twins in the books; Bert and Nan Bobbsey who are 12, and Flossie and Freddie Bobbsey who are six (and I thought Blyton was obsessed with twins!). These four siblings have many adventures, solving mysteries like junior Nancy Drews or Hardy Boys – some of the later books actually say a pre Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Mystery Book at the top so I assume they were aimed at both genders, whereas Nancy Drew were seen as girls’ books, and the Hardy Boys as boys’.

I love the Nancy Drew books and plan to do a recommendation for them myself later.

The Wanderer Series

Just a caution; many of the reviews linked to below include spoilers including the identity of the baddie(s).

The Blue Poodle Mystery

In which the Bobbsey twins search for a poodle who interrupted a ballet performance and then was stolen.

Sticking with the theme of not starting at the beginning, this is one title that Sean does not particularly recommend, though he still rates it as three stars. He notes that it is one that I never really liked… I can see that it’s all over the place, and points out the implausibility of the twins being just too good at too many things as between them they are gymnasts, band members and now ballerinas. Although both Blyton and other authors of the time frequently features children with improbable amounts of freedom to explore, Sean notes that there is NO WAY an adult would let a 12 year old boy and two 6 year old twins go off by themselves on the streets of New York City!

So by the sounds of it unless, like me, you are a stickler for reading right from the start of a series you might as well skip this one.

Read Sean’s full review (including spoilers) here.

Secret in the Pirate’s Cave

In which the Bobbseys are off to Bermuda, and become involved with thieves trying to steal valuable artefacts from the local museum.

Mrs Bobbsey wins a free trip for two to Bermuda! Mr Bobbsey can’t make it, so he suggests she go with the 4 twins (he pays for the other 3 tickets presumably). They are told by the police Lt to watch out for “Slippery Sam”. The Bobbseys are eager for another mystery along with their vacation and decide to keep an eye out.

Well, the thrills start right away.

Read the rest of the review here.

The Dune Buggy Mystery

In which a dune buggy bought at the town dump is stolen.

Sean’s review can be found here.

The Missing Pony Mystery

In which the Bobbseys’ favorite pony, Cupcake, is stolen and the twins join forces to rescue him. The Thrilling conclusion includes a near kidnapping, a confrontation with the thieves, and the Bobbseys’ exciting television appearance!

No review is available for this one I’m afraid – but it sounds good!

The Rose Parade Mystery

In which the twins are on holiday in California and get involved in a parade, and have to work out who is vandalising the floats and trying to spoil the parade – all while trying to follow some mysterious clues to a treasure.

Clues start appearing to a mystery! This one is a benign one of mention of treasure and the fact that they have to track down the next clue and the next to find it. Between this, and the building of the float, you would think the twins’ plates are full, but also, there is another mystery occurring-a not so nice one! The flowers for the Hamlin’s float are vandalised  a tent collapses, the Hamlins have been receiving threatening letters saying that the float won’t enter, and other strange things!

Read the full review here.

The Camp Fire Mystery

In which the twins help the members of a Camp Fire club to catch the culprits who stole their bicycles.

This time, the twins are visiting New Mexico and staying with Tony and Kathy Leonard. The story opens with an out of control hot air balloon crashing on the Leonards’ property. The balloonist acts in a secretive and suspicious manner, getting the twins intrigued enough to want to investigate him. When his truck drivers arrive to haul the balloon away and take him back, Mrs Leonard voices the twin’s questions to him (much to their chagrin as they wanted to check him out without him knowing). Ryan Michaels (the balloonist) gets even more surly and tells them to mind their own business.

Later, the Bobbseys see in the newspaper that there is a rash of bicycles being stolen in the area…

The rest of the review can be found here.

Double Trouble

In which the twins are faced with a dangerous puzzle that leads down twisting trails, as they attempt to foil an international band of thieves

No review is available for this one – I had to do some searching just to find a synopsis! I wonder what the double in the title refers to, simply the double set of twins, or something else?

Mystery of the Laughing Dinosaur

In which the twins track down a valuable stamp stolen from a museum.

This book is pretty good – the title is misleading as the Laughing Dinosaur is a small subplot that doesn’t have much to do with the main plot.

The tone of this book is kind of all over the place. The main mystery deals with a stolen valuable stamp from a museum. It
seems to be the usual fluff with the kids tracking down a missing stamp, and yet, there are parts of this story which are quite a bit darker than any Bobbsey Twins book I remember.

Read the rest of the review here.

The Music Box Mystery

In which Flossie receives a music box that may have been intended as a gift for someone else and the twins quickly realise that a mystery is involved.

They are sticking to the same old formula of a main mystery, and a side mystery. In this case, the main mystery works very well and is a good story by itself. The side mystery falls flat to me and seems kind of tacked on…

Read the full review here.

The Ghost in the Computer

In which the Bobbsey twins investigate a ghostly figure in the school.

Read the review here.

The Scarecrow Mystery

In which a scarecrow who disappears and reappears at other locations and an odd-shaped key lead the Bobbsey twins into another mystery.

Before I begin this review, let me say that this book is my absolute favourite of the Wanderer series (with #2 Secret of Pirate’s Cave coming in at a close second).

This one keeps a good continuity with the last book as in that one the twins had their last week of school and started their summer vacation. Here, the twins are still on summer break. It starts with the family on the way back from a day trip to the beach. Freddie points out a scarecrow that they are passing by in their car and says that on the way to the beach, it was in a different field a couple miles away.

It sounds somewhat Wizard of Oz-ish to me, but I bet there is a far more logical explanation for the moving scarecrow.

Read the whole review here.

The Haunted House Mystery

In which the Bobbsey twins suspect that odd events at a historic Oklahoma mansion and the theft of a duplicate dollhouse may be connected with rare animals being stolen from the zoo.

Despite a lot of tired tropes and recycled ideas and the way everyone knows the Bobbseys and are in awe of them), this really was an enjoyable read. The action was fast paced and the storytelling was entertaining. I think the Wanderer series ended on a high note with most of the best stories contained in the last 4 or so books (Unlike the New Bobbsey Twins which started out even stronger, and then fizzled away!) I give this book a 9 out of 10.

The full review can be found here.

The Mystery of the Hindu Temple

In which the Bobbsey twins travel to Nepal where they become involved in investigating the theft of valuable Hindu temple treasures.

(Gosh these kids are well-travelled!)

Overall, this was an interesting addition to the series that I really enjoyed. I give this book an 8 out of 10.

The whole review can be found here.

The Grinning Gargoyle Mystery

In which the Bobbsey twins are drawn into a mystery involving the manufacture of perfume while on a family vacation in Paris.

So, we come to the final Wanderer book now! It’s been fun rereading this series.

Before I start, I will say that this title is one of the more puzzling as the gargoyle isn’t even mentioned until the book is two-thirds of the way in, and isn’t really a major plot point anyway. I would call it, the Case of the Missing Young Woman, or Mystery in Paris, but I digress…

Read the full review here.

So thank you to Sean for letting me use bits of his reviews here. You can see some photographs of his Bobbsey Twins books on Flickr.

A bit about Sean:

Hello! My name is Sean J Hagins. I’m 44, so a bit too young to have read Blyton when it was new, (and some would say too old to read Blyton now!)  Actually, as a kid in the 1980s, I loved reading what I guess would be called old-fashioned (or I like to say “classic”) children’s books. As a Jehovah’s Witness, I don’t like books with sexual themes, graphic violence, cursing, or supernatural things – which even a lot of today’s young adult books have.

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Monday #380

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Fiona

I ran out of time to finish my lock down library post which was meant to go up on Sunday, but that’s because I was writing chapter 9 of The Mystery of the Missing Agent with Stef, so I hope you can forgive me!

If you like Blyton: The Bobbsey Twins by Laura Lee Hope

and

Cunningham and Petrov: The Mystery of the Missing Agent chapter 1

and

Lock down library displays weeks 12 and 13

dear ole ju
i simply love you,
though its only on enid’s pages you reign
cause you are jolly nice
smart and polite

These are the opening lines of a poem I just found this week, all about my beloved Julian Kirrin. It is by Sayantani Gupta and you can read the rest of the poem on her blog here. It reminds me of one of Ern’s ‘pomes’ where Fatty, or in this case, Sayantani, has let their tongue go loose and finished it off nicely.

Ah, Julian!

 

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Lego Blyton: Five on a Hike Together

Posted on July 10, 2020 by Fiona

Not too long ago I shared my Lego builds of Five On a Treasure Island. That was the first one I did, and then I got thinking of what else I could build (however badly) out of Lego bricks… and so Hike it was!

Lego Hiking

First up Dick sleeps in the barn and is woken by a strange bullet Lego-headed man who gives him a strange message and passes him a mysterious note (represented here by a Lego newspaper).

They show the note to a policeman who tells them off for wasting his time. Maybe he’s cranky because his police station has no roof.

Having gotten advice from a postie they arrive at Two Trees. I’ve said before that I always imagined the trees to be enormous palms (for no sensible reason I can think of) so I decided to use palm trunks to represent the trees.
They hunt out the boat house which is very overgrown (with palm fronds, of course).

They pull aside some rotten planks bricks to break into the boat house.


Inside is a raft that was far too big to fit with the roof on, and no Saucy Jane.

They go boat-hunting around the edges of Gloomy Water.

Before having the brain-wave to look in the water itself. (Rafting obviously doesn’t agree with Julian’s hair…)

Then Dirty Dick and Maggie turn up to hassle them.

And lastly they have a run in (or should that be a row in?) with Dick and Maggie on the lake and Anne nearly falls in the water. Obviously the book doesn’t end there but it’s kinda hard to do an underwater boat at night in Lego.

PS could you tell that the barn, the police station and Two Trees were all the same build with the windows and doors changed? I call that the economy of building.

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Five Go Down to the Sea part 3

Posted on July 8, 2020 by Fiona

Well, here we are, finally at the nitpicks I promised. Hope they were worth it!

The timeline

Warning, this first nitpick is a long one!

The timeline of the story in regards to the Barnies’ visit makes no sense to me. If you read the book quickly you’re unlikely to notice, but I was trying to pay attention to as many details as I could.

Early in their visit Mrs P tells the Five that she’s heard the Barnies are coming soon, though she has no firm date which must be inconvenient as there will be at least some prep to do!

Anyway, a few days later (it’s unclear exactly how many days) the Barnies pass the Five and say they’re staying at Poltelly farm that night, then coming to Tremannon soon. That turns out to be two days later.

You might imagine that there is to be a show at Poltelly, but no, the Tremannon show is to be the first, first of the season, first of their tour of Cornwall, or of that bit of coast it isn’t clear. What doesn’t make sense is that the point the Barnies pass the Five is within walking distance of Tremannon. Even if the Five take a few shortcuts there’s no reason why the Barnies couldn’t go straight to Tremannon instead of travelling on elsewhere then coming back.

They say they will do one night at Tremannon and then move on, and the huge feast Mrs P puts on for them certainly seems like a ‘last night’ event, but when Yan rescues the Five from the Wrecker’s Way he says the Barnies have performed again!

The Wreckers’ Way(s)

The logic in the discussion on pages 131-135 baffles me entirely and I read it at least twice. They (mostly Julian and Dick) suggest some possibilities for how the Wrecker’s Way was used and where it is.

I will paraphrase for you:

Dick: The Wreckers’ Way leads from the house to the beach.

Julian: I’m not sure. The Wreckers’ Way may have lead to the sea from inland somewhere, something convenient for the villagers. No, I think the people in this house flashed the lights, then when a ship was wrecked they signalled to a watcher on the hills, then the people from the house went down to the coves and waited for the friends to come down the Wreckers’ Way.

Now, it just so happens he is correct, technically. The secret passage called the Wreckers’ Way leads from the farm to the beach. BUT there is another secret passage from the house to further along the beach, one which has a branch leading to a storage room for wrecked goods. You could argue that both should be called Wreckers’ Ways as they are both used the wreckers.

They then discuss how its likely to be smuggling now and not wrecking, and that there must be a passage from the house to the coves. Why they don’t believe that to be the or at least a wreckers’ way is surprising.

The smuggling operation

I can’t quite get my head around the reaches of the Guvnor’s smuggling operations.

All the flashing lights (at least two nights) and the secret rendezvous with at least four men at the boat seems like a lot of work for what is one small package. I understand that a small package could be worth a lot of money but why not save time and bring in dozens to store? Or, if it is handing over one little packet surely it could be done discreetly in the day? Perhaps he is a Mr Barling type who loves the thrill of clandestine moonlight smuggling trips but that’s never suggested.

He is travelling presumably a significant amount of the year with the Barnies, so how often do they come to Tremannon? Yearly? Obviously it is perfectly set up for smuggling but does he have several such places around Cornwall?

When he’s apprehended Mr P says that is one of many packets…. around this coast. So perhaps he does deal in bulk, but again, so much work for a package at a time?

General nitpicks 

  • The Five plan to arrive at the station 7 minutes before the train is due. I know that trains were less strict on times in Blyton’s books but the Five are usually more sensible and would leave more time for unexpected events.
  • There’s a question mark missing on page 54 when Dick asks Is it true that your father was one of the Wreckers in the old days. I have a sixth impression so I wonder if this has always been missing and the mistake repeated in every impression or if it’s a new error.
  • A ham is described as being as pink as Tommy’s tongue when I assume it is meant to be Timmy!
  • Why does Sid have to keep Clopper’s head when it’s Mr Binks who wears it?
  • It seems unlikely that the Guvnor would just leave Clopper’s head lying around when it’s normally guarded 24/7, and when Julian and Dick caper out in the suit he then paces the barn instead of going after them. I can only imagine he thought that it was Sid and Mr Binks, but surely he’d be able to tell it wasn’t, given that the two boys can barely run in it?
  • There’s a strange line on page 128. Only the tower seems still strong, which is strange tense to use when nobody is speaking. The rest of the descriptions of the ruined house are in the past tense.
  • It is unusually stupid of the Five to go into a room which they know can close behind you, and not make sure the door does not in fact close behind them. I know Timmy can’t operate all door handles but they don’t even know if there is a handle!
  • Julian and Dick get given Clopper at the end so why oh why is it never mentioned again?
  • One of the dogs on the farm is called Ben and Benny (not really a nitpick) but is also called that dog Scottie. That Scottie dog would make more sense, the first implies his name is Scottie.

I never thought I’d have so much to say about Five Go Down to the Sea, as usually the more I like a book the less I can say about it (Smuggler’s Top being an exception.) Despite the number of nitpicks I’ve pointed out here I am fairly sure I didn’t notice a single one of these as a child, I just enjoyed the story.

Next post: Five Go to Mystery Moor

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Monday #379

Posted on July 6, 2020 by Fiona

Five Go Down to the Sea part 3

and

Lego Blyton: Five on a Hike Together

and

Locked down library displays weeks 12 and 13

I considered doubling back and seeing if I could listen in, but I figured that would have been a little bit too Enid Blyton – even for me.

– PC Peter Grant in Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

I always love spotting Blyton references in unlikely places!

 

 

 

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June 2020 round up

Posted on July 5, 2020 by Fiona

This covers week three thousand of the lock down… or something like 10-13 if you’re not using hyperbole. This might be my last full month of it before getting to go back to work but we will see!

What I have read

I read a lot this month, not because I had any more time than usual but because a) I discovered a new series, b) started reading some books I had missed from an old favourite series and c) spent less time on my phone and laptop and got in a good hour or two of reading each night (and went to bed too late as a result, but you can’t have everything.)

  • The Burning (Unseen Trilogy #1) – Jeffrey J Mariotte
  • Door To Alternity (Unseen Trilogy #1) – Jeffrey J Mariotte
  • Dawn and the We Love Kids Club (Baby-Sitter’s Club #73) – Ann M.Martin
  • Kristy and the Copycat (Baby-Sitter’s Club #74) – Ann M.Martin
  • Undead and Unstable (Undead #11) – MaryJanice Davidson
  • A Swiftly Tilting Planet (Time Quintet #3) – Madeleine L’Engle
  • Jessi’s Horrible Prank (Baby-Sitter’s Club #75) – Ann M.Martin
  • Mallory Pike #1 Fan (Baby-Sitter’s Club #80) – Ann M.Martin
  • Rivers of London (Rivers of London #1) – Ben Aaronovitch
  • Kristy and Mr Mom (Baby-Sitter’s Club #81) – Ann M.Martin
  • Moon Over Soho (Rivers of London #2) – Ben Aaronovitch
  • Mary Anne and Camp BSC (Baby-Sitter’s Club #86) – Ann M.Martin
  • Whispers Underground (Rivers of London #3) – Ben Aaronovitch
  • Stacey and the Bad Girls (Baby-Sitter’s Club #87) – Ann M.Martin
  • Broken Homes (Rivers of London #4)- Ben Aaronovitch
  • Mary Anne and the Zoo Mystery (Baby-Sitter’s Mystery #20) – Ann M.Martin
  • Foxglove Summer (Rivers of London #5) – Ben Aaronovitch
  • Babysitters’ Fright Night (The Baby-Sitters Club Super Mystery #3) – Ann M. Martin
  • The Furthest Station (Rivers of London #5.5) – Ben Aaronovitch

As always I’ve got some on the go that I haven’t finished:

  • Gender Rebels:  50 Influential Cross-Dressers, Impersonators, Name-Changers, and Game-Changers – Anneka Harry
  • The Hanging Tree (Rivers of London #6) – Ben Aaronovitch
  • Bandaging the Blitz – Phyll Macdonald-Ross

So that was 19 books, including 6 full length ones for grown ups. As you can tell the Ben Aaronovitch books were my new series (recommended by fans of Jodi Taylor and Jasper Fforde). My rediscovered series was the Baby-Sitters Club, of which I have over a hundred titles in paperback, but I was missing various later ones so I’m now trying to read those on my Kindle hence the jumps between series numbers. I prefer the covers with the roofs on top; those are the British editions published by Scholastic Hippo and what I grew up with, but I couldn’t find many examples online. I discovered also that the text was slightly altered for British readers, the girls pay “dues” every week in America, but “subs” here, for example.

I have been so busy with Peter Grant and the Baby Sitters that I have completely abandoned the Unseen Trilogy I started at the beginning of June and also the Undead series which I’ve been reading for a while.

If anyone fancies picking up the Gender Rebels book I urge you not to bother. I’ve read about half a dozen of the stories and I’ve not picked it back up in ages because it’s awful. The author has thrown in so many bits of slang and so many jokes it entirely detracts from the meagre details given about these women. (Therefore, I won’t mention how DUH NUGGET, POXY ASS, MOUTH BREATHER, STOOPID UPON STOOPID centuries-old sexism is is just one example of the writing style. When Kit became more precarious than a sedated flamingo on a Segway is another gem.)

What I have watched

  • Hollyoaks but still only twice a week
  • Angel seasons 1-4
  • Not so much watched as been aware of some football on in the background as apparently the premier league is back, but sans fans.
  • Meet the Fockers (a not very funny at all sequel to Meet the Parents)
  • Some of The Blues Brothers as Ewan was watching it (it was not at all what I expected)
  • One episode of George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces where one build was turning an old bake house into a tiny apartment with a rotating kitchen/bathroom and a fire breathing dragon on the front wall.
  • Ralph Breaks the Internet (sequel to Wreck-it-Ralph) which was fairly good.
  • Malory Towers on the iPlayer, which I have been reviewing two episodes at a time.

What I have done

  • Some more socially distanced garden meetings in various weathers including temperatures that required blankets.
  • Been for some walks in woods which fall within the 5 miles we are allowed to travel
  • Carried on with my locked down library displays and my cross stitch
  • Tried to bring some caterpillars in to grow them into butterflies which was an absolute failure as despite my best efforts they all died
  • Continued the 5 weekly workouts I’ve been doing which have included Tabata, Boxfit, HIIT, Body Balance, yoga, aerobics, pilates and functional fit.

That’s his flower-smelling face in the middle, just in case you were wondering. He has to smell just about every flower he passes when we go out.

What has your month looked like?

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Fan fic Friday: Conquering the Castle, Epilogue

Posted on July 3, 2020 by Fiona

The final chapter of a fairly uneventful story – though I hope you picked up on the hints for the second St Andrews novel which I am hoping to start working on with Stef soon.

Previous chapters if you missed any:
Chapter one (talking about going to the castle)
Chapter two (exploring the castle)
Chapter three (exploring the mine and counter mine)
Chapter four (resolving an argument)
Chapter five (Anatoly does something stupid)

 

Epilogue

“Thanks for that, Tol,” Julian said when they were safely out of the woman’s sight, she had followed them as far as the gate and stared malevolently at them as they walked away.

Sally looked back and shuddered. “I’m not sure I do want to go back now, she’ll never trust us!”

“You will be fine,” Anatoly said. “She is furious with me, she will forget all about you lot in time.”

“But you two-” he jabbed David and Julian in the chest in turn. “Owe me big time. I did not have to take all the blame back there.”

“Hey.” David rubbed his chest though his coat. “It was you that did the climbing.” Julian elbowed him in warning.

“On your stupid dare,” Anatoly growled, stepping a bit too close for David’s comfort.

“Let’s not fight any more,” Darrell said, pulling on his arm. “Let me see your chin, Toly. I think it’s still bleeding!” She whipped a handkerchief out of her pocket, and to Anatoly’s ever-lasting shame, licked it and then wiped his chin.

“I am not a child, dorogoy,” he said a little testily as Julian and David risked a snigger.

“It was pretty childish to climb up a castle wall,” she reminded him. “You’ll need a bit of sticking-plaster, I think,” she added before he could argue further. “Let’s go back to St Salvator’s. I assume you have a first-aid kit?”

“Of course,” he grunted.

Despite insisting he didn’t need any further treatment Darrell harangued him into fetching his first-aid kit from his room (though he only brought down a pocket-sized tin and not the full-sized one) and made him stand by the window so she could check the scrape was clean before she put a bit of sticking-plaster over it.

“Yes, thank you, dorogoy, I think I shall live,” he grunted as she fussed over him.

“You nearly didn’t!” she reminded him. “I saw you almost fall!”

“Pff, that,” he scoffed, thought it had been a heart-pounding few moments. “My foot merely slipped a little. I had it completely under control. That woman was much more frightening,” he joked.

“Yes, I thought you’d end up in the bottle dungeon for sure,” David said with a laugh. “I’m surprised there aren’t a whole load of missing students down there given that they seem to desecrate the place on a weekly basis.”

“Well, you know us students, we’re trouble makers through and through,” Sally joked bravely. Julian put his arm around her.

“Are you all right?” he asked softly.

“I’m fine, I just had a bit of a fright with Toly nearly falling then that woman raging at us. I didn’t even get to finish looking around the castle.”

“We saw most of it, didn’t we?” David said, frowning.

“I didn’t get a chance to go up to the Archbishop’s residences, above the entrance, or into Cardinal Beaton’s tower,” she protested.

“I had a good view of them from above, you did not miss too much,” Anatoly said.

Julian rolled his eyes. “We can go back, just the two of us,” he said. “We’ll give that woman a few weeks to calm down and forget about us and then go back, and we can take our time and see everything.”

“You could go in disguise,” David said helpfully.

“There’ll be no idiots dropping pencils from great heights or climbing towers,” Julian carried on, ignoring him.”

“But there will be one idiot who dares people to climb towers,” Anatoly shot at him.

“Honestly, it’s a wonder we are ever allowed back into anywhere the way these three behave,” Darrell said to Sally.

“You’re right. Why don’t you go with Sally next time?” Julian suggested. “The two of you always behave impeccably and I know you’re just as fascinated by the history as Sally is.”

Darrell thumped him as surreptitiously as she could. “No,” she said sweetly. “I know that you like history even more than I do, and Sally would much rather go with you. And anyway, on your own none of you three boys are quite as stupid as you are together.”

“That’s almost a compliment,” David grinned.

“I will take it,” Anatoly added, giving Darrell a kiss.

Later in the evening, once the girls had headed back to their own dorms, David threw himself into an armchair and looked at Julian.

“Did you ever read my note?” he asked.

Julian sighed and got up from his comfortable seat by the fire, hoping nobody would steal it in the mean time.

He went to the coat rack and felt inside his coat pockets, finding the crumpled note where he had shoved it earlier. Returning to his seat, which was only still empty due to Anatoly scowling at anyone who dared approach it, he sat down and smoothed out the paper.

It read

Qeb abcbkabop xob xijlpq rmlk vlr, ybtxob lc qeb pmv fk vlro jfapq.

“Is this a code, or have you just written a load of gibberish so that I’ll waste my time trying to decipher it?”

Anatoly reached out and snagged the piece of paper and glanced it over. “Caesar cipher. One of the most basic ciphers there is. And he only shifted by three letters,” he said dismissively, tossing it back to Julian.

“I only had a minute to scribble something,” David protested.

Julian looked over the paper, and sure enough, if he went back three letters for each letter David had written it began to make sense. Given time he would have worked that out himself, so he tried to be grateful that Anatoly had saved him the time.

“The defenders are almost upon you,” he read out after a moment. “Beware of the spy in your midst.”

Anatoly glared at David as Julian crumpled the note again and tossed it into the fire. “It was just a joke, Tol, relax,” David sighed.

“It was a stupid thing to write,” Anatoly said in a low voice.

“We all know David’s pretty stupid,” Julian said, though not in the unkind tone he had been using with David that afternoon.

“Oh, says the mighty intelligent Julian,” David snorted, and as always, the conversation degenerated into smart remarks, point scoring and general name-calling.

 

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Malory Towers on TV – Episodes nine and ten

Posted on July 1, 2020 by Fiona

Malory Towers went on the iPlayer very early in the lock down, so early April and here I am just getting to episodes nine and ten (of thirteen). I know a lot of people binged it but I watch two episodes and make notes, then it takes me a few days to turn those notes into a review. If I watched more than two I’d forget even more than I already do – I already frequently have to re watch bits and pieces to get the details. Then I go through for screen grabs to add, so it’s not a quick process. And as I said on Monday I’ve got so many ideas I have to alternate them.

Anyway, previous reviews are below:

Episodes one and two
Episodes three and four
Episodes five and six
Episodes seven and eight

Episode nine

This episode opens with more ghostly goings-on. Sally’s still in the san and she sees a figure in a dark cloak cross the room and go through a door. Yet in the morning Margaret and Matron reveal that the door is just a cupboard and is devoid of any figures ghostly or otherwise. Sally insists she saw the person and that they never came out again. As the viewers saw the (presumably real) person too, I’m intrigued as to where they disappeared to.

The main story line of the episode then revolves around Sally and her future at Malory Towers.

Her parents intend for her to go home and not return to the school. Naturally Darrell thinks it’s all her fault as she interfered and wrote a letter to Mrs Hope telling her how unhappy Sally was, and she goes to see Sally. Sally is pretty annoyed that Darrell wrote, and admits she does have a sister. She reveals that she was sent to boarding school the day her mother and sister came home from the hospital and that they don’t want her at home. However she also says that she doesn’t want to go home because she loves Malory Towers.

In fact she wants to stay so badly that she runs off to hide with the intention that her parents can’t take her home if they can’t find her.

Matron carries on being absolutely awful and instead of informing Miss Potts who seems to be in charge during Miss Grayling’s absence she has the other first formers search for Sally. Alicia and Katherine find Gwen loitering about with something in her hands, at first I thought it was perhaps Darrell’s work book taken from Pamela’s desk, but it could be a magazine. She’s certainly hiding but I couldn’t work out the significance.

Anyway, Mrs Hope arrives and still nobody apart from Matron and a few girls know that Sally’s missing until Irene puts her foot in it, in a rather funny farcical conversation with Miss Potts.

Darrell finds Sally who is hiding… down by her bed in her dorm. Mrs Hope and Miss Potts then come to the dorm and the girls hide under Sally’s bed. They then listen to the conversation where Mrs Hope admits that she was very ill after the birth and wanted Sally to go to school so that she didn’t get stuck being a carer. This is a bit kinder than in the book where Mrs Hope admits that when Sally became withdrawn and difficult after her sister was born that they sent her away to make things easier!

They have a touching reunion and Sally declares she wants to stay.

The second plot is an advancement on Darrell’s reading/writing problems.

In remedial she says the text is jumping over the page and uses that as an excuse to see Matron (and Sally) as above. Pamela discovers that Darrell writes everything out twice, a rough draft then a tidier second version. Darrell says she’s just “slow” and has always been that way but Miss Potts says she may have ‘word blindness’ – which we now call dyslexia. The term dyslexia has been around almost as long as word blindness (both date from the late 1800s), but it seems likely that the less medical term of word blindness would have been used in this scenario – it was still heavily used by scientists as late as the mid 1920s at least. (Here’s an interesting history of the discovery of dyslexia and some of the work that went into understanding the condition, which includes a little information on the word blindness v dyslexia).

I still think that it would have been better for another girl to have dyslexia, rather than Darrell who is known for her skill as a writer. I know that dyslexia doesn’t affect someone’s ability to create ideas and stories, but in the books she’s a skilful writer in all respects. Saying that it does show how much resilience and fortitude she has, doing all that extra work and covering up how much she struggles.

The third plot is about Pamela and Gwen and sets us up for the next episode. We suddenly discover that Malory Towers has monitors – but they are not the monitors we know from the Naughtiest Girl books. It’s more like the St Clare’s books where the younger girls are expected to wait on the higher forms. In St Clare’s it isn’t well explained but it seems as if there is a rough sort of rota whereby the girls take it turns to wait on the upper forms.

The only monitor we know of at Malory Towers is Sally, who waits on Pamela. With Sally supposed to be going home Miss Potts asks for a volunteer to replace her as monitor and Gwen eagerly volunteers. Now we know that Gwen is only ever out for herself and it seems she has volunteered at least partly because Mary-Lou says that Darrell would love to be a monitor, but isn’t there to put herself forward.

Surprisingly Miss Potts agrees and Gwen begins her new role and is immediately useless. I’m sure in St Clare’s there’s a minor story where one of the younger girls is deliberately terrible (spreading boot polish on toast for example) to get out of the chores, but Gwen is genuinely hopeless. She obviously isn’t pleased at being asked to make cocoa (perhaps she saw herself as more of a companion than a maid) and has to admit she doesn’t know how to make cocoa. We get a tiny glimpse at a not-so-awful Gwen as she says she didn’t want to admit she couldn’t do it.

The episode ends with the ghost again as Darrell finds the cloak – proving it is indeed a real person.

Episode ten

I don’t think there is a single thing in this episode from the books and that’s why it is the weakest one so far.

It’s called “The Dress” and that’s what it revolves around. There is a debutante in the sixth form about to be, well, debuted. (I can’t help but think that Miss Grayling would not hold with such nonsense in her school!)

Gwen has obviously learned from the St Clare’s story line and brings Pamela burnt toast, hoping to get out of being her monitor so that she could be the debutante’s monitor instead (surely the debutante already has one?) and Darrell becomes Pamela’s monitor instead.

Meanwhile Darrell discovers that Pamela is planning to leave Malory Towers despite only being in the lower sixth. She assumes it is financial problems and talks to Miss Potts but, not exactly a big shock, it turns out that Pamela is the debutante.

It may have been pretty obviously telegraphed but I did enjoy seeing Gwen’s face when she realises she’s entirely messed up.

Pamela clearly isn’t very happy about being a debutante – perhaps that’s why she looks far prettier as a schoolgirl than when she is done up in her dress. (I don’t know if that was an intentional thing done with makeup etc or purely her well acted misery showing through). I get a bit rage-y thinking about the pure misogyny involved in all this – Pamela explains it’s her responsibility to be debuted into society as she needs to find a husband in order to provide an heir and to help her run her family’s estate when it comes to her. (I’m disappointed to see that debutantes are still a ‘thing’ even without the royal connections. I also think it’s very weird that girls of 16-20 essentially dress as brides for their debut).

Anyway, Darrell can’t resist interfering and books Pamela a place on the open day at the teacher training college she had wanted to go to. Understandably Pamela is furious – she’s clearly unhappy but has made up her mind that debuting is the right thing to do. Darrell only makes things worse by then trying on Pamela’s dress and getting caught in the act. Pamela is also furious about this, but really, how silly is it to store a couture dress in an unlocked classroom?

My notes for this scene basically read “DARRELL, NO!” It’s such an idiotic thing to do. It’s such a non-Darrell thing to do. Far more up Gwen’s street.

And of course the zip gets stuck and of course they rip the sash and scatter the beads as Gwen tries to help her out of it. Obviously they scramble to fix this and persuade Emily into helping, only one of the pearls is missing. Gwen has a pearl hair pin (she mentioned this before) and so goes to fetch it, only she’s wearing the flipping dress as she insisted it would be easier for Emily to fix if it was on a person, despite there being a mannequin bust there for the dress. Yes, Gwen, wearing a debutante dress several sizes too big goes all the way through the school to fetch a hair pin which Darrell could have gone for.

It’s obvious they had two dresses made as although it’s clearly too big on the chest for both Darrell and Gwen, that a dress that reaches the floor when Pamela wears it is only trailing an inch on the floor when the first formers wear it.

There’s a reason, though, because they needed Gwen to scare Alicia, Irene and Mary-Lou when they think she’s the ghost. In further inexplicable silliness she then wears the pin back and then dithers over whether or not to let Emily take it to fix the dress.

Pamela forgives Darrell and explains to her the deal with her family’s estate and so on.

“I love that there are girls out there that are breaking with tradition, who’ll make new paths for the rest of us to follow. We can’t all be pioneers, Darrell Rivers.”

I can’t help but feel that’s a cop out.

Apart from nothing in this episode being from the books I can’t see anything that was necessary for the advancement of the plot of the series. Darrell is to lose Pamela as a coach and mentor but that could have been dealt with in thirty seconds, it did not need a full episode! Obviously I haven’t seen the remaining three episodes but I imagine you could skip this one entirely and not miss anything.

Random thoughts

It strikes me as odd some of the things they change. Why does Matron (or Miss Potts) come and wake them every day? In the books there is a bell rung, so presumably a maid would go to each tower and ring it from a spot where each dorm could hear it. Here you’ve got a matron or teacher having to go to each dorm, or four of them sharing the towers, to wake the girls. Who’s got time for that?

The benefit in this episode was that we got this little conversation:

“The early bird catches the worm.”

“Yeah but the early worm gets eaten.”

“Interesting you see yourself as the worm in this, Alicia”

The whole monitor thing made no sense, as I said above it has never been mentioned before and I’m not sire that the term ‘monitor’ fits the role. In the books the girls take it in turns to be (class)room monitor each week which means changing the water in the flower vases, wiping down the blackboard, tidying up, restocking chalk and dusters and so on. So they monitor the readiness of the classroom for the next lesson. At Whyteleaf monitors are a panel who monitor behaviour at the school and provide advice.

At St Clare’s the similar role is just called ‘waiting on’ the girls, while Roald Dahl talks about ‘fagging’ at his public school – clearly not a term I’d expect to hear now (then again one of the roles of the fags was warming the seats of the outdoor toilets, how very un-Blyton).

The name of the role aside, why when Gwen fails does Darrell get the job? Surely as Sally isn’t leaving she could go back to it.

It’s a shame that Miss Grayling is missing from these two episodes. Miss Potts is brilliant as always but Miss Grayling adds a little more gravitas. I wonder if the actress simply wasn’t available?

Sally’s plan strikes me as really stupid. Her mother was hardly going to leave while she was missing – and even if she did, as soon as Sally reappeared the school would ship her on home! It’s also ludicrous that she and Darrell hide under the very bed Mrs Hope sits on and have a conversation without Mrs Hope or Miss Potts hearing them.

On a positive note, we get a few glimpses of the grounds (not sure if some of these are actually the grounds of where it was filmed) but they are beautiful.

I’m particularly intrigued by the doorway into the slope in the last screen grab.

Lastly, they do nothing to make the forms less confusing in the show! Blyton was always very vague and girls moved up and down, and then suddenly we had upper and lower forms… Pamela is in the lower sixth, and expected to move up to the upper sixth the next year so exactly how many years would she spend at the school?

I still recommend the show but it’s clear that the more they deviate from the source material the less believable the story gets!

Next post – Malory Towers on TV – episodes eleven and twelve

Posted in Blyton on Screen | Tagged , , , , , | 21 Comments

Monday #378

Posted on June 29, 2020 by Fiona

I am usually scrambling about for blog ideas but at the moment I seem to have far too many, even with posting three times a week! I am having to have a break between lock down displays on Sundays to fit in the monthly round up this week, and next week there won’t be a fan fic Friday so I can fit something else in instead. It’s the final chapter of Conquering the Castle this week anyway, so next week is a good time for a break before we start on the next fic which is The Mystery of the Missing Agent, based on the events of The Sea of Adventure.

In other news, last week I was excited to get three free audiobooks from Jemma Hatt’s Adventurers Series. Jemma herself got in touch and offered me them in return for an honest review, which I think is a fair deal especially as I had been planning to buy at least one of these to read and review anyway! (Sometimes bloggers can be bitten by being offered freebies which they then spend hours and hours testing and reviewing, and in the end it isn’t really worth it for the sake of the free item, but this is certainly not one of those situations.) So, a review of the first Adventurers book will be coming in the next few weeks (see what I mean about too many ideas!). I feel like I’ve finally ‘made it’ as a blogger!

Malory Towers on TV episodes 9 and 10

and

Conquering the Castle: Epilogue

and

June round up

“You’re only kids – but you’re the finest company of friends anyone could have. You know the meaning of loyalty already, and even if you’re scared you don’t give up. I’m proud to have you as my friends.”

Bill gets a little choked up when he discovered that the Mannering and Trent children chose to search for him instead of making for safety in The Sea of Adventure.

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Locked down library displays weeks 10 and 11

Posted on June 28, 2020 by Fiona

Lockdown seems to be going on forever – but it looks like libraries might be able to open from July 15 here in Scotland. I haven’t heard anything from my work yet but I could be back in less than three weeks!

Here are the displays I did in weeks 10 and 11 (about 2-3 weeks ago).

Day #64

Royalty

Princes, princesses, kings, queens and emperors (is that stretching it a bit?)

Day #65

Things you can wear

Turns out I have a lot more shoe related books than I thought!

  • The Clue of the Velvet Mask – Carolyn Keene
  • Party Frock and Ballet Shoes – Noel Streatfeild
  • Lord of the Rings – J. R. R. Tolkien
  • How to Walk in High Heels – Camilla Morton
  • The Devil Wears Prada – Lauren Weisberger
  • A Boot, a Hat Now Who Is That? – Nick Sharratt
  • The Clue of the Tapping Heels and The Scarlet Slipper Mystery – Carolyn Keene
  • Ballet Shoes for Anna – Noel Streatfeild
  • The Clue in the Ancient Disguise and The Secret in the Old Lace – Carolyn Keene
  • Fox’s Socks – Julia Donaldson

Day #66

Graphic novels

Buffy, Angel and Charmed are mine, the rest are from Ewan’s collection.

I have to admit I’ve never read any of my graphic novels, the only one I’ve read is an Outlander one I borrowed from the library. I just can’t understand them! I puzzle over what’s happening, what box to read next and who all the faces are supposed to represent. It makes me feel entirely illiterate. (Yet I love comic strips like The Broons and Oor Willie and can follow them fine!)

Day #67

War

I have some other books with war-time settings but they don’t have anything that suggests war in the titles.

Day #68

It’s a mystery

Absolutely loads of Blytons here!

I’m not going to name each title as we’ll be here all week. I think I’ve got the whole Five Find-Outers series there and all the Barney Mysteries, plus Five Have a Mystery to Solve and Five Go to Mystery Moor, Secret Seven Mystery and The Mystery That Never Was.

There are several of Helen Moss’ Adventure Island series, and a couple of Malcolm Saville’s Lone Pines – Mystery at Witchend and Mystery Mine.

Plus The Hidden Valley Mystery by Helen Wells, The Red Flower Mystery by Juliet Marais Louw, A Mystery for Ninepence by Phyllis Gegan and Mystery and Mayhem by various authors.

Day #69

Adventure

An un-inventive follow up, perhaps!

Lots more Blytons:

And the non Blytons are

The Gay Dolphin Adventure by Malcolm Saville and a few of the Adventure Islands by Helen Moss.

Day #70

Puzzles

Mostly Where’s Wally books, but also one of the I SPY books by Walter Wick and Jean Marzollo (I absolutely love these and the rest are still at my parents’ house), and a big maze book.

Day #71

What’s the time?

These are all loosely related to time, something that seems to be difficult to track in lockdown.

 

The Blytons:

  • Bedtime Annual 1978
  • Ten, Fifteen and Twenty Minute Tales
  • Tales After Supper
  • Tales at Bedtime

The non-Blytons

  • Children of Time – Adrian Tchaikovsky
  •  The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man – Mark Hodder
  • Portal Through Time – Alice Henderson
  • The Clockwork Sparrow – Katherine Woodfine
  • A Nurse In Time – Evelyn Prentis

Day #72

Gardens

Some of these are more tenuously linked to gardens than others:

  • Apple Bough – Noel Streatfeild (Apple Bough is actually the name of the house, but it sounds garden-y and it probably has a garden possibly the one on the cover…)
  • The Painted Garden – Noel Streatfeild
  • Queen of the Daffodils – Leslie Laing (daffodils grow in gardens)
  • The Tree of Seasons – Stephen Gately (so do trees, and yes that’s Stephen from Boyzone if you were wondering)
  • Garden of Evil – Emma Harrison
  • Tom’s Midnight Garden – Philippa Pearce
  • The Door in the Tree – William Corlett

Plus of course my two house plants which have lasted the longest of any plants I’ve ever had. I even managed to re-pot them recently and they’ve grown massively since!

Day #73

Holidays

We haven’t been able to go on holidays for a while now, so maybe reading about them would be fun – or it maybe just a cruel reminder of what we are missing?

The Famous Five go on holiday in a lot of their books but I stuck to ones whose titles give a suggestion of going somewhere (and which I had with dustjackets).

Day #74

Books about books, bookshops, libraries and book clubs

  • The Bookshop Book – Jen Campbell
  • A Book of Book Lists – Alex Johnson
  • Censorship in Public Libraries in the United Kingdom during the Twentieth Century – Anthony Hugh Thompson (hardly a snappy title, but it has a chapter on Enid Blyton)
  • Literary Listography – Lisa Nola
  • The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
  • Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops and More Weird Things – Jen Campbell

I also have a copy of Mr Lemoncello’s Library Olympics by Chris Grabenstein but despite searching everywhere I couldn’t find it until days after I did the display (just like working in a real library, then!).

Day #75

Things you might (or might not) eat

Cheese, chips, pancakes, chocolate moose (maybe even the goose), yes, disgusting sandwiches and peas? No thanks.

Day #76

An approximation of the weather since we’ve been allowed to meet outside

OK so we haven’t actually had snow but there has been a lot of rain and more than once there have been blankets required for sitting outside in the middle of the day (yes, in JUNE!)

Day #77

Shirley Hughes

Mostly her Alfie series but also Dogger and some of her nursery collection about learning shapes and colours etc.

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Fan fic Friday: Conquering the Castle, A St Andrew’s Story chapter 5

Posted on June 26, 2020 by Fiona

Previously: In chapter one the gang discussed visiting the castle, and in chapter two they started exploring. In chapter three they went underground into the mine, and in chapter four a little bit of a row blew up between Julian and David.

And now Anatoly is about to do something rather stupid.

Chapter 5

“Proklyat’ye*,” Anatoly muttered. He couldn’t back out now, not without losing face. At least the bad weather meant that he was wearing stout shoes.

“Toly, no!” Darrell groaned.

“Which side?” he asked, though they were actually much alike.

“Up one side and down the other,” David said promptly. “You’re so skilled I’m sure you can make the leap across.”

“You are being ridiculous,” Anatoly scowled. There was at least ten feet between the two side walls of the tower. He shook his head, planning to asses it when he got up there, perhaps he could cross via the top of the front wall which still held its triangular shape, and moved towards the left wall.

“Oh, look he’s going for the easier option!” Julian laughed, the left wall being wider, and with more stones to grab hold of.

Anatoly let out some more Russian words that could only be curses, and moved to the right-hand wall. The first few feet were easy and he simply walked up the uneven rocky portion as if it were steps. With the girls watching anxiously and the boys laughing, he found a good handhold and started to climb. He went up around twenty feet, carefully finding crevices for his hands and feet amongst the ancient stones, and just as he was thinking this was a cinch, his foot slipped.

Darrell let out a little scream and turned away, feeling Julian put an arm around her, feeling suddenly idiotic for making the dare. She pushed him away. “If he falls it’s your fault!” she snarled.

“Darrell, he’s fine,” Sally said hurriedly though she could hardly bear to look herself. After a few seconds where he had dangled awkwardly Anatoly had found a fresh toehold and was making progress again.

Coming to the top of the section he was on, Anatoly paused to wipe the blood off his chin – he had managed to bang it on a protruding stone when his foot had slipped on a wet, mossy one, and then heaved himself up. The top of the wall ran flat for a few feet and then went straight up again, but only four or five feet so it was easy to pull himself up.

The wall there was very wide and reasonably even so he felt safe to stand tall, turning to wave at the others. He had a marvellous view, in fact, well worth the climb and his stinging chin. He cautiously walked the short distance to the front wall and eyed it, the edges it looked like small steps rising to the peak. He thought it would be possible, if he leaned forward and held on with his hands too, to walk up, turn around and walk down to then make his descent down the other side as instructed by David and Julian.

Just as he was about to test that theory he heard an enraged yell from below.

“YOU!”

He looked down. The woman who had sold them their tickets was shaking a meaty fist in his direction. She had a cigarette in her other hand and had clearly left her little shed to smoke it, thus putting her in a position to see him clambering over her precious castle.

“WHIT DAE YI THINK YIR DAEN?” she shrieked. “GET DOON FROM THERE THIS INSTANT!”**

She had spoken to them with a distinct accent before, but in her rage she had become almost incomprehensible. However, he got the gist. Grimacing he abandoned the idea of making it to the other side, decided to just come down the way he had come. He was just lowering himself down the first part when the woman stormed into the courtyard.

“You students!” she was ranting. “Ye’ve got nae respect for this auld castle! Eh’m sick o’ the vandalism, carving yir names intae the stones, leavin’ your rubbish a’ ower the place! Some eejit burned yon bench jist last week! And now this – this – this dunderheid decides to climb the walls! He could brak his neck, not that he would’ne deserve it!”***

It was hard to concentrate on climbing with the woman’s tirade ringing in his ears, and in all honestly he would have been happy to stay up on the walls away from her, but Anatoly was no coward. He made it safely down and put his arms out as Darrell barrelled into him.

“You idiot,” she cried. “I can’t believe you did that.”

He eased her to the side as the woman approached him angrily. “If I ever catch you…” she began, then changed tack. “You’re barred,” she said. “The lot o’ you.” She cast an evil eye over the group. “You’re never tae set foot in this castle again, or I’ll hae the polis on you!”****

“Excuse me,” Anatoly said politely, standing his ground as her angry face swung in his direction again. “It was I who climbed the wall, not any of my friends.” He looked at Julian and David briefly. “It was entirely my own idea and my friends tried to talk me out of it. I apologise for any upset I have caused you.” He gave his funny little bow, the one he gave when he was trying to control a situation.

“Please do not punish my friends for my stupidity,” he pleaded. “I can assure you that none of them would ever do anything so foolish, nor would they leave litter or cause any damage whatsoever.”

“Hmmph.” The woman made one of those Scottish noises of contempt which always seemed to come from deep within the throat.

“All right then. Your friends can come back. But if I catch them sae much as dropping a scrap o’ paper, they’ll be banned as well. Do I mak mysel’ clear?”

“Absolutely,” Anatoly said, nodding his head. “They will be exemplary visitors, I promise.”

The woman harrumphed again. “Aye, weel. I think it’s time yi were all leavin’ fir the day. We’re closing in half an oor.” She swept aside and waved an imperious arm at the exit. “Mind, if I catch you,” she jabbed a finger at Anatoly, “even an inch inside that gate… I’ll be reporting you tae the polis for damaging an ancient monument.”

They all shuffled past her, the boys particularly shame-faced, and then fled along the Scores.

To be continued (in the epilogue)…

Some translations for those not versed in Russian and/or angry Scots

*Damnation

**What do you think you are doing? Get down, etc

***You’ve got no respect for this old castle! I’m sick of the vandalism, carving your names into the stones, leaving your rubbish all over the place! Some idiot burned that bench just last week! And now this – this – this idiot decides to climb the walls! He could break his neck, not that he wouldn’t deserve it!

**** Or I’ll set the police on you

If I missed anything, jist just ask.

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Lego Blyton: Five On a Treasure Island

Posted on June 24, 2020 by Fiona

Lego Blyton. Two words that aren’t normally put together!

There are Lego sets to go with dozens of movies and TV shows (Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Avengers, Friends, a ton of Disney movies, DC, Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings to name but a few) and even games like Minecraft. As far as I know, though, there have never been any based on books. Of course many of these movie franchises were based on books but the Lego sets are then based on the big screen adaptations and not the source material.

Long story short, there are no Blyton Lego sets and probably never will be. But the beauty of Lego is that you can create more or less anything you want out of it, and so I had a go at making some iconic Blyton scenes in Lego.

Disclaimer: this wasn’t my idea. Stef asked me to make a few models for an online event her work were holding and I got a little bit carried away.

Lego Kirrin Island

Well, of course I started with Kirrin. I had intended just to do the castle and the wreck, but ended up Lego-ing various scenes from Five on a Treasure Island.

If I had a big budget and time to order Lego in then I could have done something better – we’ve all seen those immense Lego set ups of Rivendell and so on – but no amount of money would give me those skills anyway so let me warn you now that mine are very basic! I just had to work with the random assortment of Lego from my childhood and what I ‘inherited’ from an uncle and cousins when they grew up (and I clearly didn’t).

I began with George rowing her cousins over to her island for the first time. (Hair and clothing choices were very limited, I have a lot of space uniforms, pirates and soldiers but 1950s clothing especially for girls was limited. I had to borrow Julian’s blonde hair and Timmy from another cousin).

Later, after the storm has thrown up the wreck, the Five go explore it. (I was very lucky to have the Black Seas Barracuda in my  collection, so I did not have to build a ship from scratch! I used the front and back (or bow and stern if we’re going nautical) and only one middle section (out of three, I think) to create a much shorter ship, and obviously as it’s a wreck I left some holes and only added some of the masts, rigging and other details.

Having found the box in Henry John Kirrin’s cabin they return with their treasure map, but it blows away and Timmy has to rescue it. (Wrong kind of treasure map, I know, but I had to work with what I had!)

(Lego Julian is pretty over-dramatic as well as having really bad hair!)

They land on the island and pull George’s boat onto the beach and go looking for the dungeons, finding the old well when Timmy falls down it.

Having found the other entrance they explore the dungeons and find the ingot room, and Julian takes an axe to the door.

Inside Julian and George find a chest of Lego gold coins (the closest thing I had to ingots) but are disturbed by the baddies of the story who are wielding a gun.

Then after various thrilling events that I made no attempt to recreate with plastic bricks, George smashes up the villains’ boat and they escape.

The end.

Some more photos

An aerial shot of the whole ‘island’.

A look at Kirrin Castle with its one remaining tower, and the pile of sticks (rifles!) below from the jackdaws.The very over grown well.

Looking through the arch into the castle courtyard.

One with the book in it, just because.And some with Brodie in it because he’s cute and loves Lego. He was very impressed with the whole set up (mind you he is very easily impressed), and was able to recognised the castle and the boat – he even said “trees” for the pile of sticks as most parts of a tree are just called trees with him. And then he took a bulldozer to it, oh well!

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Monday #377

Posted on June 22, 2020 by Fiona

Lego Blyton

and

Conquering the Castle chapter 5

and

Locked down library displays weeks 10 and 11

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”
― Caroline Bingley, Pride and Prejudice

Now Miss Bingley was not in fact an avid reader, she only said such things to try to snare Mr Darcy who was a real bookworm. But if you take the statement at face value – she’s right. I feel very lucky to have my own library even if it is just three bookcases behind the sofa (and a cupboard full of books in the bedroom, and some books in the hall…) even if it isn’t the sort of library to be found in a Jane Austin novel.

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Locked down library displays weeks 8 and 9

Posted on June 21, 2020 by Fiona

I’m getting this one organised in advance so hopefully I won’t forget to schedule it this week!

Here’s what I did for my displays in weeks 8 and 9 of the lockdown.

Day #50

Enid Blyton reference edition

The caption I wrote on Facebook was:

I can’t believe that a) I’ve been off work for (more than) 50 days now and b) that I’ve come up with 50 displays in 50 days. I’m not out of ideas yet but I think I will run out before the lockdown does.

Today is my Enid Blyton reference collection. Mostly biography type books plus her autobiography “The Story of my Life”, written for children, obviously. There are a few books about her books as well. The best biography has to be the one by Barbara Stoney as she put in a phenomenal amount of research and most biographies since don’t contain anything new. Saying that the ones I have all look at different aspects of her life or career.
George Greenfield was her literary agent, and Imogen Smallwood her younger daughter. That’s Imogen’s autograph sticking out her book as I was lucky enough to meet her at my only Enid Blyton day in 2012.

The books from the back left are:

  • The Enid Blyton Story – Bob Mullen
  • The Enid Blyton Dossier by Brian Stewart and Tony Summerfield
  • Who’s Who in Enid Blyton (the revised second edition) – Eva Rice
  • The Story of My Life – Enid Blyton
  • Enid Blyton – George Greenfield
  • Looking For Enid – Duncan McLaren
  • Enid Blyton: A Biography – Barbara Stoney
  • So You Think You Know the Famous Five? – Clive Gifford
  • Enid Blyton at Old Thatch – Tess Livingstone
  • Who’s Who in Enid Blyton (the first edition) – Eva Rice
  • The Blyton Phenomenon – Sheila Ray
  • A Childhood at Green Hedges – Imogen Smallwood
  • The Famous Five Everything You Ever Wanted to Know – Normal Wright
  • Enid Blyton and Her Enchantment With Dorset – Dr Andrew Norman
  • Tell Me About Enid Blyton – Gillian Baverstock

Shamefully I haven’t read as many of these as I should have!

Day #51

The beginnings of many a series

As the title says these are all the first in their respective series.

They are from the back left (and working from top down in the stack) the first in the series below:

  • Adventure Island– Helen Moss (14 books)
  • Wells and Wong Mysteries – Robin Stevens (9)
  • Mirabelle Bevan Mysteries – Sara Sheridan (7)
  • Sookie Stackhouse – Charlaine Harris (13)
  • Harry Potter – J.K. Rowling (7)
  • Nightingales – Donna Douglas (11)
  • Jackelian – Stephen Hunt (6)
  • Faraway Tree – Enid Blyton (4)
  • Famous Five – Enid Blyton (21)
  • Dark Tower – Stephen King (7)
  • Secret Seven – Enid Blyton (15)
  • All the Wrong Questions – Lemony Snicket (4)
  • Magician’s House – William Corlett (4)
  • A Series of Unfortunate Events – Lemony Snicket (13)
  • Harper Connelly – Charlaine Harris (4)
  • Noddy – Enid Blyton (24)
  • Lone Pine – Malcolm Saville (20)
  • Adventure – Enid Blyton (8)
  • Evelyn Prentis’ Memoirs – Evelyn Prentis (5)
  • A Song of Ice and Fire – George R R Martin (7)
  • Call the Midwife – Jennifer Worth (3)

Day #52

More book for your buck

When I uploaded this to Facebook the caption was:

Get more book for your buck by picking up an omnibus!
Get up to five books in one (cumbersome) volume!
Max out your library card and you could have up to fifty books at once! (And very long arms if you try to carry them all home at once).

I then pondered the plural of omnibus. Google suggested omnibuses is the standard but I quite liked omnibi and that would separate the books from the vehicles.

One of my first omnibi was a three in one Red Fox edition of The Naughtiest Girl books, and I asked what an “on-my-bus” was.

Day #53

Reading in ten easy steps

Books with 1-10 in the title, but I had to cheat as I had nothing for 8!

  • The Family from One End Street – Eve Garnett
  • Two Points to Murder – Carolyn Keene
  • Man with Three Fingers – Malcolm Saville
  • 4 Blondes – Candace Bushnell
  • Five Go Mystery Moor – Enid Blyton
  • The Six Bad Boys – Enid Blyton
  • Seven White Gates (the radio play script) – Malcolm Saville
  • The ‘eight’ page from Ten Little Superheroes – Mike Brownlow
  • A Mystery for Ninepence – Phyllis Gegan
  • Ten Little Dinosaurs – Mike Brownlow

Day #54

The magic of reading

Books with a magical connection.

The Enid Blytons are:

  • The Magic Faraway Tree
  • The Brownie’s Magic (and other stories)
  • Noddy and the Magic Rubber
  • The Spell that Went Wrong (and other stories)
  • The Conjuring Wizard

There are also a few J. K. Rowlings, some Buffy and Charmed titles (the one with the pentagram at the back is a newish Buffy companion; The Official Grimoire), the Angel book is called Bruja which is witch in Spanish, Stardust by Neil Gaiman is set in a world full of magic, Wicked is what the stage play of the same name was based on, and tells the story of the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz. Plus The Witches by Roald Dahl.

Day #55

Read the rainbow

Title shamelessly stolen from the Skittles tagline.

  • Red: The Devil Wears Prada – Lauren Weisberger, In the Fifth at Malory Towers – Enid Blyton and The Book of Lost Things – John Connolly.
  • Orange: Claudine at St Clare’s,, Well Done, Noddy and The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters – Enid Blyton.
  • Yellow: Mischief at St Rollos, The Mystery of the Strange Messages and Noddy and His Car – Enid Blyton
  • Green: Arsenic for Tea – Robin Stevens, Pea’s Book of Holidays – Susie Day and Come to the Circus! – Enid Blyton
  • Blue: The Rise of the Iron Moon – Stephen Hunt, Noddy and the Aeroplane – Enid Blyton and The Children of Primrose Lane – Noel Streatfeild
  • Purple: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – J.K. Rowling, Home Improvement Undead Edition – Charlaine Harris and Tony L.P. Kelner and Russian Roulette – Sara Sheridan.
  • Pink: The Goddess Experience – Gisele Scanlon, Sue Barton Student Nurse – Helen Dore Boyleston and The Shuddering Mountain Game – Stephen Thraves

Day #56

Books that say “Enid Blyton” on the cover but are not in fact by her at all.

A slight clue would be them being first published years after her death. These at least have the real author on the cover or inside, there are some out there who don’t credit the real author at all! (They’re mostly god awful so maybe that was deliberate…)

I’m really annoyed that I forgot to include the ‘Famous Five For Grownups‘ books by Bruno Vincent, but I did include books by Jean Willis, Anne Digby, Stephen Thraves, Elise Allen and Hugh Morgan amongst others.

Day #57

That’s no moon

As you might have guessed these are books with moon in the title, including The Secret of Moon Castle. The title is from Star Wars when Obi Wan Kenobi realises that what they’ve thought was a moon is in fact a space station, aka the Death Star which is the ball at the front there (a tin full of mints, in reality).

Day #58

Point Horror

I love Point Horror books as a teen and had a pretty big collection. I think the rest are still at my parents’ in the loft, these are my favourite ones which I took when I moved out.

April Fools absolutely terrified me the first time I read it. The Nightmare Hall series and the omnibus are all by Diane Hoh, one of the best Point Horror writers in my opinion, but my absolute favourites were the Forbidden Game Trilogy by L.J. Smith (who also wrote the Vampire Diaries books). I reread these not too long ago and they were just as good as I remember.

Day #59

Point Crime

Not very inspired after the previous display but these were on the same shelf! I didn’t love Point Crime as much as horror, so I had a lot less. Again more are probably in my parents’ loft but these were the favourites, by Malcolm Rose and Anne Cassidy.

Day #60

Families

These all have either family or relatives in the titles.

Plenty which might interest Blyton fans so I’ll do a list again. Starting with the back left:

  • Dead in the Family – Charlaine Harris
  • The Family at Red Roofs, The Four Cousins, Four in a Family, The Caravan Family, The Seaside Family, The Queen Elizabeth Family, The Buttercup Farm Family and The Pole Star Family – Enid Blyton
  • Darth Vader and Son – Jeffrey Brown
  • The Parent Trap – Eric Kastner (upon which the two parent trap movies, starring Hayley Mills and Lindsay Lohan respectively, were based)
  • One Thing or Your Mother – Kirsten Bayer
  • The Family from One End Street – Eve Garnett
  • Swiss Family Robinson – Johann David Wyss (turned into a great film with John Mills)
  • The Saucy Jane Family – Enid Blyton
  • Gemma and Sisters – Noel Streatfeild
  • Little Sister: The Great Sister War – Allan Frewin Jones
  • Swiss Family Robinson – Ladybird abridged version
  • Six Cousins Again and Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm – Enid Blyton
  • Sorority Sister – Diane Hoh
  • Ramona and her Father – Beverley Cleary
  • Little Sister: Summer Camp – Allan Frewin Jones

Day #6)

Cops and robbers

A few books about cops and/or robbers. Plus three of Brodie’s “nangs” as props. Nangs are any and all emergency vehicles as they (in his words) go nang-nang-nang on their way to emergencies.

Day #62

Island Adventures

Books set on islands, though not all have island in the title.

From back left:

  • Five on a Treasure Island – Enid Blyton (Kirrin Island)
  • Swiss Family Robinson – Johann David Wyss (an East Indies island they name New Switzerland)
  • Five on Kirrin Island Again – Enid Blyton (Kirrin Island, again)
  • Peter Pan – J. M. Barrie (Neverland)
  • The Island of Adventure – Enid Blyton (Isle of Gloom)
  • The Coral Island – R. M. Ballantyne (a Polynesian South Pacific Island known only as The Coral Island)
  • Jaws – Peter Benchley (Amity Island)
  • Treasure Island – R. L. Stevenson (an island known only as Treasure Island)
  • The Mystery of the Midnight Ghost – Helen Moss (Castle Key)
  • Mysteries of Ravenstorm Island: The Lost Children – Gillian Philip (Ravenstorm Island)
  • Kidnap in the Caribbean – Lauren St John (Antigua and Montserrat)
  • The Island of Adventure – Hugh Morgan (Isle of Gloom)

N.B. Enid Blyton has said she read and loved The Coral Island as a girl.

Day #63

A story of book titles

I’ve seen various stories and poems made up of book titles on social media, and it’s taken me ages to come up with one of my own. It’s really hard! The story I created was:

Hello, Mr Twiddle I’ll tell you a story by special request. I’ll tell you another story, the story of my life. Don’t be silly, Mr Twiddle! Never touch a dragon! Well really, Mr Twiddle! Definitely dead…

It rather sounds like something Mr Twiddle would do, while Mrs Twiddle shakes her head in despair at her foolish husband.

Nearly caught up now, as I’m in the mid 80s currently. I’m aiming for 100 displays then I think I’ll have to stop as I will have absolutely run out of ideas.

 

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Fan fic Friday: Conquering the Castle, A St Andrew’s Story chapter 4

Posted on June 19, 2020 by Fiona

In case you’ve missed any chapters, in chapter one they talked about going to the castle, in chapter two they visited it, and in three they went underground and explored the mine and counter-mine and David played a trick.

Chapter 4

They met David around the side of the castle, between the two sets of steps. He was grinning at them. “Did you enjoy my note?”

“It landed on Darrell’s head and scared the life out of the girls,” Julian said crossly.

“Ah, sorry,” David said, having the good grace to look abashed.

“It just startled us, that’s all,” Sally said, embarrassed that she and Darrell had been so silly.

“It didn’t hurt you, did it Darrell?” David asked.

“Not really,” Darrell replied, absently rubbing her head through her hat. “It wouldn’t have startled me half as much if you’d kept your pencil, though.”

“I wasn’t sure if the scrap of paper would reach you if it wasn’t weighed down,” he said.

“Where else did you think it could go, fathead?” Julian asked.

“Well, it could have drifted past and you mightn’t have seen it with the poor lighting,” David defended himself. “I didn’t know that Darrell was sitting directly below the hole. I thought about taking a look but I’d look a right idiot lying on the pavement.”

“I’m not sure that you aren’t a total idiot,” Julian said.

“I don’t know what you’re in such a mood about.” David was getting cross now. “It wasn’t you or Sally that I hit, and I don’t see Toly going wild at me.”

“No. Well. None of the rest of us were dragged into an underground tunnel by Ainsworth and held hostage,” Julian reminded him. “I just think it was stupid and unkind to frighten her like you did.”

“Julian, it’s all right, really,” Sally said, tugging on his arm. “David was just trying to have a bit of fun, and we’re all right, really we are.”

“I was. But I’m sorry if I upset you in any way, Sally.”

“Apology accepted. Right Julian?” Sally said.

“Right.” Julian shook hands with David while the others looked on. It wasn’t like Julian and David to fall out. Darrell had fallen out with Julian once or twice, her temper and his occasionally bossy nature sometimes clashed, and Anatoly often went off the deep end as he just wasn’t used to being teased as much as they were. David, though, was almost impossible to fall out with as he was just so good-natured and friendly.

“What should we look at next, Sally?” Anatoly asked, to break the tension.

“Well,” she took a moment to flick through the pages of the guidebook. “This is Cardinal Beaton’s tower,” she said, pointing to the side of the foretower. They trooped after her up the steps, David keeping his distance from Julian.

“Who was Cardinal Beaton?” Darrell asked, to get Sally talking again. “He must have been important if he has a tower named after him.”

“He was assassinated, sparking the siege in the mid 1500s,” Julian informed her. “You’d know that if you had been listening to Sally earlier.”

“I was just enjoying looking around,” Darrell defended herself.

“So you were actually listening to me,” Sally said to Julian with a smile.

“I always listen.” He affected a wounded tone.

“No, you don’t,” she teased him. “Anyway, Beaton was Cardinal from 1539–46 and he strongly opposed the progressive move towards closer political ties with Henry VIII’s Protestant England. He had Protestant preacher George Wishart held in the bottle dungeon, and then had him burned in front of the castle.” She suppressed a shudder at that horrible image. “In response, a group of Protestant nobles occupied the castle and assassinated him. His body was salted and thrown into the bottle dungeon after.”

Julian listened as intently as he could, though he wasn’t a particular history fan. There were some fascinating bits of history but the reformation of Scotland’s churches with all its names and dates didn’t really do it for him. He’d had enough of dates and names being drummed into his head at school. That being said, Sally had been right about visiting the castle. It really was an interesting place, even if the purported missing treasure wasn’t real. He much preferred history that you could see and touch. If there were dungeons and tunnels, all the better. He’d forgotten the joy of exploring old places, something he, his siblings and cousins had done plenty of as children.

He put his arm around Sally, sensing her distress at the violence of the story.

David and Anatoly weren’t even pretending to listen, they were looking up at the tower and discussing the impregnability of the tower.

“It is not unclimbable,” Anatoly was saying.

“I’d like to see you try to scale those walls during a siege,” David snorted.

“You know what I mean.” Anatoly rolled his eyes. “The walls would be easy enough to climb, even when the castle was whole – but obviously in those days they would pull out all the stops to prevent you doing so.”

David looked doubtfully at the castle. “It’s pretty high, and there’s not much to hold on to.”

“With the right ropes it would not have been a problem,” Anatoly said, casting an experienced eye over the stonework. The tower had only three walls now, the front wall which overlooked the road, and the two side walls which ended unevenly.

“I bet it would be possible,” Julian interrupted. “As long as you weren’t being shot at! I knew a girl, once, called Jo. She could climb just about anything, she was an absolute monkey. I saw her, once, climb a tower holding on to nothing but the ivy growing up it. She’d manage this no problem.”

“Ivy is fine when you are young, it is not so good at holding an adult’s weight,” Anatoly said wryly. “But I could climb this easily. Even without ropes.”

“Right to the top? No chance,” Julian scoffed. “It’s sheer in places.” Actually he had little doubt that Anatoly could do it, but he was feeling embarrassed by losing his cool with David and thought that winding up Anatoly would be a good way to detract attention from himself.

David also knew that if anyone could scale the castle, it would be Anatoly. He felt reasonably confident that even he could get most of the way up, but perhaps not to the top. He and Julian were beaten rotten by Anatoly when it came to both strength and stamina, though they both considered themselves to be fit. But as Anatoly put it, neither of them was running or swimming five miles before breakfast almost every day or lifting weights several evenings a week. David personally would rather have the extra sleep or free time, and he was sure Julian would feel the same.

“I bet you couldn’t, you’re just bragging,” he said to Anatoly, who instantly looked mutinous.

“I do not brag.”

“You do so,” David laughed, going along with Julian in the hope of healing the sudden rift between them.

“What do I have to do before you believe me?” Anatoly asked, and instantly realised his mistake.

“Climb the tower,” came the boys’ answer so synchronised it was as if they had practised.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Darrell cried. “You’re not climbing all the way up there, Toly! You’ll get hurt!”

“You also think I cannot do it?” Anatoly asked her, actually sounding slightly offended now.

“I… well, it’s just awfully high!” she replied. “It would be so easy to slip and fall. I couldn’t bear to see you hurt yourself like that.”

“Dorogoy, of course I would not fall,” he promised her. “I have climbed more dangerous walls than this.”

“We are talking academically, are we not, anyway?” He looked to the boys. “You do not actually expect me to climb it?”

“Chicken, are you?” David said.

“I didn’t have you pegged as a coward, Tol,” Julian added as David made a couple of ‘buck buck’ noises.

“Julian!” Sally hissed. “This is a historic site! It’s six hundred years old in places, you can’t just go climbing all over it!”

“What’s here has withstood sieges and gunfire, and stood six hundred years,” he said to her. “I doubt Anatoly could cause much damage.”

“Are you daring me, then?” Anatoly asked, just to make sure.

“Yes,” Julian and David chorused.

To be continued…

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Five Go Down to the Sea part 2

Posted on June 17, 2020 by Fiona

I’ve reviewed the main story here, so now it’s time for everyone’s favourite part two, where I viciously dissect the book and point out all the plot holes and mistakes.

The illustrations

First up, a few points about Eileen Soper’s illustrations. We’re on book number 12 now, and the children have gradually been growing older.

All of a sudden, though, Dick seems very bulky and strong-jawed (the latter being used to describe Julian, usually). In the text Dick says he’s all skin and bone which I’m sure is an exaggeration, but there’s little to choose between he and Julian in size and age. Just check out the cheekbones on him below:

It’s a far cry from the 11 year old boy in Five on a Treasure Island,

It’s even a change from Five Fall Into Adventure (3 books back) or Five on a Hike Together (2 books back.)

Dick hits Jo in ‘Five Fall Into Adventure.’

But anyway, Dick’s bulk aside, there is one detail in the illustrations that doesn’t match the text. Yan is described as wearing a shirt with no sleeves or buttons, but he has sleeves in the illustrations (his top is sleeveless in the magazine illustrations, though. Perhaps Soper forgot that detail when she redid them).

Also, Yan is described twice as wearing pants. Soper depicts those as loose trousers, though boys his age would normally wear shorts.

George as a boy

Anne offers to help Mrs Penruthlan  (Mrs P from now on) shell peas before they go to church, and Mrs P accepts but says the boys needn’t help. George immediately goes on the defensive I like that! How unfair! Why shouldn’t they, just because they’re boys?” I think she has a point!

Dick takes the sting out by saying he and Julian will help, of course, as they like podding peas. I imagine he wouldn’t say the same if it was a more arduous or feminine task, though! And it doesn’t tackle the fact that Mrs P was the one to say the boys didn’t have to help, but it makes George simmer down anyway

Interestingly both girls were hats to church and they both add a sprig of honeysuckle, which sounds very un-George like to me. She looks more masculine than Anne in the illustration which appeared in the magazine version, though.

Yan’s Old Grandad refers to George as Little Master when they go to visit, and I think that’s the only time George is mistaken for a boy. The Penruthlans know she’s a girl certainly.

Signs of the times

I always like looking out for little things that really place the books back in time.

In this book it mostly has to do with the trains. When they go to catch the train from Kirrin the porter labels their luggage and says the train will wait until he’s done – you’d never see that happen these days, and yet the trains run later and later!

Also, their other luggage has been sent on already. I’ve seen this quite a few times in Blyton books. I understand that a child or children, especially when cycling, doesn’t want to be encumbered with cases or trunks. However, I can’t work out exactly how it all works!

I assume an adult drops heavy trunks etc at the station and a porter puts them on a train with a note saying which station they are for. There was guard for the luggage van so he would be organised and know which luggage was to be passed to a porter at the other end… and then? Someone has to deliver or collect them? In this case someone from Tremannon Farm would come with a pony trap or old Land Rover and pick up the cases, then wait until the next train arrived for the Five to get off and then cycle over?

Why couldn’t the Five have been dropped at the station with their luggage instead of sending it on an earlier train? I appreciate that four bikes are cumbersome, but they could have cycled behind Fanny’s pony trap, and at the other end they could have been greeted by the luggage collector and given directions etc.

Also, at their stop the guard finds them and reminds them they want to get out as they hadn’t realised they had reached their destination. Something else you’d be unlikely to see today unless you have specifically asked for a reminder, and even then you’d probably be out of luck.

Blyton’s writing

People criticise her writing all the time and yet there are absolute gems to be found, on top of all the descriptions of scenery and her fast-paced adventures.

The old shepherd was sitting outside his hut, smoking a clay pipe. He wasn’t very big, and he seemed shrivelled up, like an apple stored too long. But there was still a sweetness in him, and the children liked him at once – he had Yan’s sudden smile, that lighted up eyes that were still as blue as the summer sky above them.

His face had a thousand wrinkles that creased and ran into one another when he smiled. His shaggy eyebrows, curly beard and hair were all grey – as grey as the woolly coats of the sheep he had lived with all his life.

The bit about the apple I thought was particularly good – that’s the bit I jotted down as I read but the whole description is pretty good too!

She also refers to hungry rocks when talking about ships being wrecked, how many times have we heard rocks being likened to jagged teeth?

The Wreckers’ story isn’t as strong as the one in Five Go to Demon’s Rocks, but it was clearly the precursor which she reworked for the later story. In Demon’s Rocks the tale is more lively the wreckers have names and personalities and it’s helped by their descendants still being present. Saying that, Old Grandad’s is a spooky tale especially with the reveal that the light still flashes to this day!

I think she also learned from her baddies here, going forward to Demon’s Rocks, as none of them are fleshed out. We know a little about the Guv’nor but barely anything, and nothing about anyone else. Who was the man on the boat, and the two men who go out to it? Who locked them in the room? I guess Blyton had to be vague on their identities as we had to believe Mr P was one of them but it’s a shame they were all just shadowy figures in the dark.

The food

There isn’t an awful amount of food in this book. But there is an enormous high tea when they arrive at Tremannon;

A huge ham awaited gleaming as pink as Timmy’s tongue; a salad fit for a king. In fact as Dick said, fit for several kings, it was so enormous. It had everything that anyone could possibly want.

“Lettuce. Tomatoes. Onions. Radishes. Mustard-and-cress. Carrot grated up… And lashings of hard-boiled eggs.”

There was an enormous tureen of new potatoes, all gleaming with melted butter, scattered with parsley. There was a big bottle of home-made salad cream.

“Look at that cream cheese, too… And that fruit cake. And are those drop-scones or what? Are we supposed to have something of everything, Mrs Penruthlan?”

“Oh yes. And there’s a cherry tart made with our own cherries, and our own cream with it.”

I saw someone say recently that they weren’t impressed when a high tea was dominated by a salad, but I think that one sounds pretty good! I love hard boiled eggs and salad cream (or mayo, though).

There are also lashings of peas and new potatoes at a lunch later on, along with cold boiled beef and carrots, with a dumpling each, followed by a truly magnificent fruit salad and cream. They still manage a large afternoon tea picnic and a high-tea the same day, but without any descriptions.

Random things I noticed

  • Blyton speaks directly to Julian on page 138 Careful now, Julian – there may be somebody lying in wait! I always find it slightly odd when she does that in the middle of a book.
  • Considering the title is Five Go Down to the Sea, they spend very little time in or near the actual sea! They briefly visit the beach but that’s about it. It might have been better named Five on Tremannon Farm (but then Blyton would have to have come up with something more original for Five on Finniston Farm) or Five Go Down to Cornwall. Or something vague like Five Have an Excellent Holiday.
  • Before they do Julians says We mean to bathe, and hire a boat, and fish, and bike all round about. The only thing they do is bathe once! Though perhaps they do more after the story ends as that only tied up 5 days or so.
  • Julian says We don’t wear much on holidays. I wonder how much they wear on non-holidays? It out me in mind of them in very skimpy holiday clothing. Who wears short shorts?
  • There’s a scientist who is worse than Uncle Quentin, apparently. He came to stay and was as thin as a rake but went away as fat as butter. Mrs P says he said ‘no’ to just about every meal, so she would take the tray away, and return it ten minutes later as if it was the first time. And he’d never notice! She took the tray in three times one meal.
  • Dick says he’s pretty good at a spot of conjuring which I wish had been explored more!
  • The Five bargaining with Yan over sweets reminds me of bargaining with Brodie. They tell Yan he can have sweets if he helps shell the peas, but he must wash his hands first. All right. Don’t wash your hands. Don’t shell the peas. Don’t have a sweet. I’m forever saying he can have a biscuit if he eats his fruit, or he can play with something if he puts something else away first. He’s as stubborn as Yan, though… It made me wonder how old Yan was but the only clue we get is that he is supposed to be in school but rarely goes. So he could be anywhere from five to fifteen! He seems quite a bit younger than the Five but he is probably underfed. He looks a little older in the some of the magazine illustrations, I think.

Turns out I wrote so much about random things from this book that I’ll have to put the nitpicks in a separate post!

Next post: Five Go Down to the Sea part 3

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Monday #376

Posted on June 15, 2020 by Fiona

I almost forgot about the displays post last week, but realised at around 9pm Sunday (only 12 hours late!) that although I had written it all I had forgotten to schedule it. Hopefully I do better this week, but I’m not promising.

In Scotland we are into week 3 of phase 1 of the lock down easing. Hopefully on Thursday Nicola Sturgeon will announce we are moving into phase 2.

Five Go Down to the Sea part 2

and

Conquering the Castle chapter 4

and

Locked down library displays weeks 8 & 9

“I went away in my head, into a book. That was where I went whenever real life was too hard or too inflexible.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

This is the second time I’ve picked a quote from this book. It’s on the shelf behind me right now as it belongs to Ewan, but I’ve never read it. After reading the blurb I feel like I should, though.

gaiman

 

 

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Locked down library displays weeks 6 and 7

Posted on June 14, 2020 by Fiona

I’m still doubling up the weeks so that I can get through them a bit quicker. Here are links to weeks one, two, three and then four and five in case you missed them.

Day #36

Marvel

An array of Ewan’s graphic novels and guides to the Marvel universe and characters.

Day #37

Nancy Drew

I actually did this the day before the 90th anniversary of the first Nancy Drew book being published – by complete coincidence. These are just a few of my collection, with one of each cover style I have across the original mysteries and the newer (well, 80s) files.

Day #38

Sunny yellow

It was raining on day 38, so I thought I’d go for a sunny yellow display. Several Blytons here.

From back left:

  • My First Words
  • The Mystery of the Strange Bundle – Enid Blyton
  • Where’s My Girl? – Malcolm Saville
  • The Happy House Children, Fifth Formers of St Clare’s and Upper Fourth at Malory Towers – Enid Blyton
  • Party Frock – Noel Streatfeild
  • Treasure Island – R.L. Stevenson
  • The Children of Kidillin, Smuggler Ben and The Secret of Cliff Castle – Mary Pollock aka Enid Blyton
  • The Rockingdown Mystery, The Children of Willow Farm, The Boy Next Door and The Mystery that Never Was – Enid Blyton
  • The Clue of the Velvet Mask – Carolyn Keene
  • Whit the Clockleddy Heard – Julia Donaldson (A Scots language version of What the Ladybird Heard, translated by James Robertson).
  • Mischief at St Rollo’s and Noddy and His Car – Enid Blyton
  • Deadlocked – Charlaine Harris
  • So You Think You Know Enid Blyton’s Famous Five? – Clive Gifford
  • The Witches and The Twits – Roald Dahl
  • Baby’s First Animals
  • Lucky – Alice Sebold
  • The BFG – Roald Dahl
  • Hairy Maclary and Zachary Quack – Lynley Dodd

Day #39

An A-Z of reading

A book for every letter of the alphabet.

  • Apple Bough – Noel Streatfeild
  • Borrowers Avenged, The – Mary Norton
  • Clockwork Sparrow, The – Katherine Woodfine
  • Dead and Gone – Charlaine Harris
  • England Expects – Sara Sheridan
  • Five on a Secret Trail – Enid Blyton
  • Grave Secret – Charlaine Harris
  • Hobbit, The – J.R.R. Tolkien
  • I Am Pilgrim – Terry Hayes
  • Jean Becomes a Nurse – Yvonne Trewin
  • Kristie at College – Mildred Benson (one of the first Nancy Drew authors)
  • Leader of the Lower School, The – Angela Brazil
  • Masked City, The – Genevieve Cogman
  • Nightingale Girls, The – Donna Douglas
  • Ocean at the End of the Lane, The – Neil Gaiman
  • Pea’s Book of Holidays – Susie Day
  • Queen of the Daffodils – Leslie Lang
  • Rendezvouz in Russia – Lauren St John
  • Shock for the Secret Seven – Enid Blyton
  • Tunnel Behind the Waterfall, The – William Corlett
  • Undead and Unfinished – MaryJanice Davidson
  • The Vile Village – Lemony Snicket
  • Winnie-the-Pooh – A.A. Milne
  • Xander Years, The – Keith R.A. DeCandido
  • Yes Sister, No Sister – Jennifer Craig
  • Zoo, Our – June Mottershead (only cheating very slightly?)

Day #40

Deadly reads

Various books with death, murder, deadly, dead etc in the title. Mostly from Charlaine Harris, Nancy Drew, Charmed and Point Horror/Crime but also Harry Potter, Kate Shackleton by Frances Brody, Lee Child and Neil Gaiman.

Day #41

Seeing red

I think I was particularly frustated this day!

From back left:

  • Taskmaster – Alex Horne (200 tasks inspired by the show)
  • Roald Dahl – Donald Sturrock
  • Fetch Nurse Connie – Jean Fullerton
  • Amelia Jane Again, The Rat-a-Tat Mystery, Five Go To Smuggler’s Top and Five Get Into a Fix – Enid Blyton
  • The Bad Beginning – Lemony Snicket
  • Five Go Adventuring Again and The Rilloby Fair Mystery – Enid Blyton
  • Not Scarlet But Gold – Malcolm Saville
  • Ten Little Superheroes – Mike Brownlow
  • Jonathan Strange and Mrs Norrell – Susanna Clarke
  • The Court of the Air – Stephen Hunt
  • The Book of Lost Things – John Connolly
  • Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – J.K. Rowling
  • Brighton Belle – Sara Sheridan
  • The Masked City – Genevieve Cogman
  • The Bridge in the Clouds – William Corlett
  • The Devil Wears Prada – Lauren Weisberger
  • Flynn – Reverend W Awdry
  • Baby’s First Numbers
  • James – Reverend W Awdry

Day #42

The answer to life, the universe and everything. Food.

The title is taken from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, whereby the number 42 is the answer. But I made it food, because we all love to eat, right?

From back left –

  • Tom’s Kitchen – Tom Kerridge
  • Jolly Good Food – Allegra McEvedy
  • Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery – Martha Swift and Lisa Thomas
  • Making the Most of Healthy and Filling – Weight Watchers
  • Cupcakes – Next
  • Rick Stein’s Spain – Rick Stein
  • Five Go Feasting – Josh Sutton
  • Favourite Retro Recipes: Classic dishes from the 1950s and 60s – Uncredited

I’ve made very few recipes from any of these books, I’ll have to admit. That’s the trouble with recipe books for me – I may like a few of the recipes but I’m fussy enough, cheap enough and lazy enough that a majority of them will never be made!

Day #43

Roald Dahl

My entire Roald Dahl collection along with some Roald Dahl Top Trumps cards (I tried to pair characters with their books).

Some closer shots of the cards (just click to see them full size).

Day #44

Scottish children’s books

It had to be done! I would have liked to have included the Masie MacKenzie books my Aileen Paterson but I left them at my parents’ when I moved out. I remember using my holiday money a lot of years to buy a new one for my collection. Anyway, what I have included:

  • Torridon’s Surprise – Marie Muir (Haven’t read this yet as it’s the second in a series and I haven’t got the first)
  • Katie Morag’s Island Stories – Mairi Hedderwick (a compendium of several books)
  • The Secret of the Loch – Frances Cowan (not a Scottish author, but set in Scotland)
  • Where’s Nessie – Liz and Garry Thorburn
  • Katie Morag and the New Pier – Mairi Hedderwick
  • Whit the Clockleddy Heard – Julia Donaldson translated into Scots by James Robertson (this one’s a challenge to read out loud!)
  • Scotland 1 2 3 – Lauren Gentry
  • Katie’s Moose – James Robertson and Matthew Fitt

Plus flags I made myself!

Day #45

Undersea adventures

A mix of children’s and grown up’s books here, with some of Brodie’s bath toys. Sally and the Limpet is accompanied by a song in our house which begins Sally and the limpet, the limpet, the limpet, Sally and the Limpet, sung to the tune of Following the Leader from Disney’s Peter Pan. It may have had more words but I’m not sure.

Day #46

Tales of the Vampyres

Books about vampire from Charlaine Harris, MaryJanice Davidson, L.J. Smith, and Anne Rice, and some based on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Being Human TV series.

Day #47

Feeling blue

I think I’ve felt all the colours in lockdown so far.

From back left:

  • Go Ahead Secret Seven – Enid Blyton
  • Call Nurse Millie – Jean Fullerton
  • Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – J.K. Rowling
  • Jean Becomes a Nurse – Yvonne Trewin
  • A Mystery for Ninepence – Phyllis Gegan
  • The Treasure Hunters – Enid Blyton
  • The Children of Primrose Lane – Noel Streatfeild
  • The Hostile Hospital and The Reptile Room – Lemony Snicket
  • A Little Princess – Frances Hodgson Burnett
  • Heidi – Johanna Spyri
  • Ten Little Dinosaurs – Mike Brownlow
  • Murder Most Unladylike – Robin Stevens
  • The Rise of the Iron Moon – Stephen Hunt
  • The Graveyard Book – Neil Gaiman
  • The Borrowers Avenged – Mary Norton
  • Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – J.K. Rowling
  • Baby’s First Words
  • Noddy and the Bumpy Dog – Enid Blyton
  • Pea’s Book of Big Dreams – Susie Day
  • Noddy and the Aeroplane – Enid Blyton
  • The Mystery of the Midnight Ghost – Helen Moss
  • That’s Not My Otter – Fiona Watt
  • The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow – Katherine Woodfine

Day #48

Secretive Secrets

All books with secret in the title, with their secret hidden. Because they’re secret.

Can you complete the titles? (I’ll make the hidden words white so you can just click to highlight and read them).

  • The Secret of Killimooin – Enid Blyton
  • The Secret of Grange Farm – Frances Cowan
  • Secret Seven on the Trail – Enid Blyton
  • Secret of the Gorge – Malcolm Saville
  • The Secret of the Loch – Frances Cowan
  • The Secret of the Golden Pavilion – Carolyn Keene
  • The Secret of Shadow Ranch – Carolyn Keene
  • Lawless and Tilley the Secrets of the Dead – Malcolm Rose
  • The Secret of Grey Walls – Malcolm Saville
  • The Mystery of the Secret Room – Helen Moss
  • The Secret in the Old Attic – Carolyn Keene
  • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – J.K. Rowling
  • Five on a Secret Trail – Enid Blyton
  • The Secret in the Old Lace – Carolyn Keene
  • The Mystery of the Secret Room – Enid Blyton

To see a picture of the uncensored books click the thumbnail below.

Day #49

Charmed

A selection of my books based on the Charmed TV series.

 

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Fan fic Friday: Conquering the Castle, A St Andrew’s Story chapter 3

Posted on June 12, 2020 by Fiona

Usually I give a recap of the plot of previous chapters at the start of a new one, but not very much has happened. They talked about going to the castle, then they went to the castle and explored a bit. If you missed all that excitement, the links to chapters one and two are below.

Chapter one
Chapter two

Chapter 3

They walked down some steps sunk into the grassy slope and then turned back on themselves down some more steps which took them below ground level to a doorway which had an open gate held back against the wall.

“Will you be all right doing this?” Julian asked Sally as David ducked into the doorway and disappeared into the gloom.

Sally nodded bravely. “I’m amongst friends. This is nothing like the tunnel under the cathedral.” It was sweet of Julian to worry, to think that she might not like and underground passage after that prat Ainsworth had kidnapped her and dragged her through one to then tie her up in the cathedral ruins.

“You are amongst friends,” Darrell confirmed, reaching for her hand and giving it a squeeze. “But if it’s too much just say and we’ll come back out.”

Anatoly had already headed inside, torch at the ready, and his curly head reappeared for a moment. “Are you coming, dorogoy?” he queried.

Darrell nodded and went down the steps to the counter-mine, leaving Julian to escort Sally and bring up the rear.

The counter-mine was an uncomfortably tight space. One by one they had to step down into the narrow groove in the floor, at least a foot deep but barely wide enough to stand in. Even the girls had to hunch over the roof was so low. The boys were bent almost double, so when they stopped to look at where the tunnel branched off to the right they crouched down to ease the strain on their legs and back.

Anatoly flashed his torch down the branch, showing that it was blocked off after a few feet like the well had been with a grid of metal bars. “It does not go very far,” he said, doing an awkward duck-walk a little way towards the bars for a better look.

They continued on down the narrow, sometimes damp and slippery, tunnel as it curved to the right and then they came to a hole in the floor where the top of a wooden ladder could be seen. David at the front carefully turned and ended up crawling backwards until his feet were through the opening could find the rungs.

Anatoly went next but stopped part-way down so he could help Darrell if she needed it. “Watch out, Toly, I’m going to end up kicking you in the face!” she warned, and he dropped down gracefully and left her to it.

She joined the two of them a moment later, and looked around. “Gosh, it’s huge down here!” The difference was astounding. At that point the mine was tall enough for even Anatoly to stand comfortably in, and wide enough for them to all stand side by side.

“Just as well none of us are fat,” they heard Sally call as she squeezed through the narrow opening and came down the ladder. “But this would have been easier without our winter coats!” The mine was only flat for a short distance, partly floored with strips of wood, before it sloped gently upwards via steps cut out of the rock, and ended in a brick wall.

“Huh,” Julian said, examining the wall. “Pity we can’t go all the way along.”

“Where are we exactly?” Darrell asked, looking around.

“In the mine?” David answered as if she was a particularly dim-witted child.

“I know that,” she retorted, smacking his arm. “I mean, in relation to the castle.”

Sally held her guide book up to the dull orange lamp on the rocky side wall. “We’re under the road, it says.”

They looked up, and could see a tiny spot of light. David grinned. “Stay here, you lot. I’ll be back in five minutes.” He jogged down the steps, along the mine and they heard him scramble up the ladder.

“What on earth is he about to do?” Darrell asked.

Julian shrugged. “Does it say where the mine used to start?”

Sally checked her guide book again. “No, just that it was in sight of the castle walls, so it can’t have been too far away.”

“Probably somewhere under a house or something now,” Anatoly said. “This is a much newer wall. Perhaps someone’s cellar is on the other side now.”

Darrell sighed and sat down at the top of the steps hugging her knees to her chest. “I’m not waiting down here for long! It’s warmer than outside but you could hardly call it pleasant.”

Julian consulted his watch. “He’s got two more minutes then we’ll head back up and see what he’s up to.”

Suddenly Darrell yelped and leapt up, nearly falling down the steps. Anatoly caught her in his arms.

“Something landed on my head!” she exclaimed, looking around wildly. Sally clutched at her as they looked up, fearful of anything more falling from the roof. Anatoly shone his torch and Julian snatched up a piece of paper which had been rolled into a tight tube around a stub of pencil.

“You’re a git, David!” Julian yelled up at the roof, the spot of light no longer visible as it was being blocked by something which was probably David.

Darrell rubbed her nose. “I feel like a fool, now. It just startled me when it landed on my head! I didn’t know what it was.

“Did you think the tunnel was about to collapse on us?” Anatoly asked her with a lazy grin.

“No,” she said, swatting at him, but she wasn’t being entirely truthful. Underground passages, although interesting, were not her favourite place to be. With unspoken agreement they walked down the steps, across the wooden planks, and Julian went up the ladder, ready to help Sally and Darrell up before Anatoly followed them.

To be continued…

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Malory Towers on TV – Episodes seven and eight

Posted on June 10, 2020 by Fiona

Reviews of episodes one and two, three and four and five and six.

So far I’ve enjoyed this series with its period setting and excellent acting, though at times it deviates quite a bit from the book.

Episode seven

We have reached the part of the story where it is half-term and the girls’ parents come to visit the school. In the episode it’s just called an open day, though.

In the book, the story focuses on Darrell not having a special friend to invite, and then her altercation with Sally.

This episode covers Darrell not having a friend really well. Alicia was going to go with her, but then changes her mind last-minute as Betty has invited her. The Alicia of the TV series isn’t as sharp-tongued and cruel as the one of the books but she manages to be quite unkind still (and as these two episodes progress I think Darrell realises that Alicia is fun but not a good friend).

As in the book Darrell invites Mary-Lou, but Gwen has got there first (but on TV, Gwen asks deliberately to spite Darrell who she knows was going to ask Mary-Lou,), and Mary-Lou doesn’t feel like she can go back on her agreement with Gwen. Somehow I find Mary-Lou more spineless on TV than I remember her being in the books, but it has been a while since I read them.

In a fabrication for the show Darrell talks to Sally about it all and then asks her when she finds out that Sally’s parents have cancelled last-minute. (In the book she simply asks her outright.) Sally is understandably a bit miffed to be such a last choice and refuses. In the end Darrell asks Emily (same as in the books) and she goes along.

TV Emily is a bit more of a character, as in the books she’s only mentioned when it has something to do with sewing and she chats away to Mrs Rivers about embroidery and so on during the picnic. In this episode she doesn’t mention sewing (though has been seen as skilled at it before) but rather we get more hints that she isn’t all she seems. She tells the Riverses that her mother is a nurse but can’t remember where she works (and is a bit flustered about being asked.) I’m starting to wonder if they haven’t lifted a plot from another St Clare’s book and she’s going to turn out to be the daughter of one of the school staff with a free place there. (In episode 8 she refuses to recount her seeing of the ghost from the previous episode when a painting falls off the wall, and I suspect she might have been sneaking down to visit her mother, but we will see!).

Anyway, another open-day plot is Gwen and her mother. Gwen is stuffing her up with all sorts of tales about how great she is at lacrosse and maths and English and everything else. Mary-Lou’s reactions are very comical but unfortunately she doesn’t do what we all want her to do which is SAY SOMETHING! Somehow Gwen’s lies seem even more ludicrous on-screen. They also seem stupid as Gwen knows that the results of the exam she has in an envelope to give her mother are terrible as Alicia steamed them open earlier so she could peek. Even if she tries to not hand them over surely she knows her mother will find out sooner of later? There’s a world of difference between failing everything (not sure what the results were but they can’t have been good) and saying you’re doing OK, and failing while pretending to be top of every class.

To be honest Darrell isn’t much better. She didn’t steam her envelope so she doesn’t know how bad – or good – her results are, but she avoids handing them over and she outright lies to her parents about leaving the envelope in her dorm room, an absolute no-no for any decent Blyton character. She does, at least, own up in the end – before her father has a chat with Miss Grayling as all new pupils’ parents do (including Mrs Lacey.)

If you assume a 50% pass mark then Darrell has failed two classes out of seven, but I imagine she was expecting to pass them all, and pass them well.

Her parents are truly great in that scene and I actually got teary as they reassured her. Gwen’s mother, though, more or less storms off to her chauffeur-driven car after a scathing remark to Gwen. I like how they showed the difference between the two girls’ lives and probably made children watching think about why Gwen is the way she is.

The upshot for Darrell is that she isn’t to sit beside Alicia any more and can’t play lacrosse either. In the book Darrell gets the results just before half-term and they’re read out, she’s tenth from last out of around thirty girls. She goes to see Miss Potts and they discuss how she can’t do well at school work and play the fool as Alicia does, and it’s a positive learning moment for Darrell who resolves to do better without the adults deciding to ban her from things. Anyway, she volunteers for remedial coaching (which she wouldn’t need in the book, just to work harder) instead of giving up lacrosse.

There is a side-plot about Sally, but it’s really just a brief moment. As in the books Mrs Rivers calls out to Sally who ignores her, and she tells Darrell again that Sally definitely has a sister.

We end on the heart-warming notion that Darrell may not have a ‘special friend’ as her mother is so keen to see, but she is well-loved by everyone in her form except Sally and Gwen. This isn’t said aloud or spelled out but rather nicely shown by the girls’ behaviour together.

Chapter eight

I have been waiting for this for a while – ever since Sally was ill a few episodes ago. I suppose they were foreshadowing this, and they’ve decided to give this story almost a whole episode to itself.

In the book Darrell finds Sally playing the piano after the half-term visit, they row, and she pushes her. Later, Mary-Lou finds Sally in great pain on her bed in the dormy and sends for Matron. Darrell’s terribly worried it’s all her fault especially when she hears that Sally didn’t eat anything during the day so it can’t be overindulgence. She sneaks down in the night to get some fresh air and runs into her father who’s there to operate on Sally.

Now for the TV version!

Sally drops a photograph of her sister while dancing, and Darrell picks it up and returns it to her. She then finds it in the bin and then tries to return it again, assuming Sally binned it in error. She finds Sally at a piano but she’s not playing just mashing the keys angrily. (In the book she plays louder to down Darrell out, but is actually playing it seems.) They still row and the wording is reasonably similar – about Darrell’s mother being a busy-body – and Darrell does push Sally, though less violently than it is described. In the book she is described as flinging her across the room where she falls over a chair. On screen she pushes her and she falls stomach first onto the piano stool.

It is then Darrell who finds Sally in pain – in the bathroom – and has to work hard to persuade her to go down to the san.

Matron does not shine here. We’ve seen that she has it in for Darrell and likes to steal the girls’ confiscated tuck etc but she’s truly awful in this episode.

She’s all done up to go out to the pictures and is annoyed that Sally has obviously eaten too much at the open day. She’s not at all sympathetic and bans Margaret – her assistant – from calling a doctor as she’s ‘too soft’ on the girls. She doesn’t give Darrell a chance to explain about the push or not having eaten anything.

Darrell clearly has a thing for heading out in the night as after calling her father’s hotel and leaving a message for him to call her back she goes out and intends to walk the 10 miles to Truro in the dark to fetch him. Meanwhile he’s called the school and spoken to Miss Potts, and as they can’t find an available doctor anywhere else, he gets in his car and conveniently spots Darrell even though she tries to hide from the headlights.

Back at the school he operates on Sally – and Matron faints – and everything turns out all right except that Matron doesn’t get her comeuppance for not listening to Darrell, for trying to prevent a doctor being called or for swanning off to the cinema, all of which endangered Sally’s life.

Various things of note

We get some more references to war time in these episodes. Cold chicken and pickles (the same as the Riverses brought in the book) are mentioned as being worth two weeks’ rations and Miss Grayling is away the days following the open day as she is visiting her brother who has shell shock.

It was interesting to see Mrs Rivers, Mr Rivers and Mrs Lacey better. All three are younger than I imagine and more glamorous. Mrs Lacey looks a bit like a present-day woman who dresses in a 40s style, though. Something about her eyebrows just seem wrong for the period. And Mrs Rivers has a cane for some reason. Mr Rivers has some great dialogue but he’s much softer and more gentle than I imagine. Mr Rivers of the books is very kind but can also be impatient and irritable. I can believe the Mr Rivers of the books has given Darrell his temper, but less so the one on screen.

Mr and Mrs Rivers are shown to be great parents, though, and contrast well with Mrs Lacey. Strangely, Gwen’s governess doesn’t come but Darrell’s sister does. She calls Felicity Fee which seems wrong to me as that’s what I’m often called, while we call Felicity Fliss for short.

In other strangeness, Mam’zelle Rougier is teaching the girls to waltz at the start of the episode, it’s probably so they didn’t have to pay a different actress as a teacher, and why Miss Potts presides over sewing class, but why not just omit the dancing that isn’t in the book anyway?

It also makes little sense for each girl to have a results envelope, girls whose parents come to the open day get to hand them over themselves, and those whose parents aren’t coming have their envelopes posted to their homes. It seems unfair for some girls to have to wait for their parents to get the results then send a letter back with them, whilst others have them right away. Given that at least three girls have last-minute changes to their parents coming/not coming it seems a clumsy system as well.

Somehow the things that work well in the book can sometimes look silly on screen. Darrell’s father operating isn’t described in the book but it is partially shown on screen and it made it less believable for me.

And lastly I’m getting a little tired of Darrell having an explosive temper any time it can get her into trouble, but when she’s in a situation when she needs to speak up she clams up instead.

Despite the various niggles I’m feeling as the series goes on, it’s still very good. The acting is first rate and there are no completely stupid plots or scenes.

Next post – Malory Towers on TV – episodes nine and ten

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