We had a much needed blogging break last week, and I then totally forgot to start back up again! We’ll get back into the swing of things I’m sure, though. We’ve got our schedule sorted for this week at any rate.
We’re trying to be better with our other blog too, and Stef posted something there yesterday. I’m hoping to add something myself this week too, so here’s a sneak preview.
Here we are at the end of another month, and in fact we’ve had a smashing week here at the blog! Our best ever day happened on the 25th June, when a Spanish food blog El Comidista shared a link to our recipes and we reached an all time high of 653 views in one day! How fabulous is that? Speaking of which, if you’d like to return the favour, El Comidista has lots of fabulous goodies to go and ogle at!
Our best view day since starting the blog
Apart from that we don’t have much more news, apart from the fact that I made it home from Scotland in mostly one piece (I did twist my ankle pretty badly at the beginning of the holiday and at the moment its still bruised, swollen and complaining) but yes, it was a good holiday and lovely to catch up with my Blytonite in crime (or should that be blogging), Fiona.
The only other thing I’ve got to say before I leave you with some pictures is that this week, Fiona and I will be taking a break from blogging. No need to fret, we shall be back next week, but Fiona has a particularly busy week, and my week isn’t much better either. Not to mention I’m no way near geared up and organised enough to write two blogs a week to fill in. So we shall have a break and be back with our usual Monday post next week on the 6th of July.
As this is the first break we’ve taken from the blog in two and a half years, I hope you can forgive us!
Anyway Blytontonians, go out and have some adventures to blog about for us, and we shall see you in a weeks time! For now I shall leave you with some pictures of Monikie Country Park from the first day of my stay.
Stef
Five Go Off to Camp is one of my favourite adaptations of the books. Overall it doesn’t leave too much out and the acting is very good. There is the fact that Jock is probably older than I would have preferred, looking like he’s older than Julian rather than around Dick’s age, but that is perfectly minor. Again 25 minutes isn’t enough to make this as good as it could be: some of the history is missed out and so is the bit where Anne thinks she’s sitting on a volcano, but we’ll look into those in more detail a little bit later.
We start off quite atmospherically, with Wooden-Legged Sam walking the deserted railyard in the dead of night, with very creepy music to tell us that something is going to happen. Sam spots the light from the train coming out of the disused tunnel and rushes to hide. This has to be one of the best openings for the series as it sets you up to know there is a mystery going on, and when you’re small it is actually quite scary. I remember watching this when it first came out in the nineties and I was genuinely terrified of it. I think it is one of the better openings as I’ve said, and its one of the better books, within that first ten where Blyton was at the top of her game with the Famous Five.
Then we jump to the Five and Mr Luffy, walking the moors, looking for somewhere to set up camp. On the way they come across the farm where they will get their supplies for the holiday and if you’ve read the books, you’ll know how much the Five can eat, so a farmhouse with enough food to feed four starving children and a dog is essential.
I feel as though I need to mention this now, Dick has a new favourite word this adventure “smashing” it becomes a bit tiresome, and eventually gets put a stop to when Jock pinches it from him at the end of the adventure. The others get to tease him for it, so it’s not all bad.
Not only to go with the mysterious lights down by the railway track, there is also a mystery at the farm. The farmer has a brand new car that puzzles the children when Mr Luffy tells Mrs Andrews that the couple who lived on the farm before her could barely scrape a living out of the place. She seems momentarily stumped but then replies that her husband makes sure they all work very hard. You can see the adventure antenae twitching for Julian, Dick and George, though Anne doesn’t seem that bothered. I mean we all know Anne wishes for a quiet life.
The children then head off to set up camp, and Mr Luffy decides to pitch his tent a little way away from the children so they can be a little noisy and not have to worry about bothering him. Of course this means that later on when the adventure starts in earnest the children and sneak out in the night and not disturb him.
After a meeting with Jock’s stepfather, Mr Andrews, Julian and Dick are determined to go and visit the old rail yard that they have discovered and been warned off of by the watchman, Wooden-Legged Sam and then again by Mr Andrews. George is determined to go too, but as Anne doesn’t want to go, Julian forbids George to come along with them, causing one of the bigger arguements between them. Julian hardly covers himself in glory as he and Dick sneak out without George, and then tries to pull rank.
George is fuming that she’s been left out, especially as the boys start to include Jock, and storms off in a huff, with Timmy, determined to have her own adventure without them. In the meantime, Anne, Dick, Julian and Jock decide to explore the tunnel. Unfortunately they’re seen by Wooden Leg- Sam who calls the “gang” led by none other than Mr Andrews!
The gang corner the children just as they find the spook train and are leaving the tunnel where it hides. Dick, Julian and Jock get caught but Anne, who didn’t walk back through the tunnel with them, is left waiting at the other side and sees the ruffians approaching. She then runs off to find Mr Luffy because she thinks something has gone wrong.
In the meantime, George has found her way into the tunnel through the air vents with Timmy and discovers the train first. Then she witnesses the boys being dragged into the secret hiding place and when the men have gone, she rescues them. The boys are glad to see her and she shows them everything on the train, which mostly seems to contain boxes of tea. (This is a children’s programme after all.)
Anne eventually finds Mr Luffy and then everyone is rescued by the policemen and the children (even Anne) get covered in soot. We end the episode on the traditional way in peals of laughter.
Overall I do think that this episode is very accurately adapted, and there isn’t much I would change. Again it comes down to it not having long enough to go through all the ins and outs of the details a bit more. I do commend them for keeping the short bit with Cecil Dearlove in, the son of Mr Andrews’ friend who is made to come and play with Jock to keep him away from the Kirrins, but only succeeds in pushing Jock more towards them and resenting his step-father more.
Overall, if recommend this episode as one of the strongest in the 90s catalogue. So if you only watch one episode, make it this one! As the acting all around is quite strong, even Marco’s facial expressions aren’t as bad as usual, and the boys teasing of George when she sets her trap to catch them when they go out to watch for spook trains, is easily one of the more memorable. A good strong episode.
The children plus Jock at the end of their adventure
I reviewed part one some time ago and I’ve discovered that I’ve since misplaced that disk as it isn’t in the case. Oh dear. Disk two was there thankfully, so I can get on tonight. For some strange reason Windows Media Player has decided that the first two “tracks” are Five go adventuring again: Track 1, and Five Go Adventuring Again [Track 2] with the rest being just Track 3, 4 and 5 by an unknown artist. Very strange. I’ll just have to listen on to see what order the stories come in.
The cover which is from Five Go to Demon’s Rocks
CD one had Five Have A Puzzling Time (the title of the Red Fox paperback collection), When Timmy Chased the Cat! and George’s Hair is Too Long.
This CD then has Good Old Timmy!, A Lazy Afternoon, Well Done, Famous Five! Five and a Half-term Adventure and Happy Christmas, Famous Five.
As I said last time these must all be quite short to fit into the one hour running time. Nick McArdle is still the narrator and thankfully (given how often he barks) we still have the more convincing Timmy from CD1.
Good Old Timmy! This is a pretty weak story to begin with and it isn’t improved by the voice actor for Julian (same as in CD1). George is fine but we barely hear Dick or Anne that I could notice. Dick sounds far too similar to Julian to pick him out when he does speak. I noticed George called Quentin Daddy, but that is how it appears in the Red Fox paperback. I’m not sure what was in the original as I don’t have that. Reading along, the audio is almost word for word what’s in the book. Things like “said Julian” aren’t there and a few lines come in a different order but it’s much closer to the text than the full novel ones.
Well Done Famous Five. This isn’t the second story on the CD but it happens to be the second one I’ve listened to as I forgot to turn the shuffle off. This falls a little flat as an audio as it’s almost all naratted. Not just Nick McArdle but the Five describing what they see the runaway horse doing. “Oh he’s jumped a stream…” “Now he’s going slowly…” and so on. At least we get a good piece of voice acting from the angry farmer and the stable grooms man as well as some nice horse noises.
Back to the second story which is A Lazy Afternoon. Anne finally gets to speak a bit! This is a more enjoyable tale but then again I think it’s a stronger story in the first place. I admit I got distracted by getting organised for tomorrow while I was listening but I did pause to laugh at Mcardle’s immitation of the yellowhammer singing Little bit of bread and no cheese. The additional voices in this story come from the baddies who sound suitably menacing and the policemen towards the end as well. All I’d add is that the ‘very noisy motorbike’ wasn’t very noisy at all!
Five and a Half-Term Adventure. Anne suddenly sounds rather hoarse again for this story (after I forgot to skip Well Done Famous Five and listened to the start again…) I’m finding it slightly annoying having to listen to the rather lengthy musical into at the start of every story. It’s fine in the novel audios as then it’s at the beginning and I think a shorter version plays in between chapters (often with some narration over the top).
This one has some good train sounds (steam train, of course!) The chap with the baby has a strong Scottish accent – something that isn’t mentioned in the text. Aunt Fanny also gets a nice long speech – she sounds just like Aunt Fanny should.
Happy Christmas, Five! is the last of the short stories and I found that it rather dragged. Not a lot seems to happen in it, or it might just have been that it has gotten rather late in the evening.
Turns out that CD 2 runs for more than an hour, it’s more like an hour and a quarter.
If anyone’s interested I’ve written synopsis of the short stories here and here.
This is the second of my reviews of my top three in the Adventure series. At number three was Castle and here I discuss my number two – The Mountain of Adventure. As before, I won’t summarise the plot in detail because there are several reviews available. On this site, it has been reviewed by Fiona and by Stef, in two parts (part one is here and part two is here). There are also reviews by Keith Robinson on EnidBlyton.net and Anita Bensoussane on the Enid Blyton Society site from which the illustrations in this review are taken. In brief, the children are in holiday in Wales, and whilst on a donkey trek get lost and discover that inside a remote mountain a strange experiment is underway. A mad scientist has supposedly invented some wings that allow people to fly, and under the control of some foreign agents is testing them using ex-paratroopers. Snoopers are discouraged by a pack of vicious dogs. The children discover what is going on and get imprisoned in the mountain. But with the help of Bill Smugs’ they escape and the baddies are rounded up.
Mountain is the fifth of the eight volume Adventure series that appeared between 1942 and 1955, and was first published by Macmillan in 1949. The jacket illustration is here:
The excellent illustrations, as for the rest of the series, are by Stuart Tresilian. I have the first edition, but without dustjacket unfortunately, with the hardcover exactly as here:
So what are the strong and weak parts of this story? I’ll start with the weaknesses. It’s really not clear why a mountain in Wales would be chosen as the site for these experiments. Perhaps there is some special feature of the geology, but if so it is not explained. I also think that the way the Welsh people are depicted is rather derogatory or at least clichéd – there’s a lot of ‘Look you, whateffer-ing’. Evans, the family with whom the children stay, is always rendered as ‘Effans’, and David, who takes the children on the donkey trek, is treated pretty patronizingly as an illiterate coward. Then we have – gosh – a black man, Sam, described as “a negro”, who is one of the paratroopers and is portrayed as a gibbering imbecile. It’s the kind of thing that gives Blyton a bad name but, in a way, given the climate of the time, I think that the depictions of the Welsh are the more reprehensible. Published just after the Second World War, my guess is that Blyton had in mind that Sam was a black American, something still very exotic in Britain.
On the positive side, Mountain is first and foremost a science fiction adventure, of a sort fairly unusual in the Blyton oeuvre, comparable perhaps to The Secret of Moon Castle which I reviewed last year. There are some memorable descriptions of the strange machines inside the mountain, and some fantastic illustrations of this, including one that looks remarkably like a nuclear reactor:
In fact, I think that Mountain should be read as a novel about the fears of the nuclear weapon age, and about the potential dangers of science, or at least the subversion of science. The genius is depicted as not bad but mad, and taken advantage of by unscrupulous villains. In fact, the villains are quite excellent, in the form of “thin-lipped” Meier and “ape-like” Erlick. As in Castle (with Mannheim) the names are Germanic, which would make sense in post-war Britain. And their assistants, “soft-footed” and “nasty little slinky” Japanese, adept in the martial arts, also spoke to the period, even if it is rather hard to understand why a German-Japanese axis would be at work in Wales four years after the war had ended. Never mind, they are creepy and convincing and, as Bill understatedly remarks at the end, “probably had bad records”. What’s more, they chime with contemporaneous ideas about totalitarianism (George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was published the same year as Mountain), most obviously in the illustration of the workers in the scientific plant, which has an almost Soviet Realist look to it:
Back to less weighty matters. Mountain is also great because – depictions of the Welsh notwithstanding – it does have a very strong sense of place and of remoteness. I think this is one of the great strengths of Blyton: she conjures up the kind of place where we might imagine having a holiday, and the kind of place where an adventure might happen. We also have some fantastic Blyton food. For example on their first night there is this extraordinary spread:
“A great ham sat ready to be carved. A big tongue garnished round with bright green parsley sat by its side. An enormous salad with hard-boiled eggs sprinkled generously all over it was in the middle of the table. Two cold roast chickens were on the table too, with curly bits of bacon set round … scones and cakes! The jams and the pure yellow honey! The jugs of creamy milk!”
Imagine reading that in 1949, when there was still rationing in Britain! Even now it seems sumptuous.
One of the hallmarks of the Adventure series (the same is true in the Five, but it is less strongly drawn) is a series of transitions from an idyllic holiday, to an exciting holiday, to an adventure. In Mountain the idyllic holiday quickly moves to the excitement of a donkey trek to see the Vale of Butterflies. The adults are quickly dispatched, with Mrs Mannering slamming her hand in a barn door (but reacting with commendable stoicism) and Bill having to look after her. Once on the trek David disappears in a panic as the adventure starts, and we are away.
There are some beautiful moments as the children discover the secret entrance to the mountain laboratory, and encounter the mad inventor, styled a King by his exploiters. As in Castle, Philip plays a starring, heroic role when, captured by the baddies, he is forced to try the peculiar wings. Fortunately the helicopter pilot who conducts the trials gets cold feet, and Bill and his men are able to take over the helicopter, rescue the children and rout the baddies.
I remarked in my review of Castle that I find Philip’s way with animals is somewhat implausible as a plot device. But in Mountain, although this does apply to his taming of Snowy the goat, it is much better with respect to the dogs. Initially appearing to be a pack of wolves they are in fact Alsations, and Philip’s ability to control them is crucial both to the children escaping capture and also to the round-up of Meier (who ends up “white with rage”) and Erlick (who is “almost weeping with panic”). It’s very pleasing to see the bullies laid low and it is not at all difficult to accept that these brutally trained dogs would respond well to Philip’s care.
Mountain is quite densely plotted, with a considerable amount of incidental detail and explanation of events. Even read as an adult it has genuine drama. There is a strong sense of place, good villains, a plausible plot and a serious science fiction theme. Against that, the adults are dispatched in a contrived way and the treatment of the Evans and of David is a bit irritating. It is certainly one of the finest of the Adventures, but does not quite make it to number one. Adopting the scoring system of public schools of the time that I used for Castle, I would rate The Mountain of Adventure as an alpha-minus-query-alpha-minus-plus, if only by comparison with my number one choice which I will review next time.
June is racing away from us now although often it seems that summer is yet to arrive. Stef’s back home again after spending the week up in Scotland with me, so there will be plenty of photos to show you all over the coming weeks.
As for what’s coming up this week…
I can’t think of any blogging news to share with you this week, so I’ll just add a couple of photos from this past week (I’ve barely sorted through any of them!) and get off to bed.
The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage 2015 edition.
As you may know, I’m not very good at bringing you the blogs I promise, but this week I have been super good, even though I’ve been on holiday with Fiona, and re-read the first Five Find-Outers book The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage. In fact there was a moment or two in which it wasn’t looking likely that I would finish the book, so I had to go out and buy a copy of it (I was borrowing Fiona’s at the time). So I started off with a wonderful 12th impression first edition and had to end on the most recent 2015 edition. I didn’t bother with trying to find all the changes in the book, just so you know. I thought I would leave that to Fiona – I’ll be sending the book back up North when I’m finished with the review (well Monday) so she can line it up for a chapter comparison.
Now some of you will already know about my feelings towards the “darling” of the group, Fatty. Hands down, I do not like it. The rest of the characters I can get on with; Larry, Daisy, Pip and Bets are fine and in fact are very similar to the rest of the Blyton’s quartet’s which I suppose is why Fatty stands out so much and makes such an impression on people, because he is that little bit more ‘in-your-face’ and different from the others. He has flaws if you will, boastfulness being a very key one in the first book; Larry and Pip are always telling him off for boasting. Fatty’s nickname isn’t a co-incidence either, not only do his initials spell FAT (Frederick Algernon Trotterville), he is a fairly robust round shape by all descriptions. Dear Frederick doesn’t like this very much, but puts up with it for the sake of being a Find-Outer. I just can’t stand him I’m afraid, he doesn’t make a very good impression with me, and not to mention the fact that he gets compared to my beloved Julian all the time. I’ve said it before and I shall say it again, it is not a fair comparison.
Spose I better get on with the book now, hadn’t I? Well the book starts out with Dairy, Larry, Pip and Bets coming across the fire in Mr Hicks back garden as his workroom goes up in flames. His workroom houses all his precious documents and naturally when he gets back to the house after an afternoon in London he is furious. In front of the burning cottage is when Larry, Daisy, Pip and Bets all encounter Fatty as he tries to help put the fire out, much to the local constable’s displeasure.
Mr Goon (who I’m almost certain should be called Constable Goon, not mister) doesn’t like children or dogs, so is very angry when the children turn up and Fatty appears with his little dog Buster. He uses a phrase “Clear-Orf” to shoo the children away and they decide to nickname him that and they think of him quite scornfully. In fact the children don’t think Mr Goon has much brain at all!
Slowly, once they realise that the cottage had been deliberately set on fire, the Five children and dog agree to become the Five Find-Outers and try and find out before the police who set fire to the cottage.
They collect a series of clues quite quickly, a footprint, a scrap of grey material and list of suspects that seems to always be getting longer. There’s Mr Smellie, a absent minded academic who is friends with Mr Hicks but has had a row with him on the day of the cottage burning; Horace Peeks, the valet who leaves on that day, Mrs Minns the house keeper because Mr Hicks doesn’t like her cats and a Tramp who was caught trying to steal eggs by Mr Hicks.
Methodically, and almost one step ahead of old Clear-Orf, the find-outers go through their list and try and cross people off. Larry takes charge for this adventure, discussing with the others what they should do, and how is best to do it. They get quite far in their investigation, eliminating people until Bets unfortunately gets carried away.
Being the youngest of the group, she is a little more excitable and more inclined to believe the best in people. As she and Fatty both get singled out for teasing by the others, I believe a bit of a bond forms between them more readily than the others. Bets finds a trail of the footprints they found in Mr Hicks garden and follows them back to Mr Hicks house. She mistakenly tells the man everything, thinking she is helping and makes him promise not to tell on them.
Unfortunately Mr Hicks very clearly doesn’t keep his promise to Bets because in the next chapter Mr Goon visits all the children’s parents to “tell on” them. The children are then banned from interfering just as they solve the mystery.
Luckily they find someone to help them and the mystery gets solved. I won’t tell you who helps them or who the culprit was, because they would just be mean. But I can tell you that when I pushed my dislike of Fatty to one side, the book is actually quite enjoyable. Its a neat little mystery that in a way is very Agatha Christie like, but for children. Quite a clever book in fact. I do prefer the more dramatic storylines of the Adventure series and the Famous Five however, but there is something to be said for making the “little grey cells” work as Poriot would say.
Overall, I think I should encourage you to read this book, or re-read in many cases and see if you can figure out who fired the cottage before the children can. Go on, get those brains working! It’ll be a jolly good work out if nothing else!
Next review: The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat
I managed to get through three chapters this week, 19, 20 and 21. Earlier chapters are here, in posts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and nine.
My copy of the book is an 8th impression from 1955 (it was my mum’s before it was mine) and the modern copy I’m comparing it to is a Macmillan one from 2001 (one I borrowed from Stef).
CHAPTER NINETEEN: DOWN IN THE COPPER-MINES
Several of the changes made to this chapter seem to be trying to put the boys and girls on a more even footing. The girls didn’t want to [go down the mines] becomes The girls didn’t like the look of it. Which is pretty much saying the same thing, to me. Then Philip no longer asks You girls all right? but instead Everyone all right?
In the original text Dinah is described as more like a boy in her daring and strength, while Lucy-Ann was small compared to her. For some reason this now reads Dinah was as big and strong as any boy, but Lucy-Ann was not. Again this seems like the same thing just in different words.
As in previous chapters several phrases lose their hyphens and become single words – air-ways, half-way and far-away I noticed but coal-mines bucks the trend and becomes coal mines.
As with quite a few instances already in the book queer has been left untouched.
I could only spot one change in this chapter (which is why I did three chapters, as the blog would have been even shorter than it is, otherwise!)
Building on the notion that Philip and Dinah don’t always get along the original has He never had much use for Dinah’s ideas, which, as a rule, were rather far-fetched. This has been changed to Dinah’s ideas were rather farfetched as a rule. My spell checker doesn’t like farfetched as one word, incidentally. I can’t see why they needed to change this at all. Surely lots of boys have little time for their younger sisters’ ideas?
Again queer appears once in the chapter and isn’t updated.
There isn’t much to write about this chapter either. It’s almost as if the editor got bored and skipped a lot of it.
A shower of tiny stones came down and hit them becomes just A shower of stones. Why they couldn’t be tiny is beyond me.
Queer appears twice and both times it does get changed. Firstly to strange, and the second time Aunt Polly says I really feel faint.
After the earlier changes to the boys vs girls texts it’s funny to see lines like I’ve got to get you girls away safely being left.
That’s actually only four new/unique changes across four chapters. Clearly the editor were having a snooze! but it takes us to 105 in total.
I’ve had this bookmarked for a while, but haven’t needed to use it as we’ve had plenty of material from contributors lately. Rather than having Chris’ Adventure Series posts back to back we thought we’d break things up a little and finally share this letter from Samantha Tongue to Enid Blyton.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I’m not sure where to start, in thanking you for inspiring a life-long love of books. Nor could I mention just one of your many stories. I grew up devouring tales of the Famous Five, Brer Rabbit and St Clare’s … I still have many of these novels in my loft, brown and warped from the hours, as a child, I used to read them whilst soaking in the bath. Sometimes they would fall in and I’d dry them in the airing cupboard…
To read the rest, head over to the Novelicious blog.
I’ve never dropped a book in the bath, but my sister once dropped a school library copy of The River of Adventure in the toilet. It never was the same after that.
Photo credit: Julie Edgley / Foter / CC BY-SA
Hello everyone, we’re half way through the month of June today because we have five Mondays in the month.
This week I’m staying with Fiona in Scotland so we’re working on making sure we keep each other on track for blogging.This week we plan to bring you Fiona’s next update reviews from The Island of Adventure, what will she find this week? I hope to start a run of reviews about the Five Find Outers starting with The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage.
As we brought you a wonderful review from Chris last week and he has already sent us another blog to put up, to break it up a bit we shall be doing a reblog on Wednesday.
I haven’t got any pictures for you this week but will make it up to you when I’m back from Scotland. Hope you all have a good week and like what blogs we mange to bring you!
😀
I didn’t get around to listening to an audio drama for the blog this week (I think that was what I was meant to have done, at least!) so as Stef has arrived in Dundee tonight we decided to play the card game I got for Christmas. Unfortunately it is missing the instructions, but those are available to view on the Enid Blyton Society website so it’s not a disaster.
The instructions are fairly complicated for what isn’t that complicated a game and the first time we played I think we played wrong. We were drawing a card with every turn and thus always having seven cards in our hand. It came to score up after Stef won – the winner gets 20 points minus the number of cards they hold and all the others get 10 minus the cards they have. As you can see, there’s no point in that if everyone always has seven cards.
So we started again and played five rounds to see who would end up with the most points. Whenever Stef shuffled she seemed to end up with all the #1 cards which have to be played first! And when I shuffled I ended up with dreadful hands like this one
The cards themselves are beautiful Eileen Soper full colour illustrations, showing the stories from Five on a Treasure Island, Five Go to Smuggler’s Top, Five Go Off in a Caravan and Five Get Into Trouble. The goal is to lay them out in order, and the winner is whoever places the eighth card – the happy ending – in any storyline. Roadblocks can be thrown up in the form of danger cards, either general danger ones which can be played on any story or one of the four dangers specific to each story. For Treasure Island the danger is the men after the ingots, in Smuggler’s Top it is a watching enemy (Block), Caravan has poisoned meat for Timmy and Trouble has the gates of Owl’s Dene closing on the Five. To continue the story after one of these has been played an All-Safe card must the added to the sequence.
It was a fun game anyway, once we figured out what we were meant to be doing! Some rounds took longer than others depending on what order the cards came out in. One round was very short as we completed the storyline to Smuggler’s Top without starting any of the others.
After we played we got to talking about the illustrations and decided to compare them to those in the books.
It turns out some of them aren’t from the books. It would appear that all are brand-new despite having a passing similarity to those in the books. There are also a few that appear to have been drawn purely for the game. For example, the below illustration of the Five on their bikes doesn’t appear in Trouble.
These two from Smuggler’s Top show the differences between the versions.
Lastly, I can rarely write a blog without pointing out a mistake.
The caption reads Richard, when really, it should be Dick.
As I’m sure Stef will want me to mention, she won!
Egmont front cover of The Twins at St Clare’s.
This week’s Twinniest twins is all about the O’Sullivan twins from the St Clare’s series. They are the second lot of female twins we’ve looked at, but the first set of identical girl twins.
The O’Sullivan twins, Isabel and Pat start off their series and their time at St Clare’s around fourteen years old, and have become rather spoilt and lazy. They assume that they are going to be sent off to a posh and expensive big private school with their friends, and are disappointed when their parents inform them that they are going to St Clare’s to get their corners rubbed off ( I don’t think this is actually said so bluntly, but their father implies it!) So the twins are sent off to St Clare’s and vow to be so bad that they are sent home and have to go to the other school (I think its called Red Roofs or something similar, I can’t be sure!)
The twins do make for interesting reading, especially with the first book because they feature in it so much. They are absolutely identical which means that they can play tricks on people by pretending to be the other twin, which is the complete contrast to the Batton Twins of Malory Towers who aren’t alike enough for tricks like that. Part of the story involves Pat pretending to be Isabel. Pat doesn’t believe she should have to run around after the bigger girls, but Isabel isn’t so sure that disobeying them isn’t wrong and so answers the summons. She is then allowed down to the town to visit the shops while Pat isn’t. They hatch the plan that as long as only one goes at a time, Pat can go too, pretending to be Isabel.
To begin with you’re not really supposed to like the twins, at least I don’t think so. They’re fairly arrogant and rude, and dismissive of anyone apart from themselves. I think this is a little more true of Pat than Isabel, and she does seem to be the more dominant twin throughout the series. I do feel that Isabel gets left behind somewhat, and is perhaps the nicer twin.
The girls play a big part in the first two stories and then seem to waver in and out of the others, finally ending up as joint head girls of St Clare’s, but beyond them deciding that they quite liked St Clare’s really and wanting to stay, the stories become less about them and more about the other girls in the form. Like many other sets of twins in Blyton’s series they seem to get left behind somewhat, at least that’s how I see it.
They are never quite the same strong female leads in twins throughout the rest of the books I’ve read by Blyton, and its a shame to see Pat and Isabel fall by the way-side so much. They have a rival of kind in Darrell Rivers of Malory Towers as she’s a strong female lead but the added mysticism of twins is hard to pick up again in any other female based story by Blyton.
The twins, when they settle down, become likeable, funny and intelligent, as well as very no-nonsense. They are always in the background of the books, providing some stability to the story, and the basis, but we don’t visit them so much. Partly due to this and partly because I read these books in my early twenties, they are probably my least favourite set of twins. There’s no connection with them for me, and even though they are superb characters for children to be reading about, they just don’t connect with me.
I have yet to read Pamela Cox’s Sixth Form at St Clare’s to see what the twins are like when they’re in charge of the whole school, but as by the fifth book, they’re around but somewhat invisible, perhaps they come into their own again in the sixth form, I don’t know. I shall just have to read the book and find out!
Read about more Twinniest Twins here.
Having recently reviewed my top three ‘Famous Fives’, I’m now beginning a series on my top three of the ‘Adventure’ series, of which the first, at number three in my ranking, is The Castle of Adventure. The series are very different: there were some twenty-one Fives, published between 1942 and 1964, and only eight Adventures, published between 1944 and 1955. In general, the Adventures have more detailed and complex plots, and I assume were aimed at slightly older readers.
Both series feature four children, two boys and two girls, but in the Adventures these are two pairs of siblings whereas in the Five they are three siblings and a cousin. As so often in Blyton there is a weird family set up. In the Adventures, one pair of orphaned siblings (Jack and Lucy-Ann Trent) are adopted by the widowed mother of the other pair (Philip and Dinah Mannering). There is no father or uncle in the Adventures, but instead Bill Smugs (Cunningham) is the male adult, who later in the series marries Mrs Mannering. Unlike Uncle Quentin, Bill joins in rather than gets in the way of the adventures, partly because he is a policeman or even, it’s sometimes implied, an intelligence officer.
In both series there is a fifth member of the team: Timmy the dog for the Five, Kiki the parrot for the Adventures. And here I have to make a declaration: I think that Kiki spoils the Adventures (whereas Timmy adds to the Five) because I find her completely implausible both in the range of her language and her capacity to make sense in context. Timmy is believable and wonderful; Kiki is absurd and ludicrous. There – I have said it and won’t repeat it in my future reviews.
So, now, to Castle. It is the second in the series and was first published in 1946 by Macmillan. I have the 1953 reprint of the first edition, in hardback but sadly without its dustjacket. Illustrations are by the wonderful Stuart Tresilian. The first edition dustjacket is pictured below (all images in this review taken from the Enid Blyton Society website).
First edition dustjacket by Stuart Tresilian
My unjacketed cover is exactly as depicted here:
Illustrated boards by Stuart Tresilian
There are other reviews of the book on this site, by Fiona and by Stef, two reviews on the EnidBlyton.net site and another on the Enid Blyton Society site. So, unlike my reviews of the Fives, I am not going to summarise the plot in detail. Briefly, the children discover that in a ruined castle near their holiday home there is a gang of foreign agents using it as a base to spy on an adjacent secret military research site (so secret that even Bill does not know what goes on there). Instead of a plot summary I will identify the good and bad aspects, as I see them.
Chief amongst the bad aspects is Tassie. Described as a “gypsy”, she is the usual stereotypical Blyton outsider who is dirty, dressed in rags, can’t speak English properly, and lives like a semi-wild animal. She does aid the children in the Adventure but she is also presented in pretty demeaning ways. Another negative to me is the device, used often in the series, of having Philip’s uncanny ability to tame wild animals play a part in the plot. Here, Button the fox plays a key role in carrying messages. As with Kiki the parrot I just don’t find that realistic (if you disagree, just try taming a fox cub to carry messages for you).
But there are so many good things in this story! First and foremost, the castle itself. The idea of finding a remote and semi-ruined castle – with secret rooms, old suits of armour and underground passages – is exciting for children and still has an appeal for adults. Later in the series we are told that the setting is Scotland, but there is no particular sense of that in the book. Even so, the picturesque rural location, including an archetypal cottage, do give Castle a classic holiday feel. At the same time, the mundane details in the background, such as trains and lunch in a country hotel (see illustrations) make for a cosy atmosphere.
But we want more than cosiness, we want an adventure – and we get it! There is a gradual build up as the castle is explored and Jack has the adventure – but not Adventure – of trying to photograph the eagles nesting there. Soon mysterious lights and traces of human occupants in the castle herald the beginning of the adventure proper, and events begin to move more quickly. Key moments of excitement include Philip very bravely standing up to the baddies (see illustration), even in the face of genuinely vicious treatment.
The chief baddy, called Mannheim but known as Scar-Neck, is a great villain, indeed even his nom de guerre is perfectly chosen. And the denouement, with a wild thunderstorm breaking out right on top of the castle could hardly be bettered. In a splendid example of the literary device of ‘pathetic fallacy’ the next day brings “clear morning sunlight”, a resolution to the adventure and, even, reference to those Blyton perennials the “burly policemen”. The castle, alas, is all but destroyed but it will always be for us as Jack describes it in the closing sentence – the Castle of Adventure!
Overall, a fine story and easily in my top three Adventures. But compared with my top two (which I will cover in future reviews) the plot is a shade more simplistic and the sense of place a little less strong. With marks knocked off for Tassie and Button as well, Castle gets what Dick and Ju’s schoolmasters might have described as ‘beta-plus-query-alpha-minus’.
Here we are again, another Monday, and another manic one for me as I have to work when I don’t usually. At the end of this week, I also get the joy of going up to Bonnie Scotland to see Miss Fiona for a week of frolics! Hopefully we’ll have some pictures, stories and new blogs ready for you when we’ve had chance for a chat.
Our contributor this week will be Chris with the Castle of Adventure, in which he looks at why it is one of his top three Adventure books.
Fiona will be comparing chapters from the Island of Adventure for the text updates, and I will be bringing you the Twinniest twins that I failed to bring you yesterday. Failing that for a second week running, I shall try for another 90’s TV series episode.
Happy reading! I’ll leave you with a few pictures from my recent trip to Kew Gardens with Corinna, one of our past contributors. I hope you like them! The rest will, in time be found on Two Points of View.
Today I bring you another of Blyton’s poems from The Enid Blyton Poetry Book called An Evening of June, which is somewhat appropriate for we have just entered the month of June. I hope you enjoy it!
Slowly the sun slips over the hill,
The Shadows of the trees are long,
The blackbird opens his gleaming bill,
And whistles an evensong,
And slowly lumbering down the lane
The hay-wagon comes with its load again.
The hedges look on a the horses pass
And fling out a mischievous spray,
They catch at the burden of scented grass,
And pull little pieces away.
And by all their booty ’tis easy to know,
The way that the lumbering hay-wagons go.
Past the wild roses, delicate, frail,
Whose petals fall soft on the breeze,
Down the long hillside and into the vale
Beneath all the shadowy tress,
Past all the poppies that dance by the road
The hay-wagon carries its very last load.
Its a shame you don’t really get hay-wagons anymore isn’t it, but you do get the same thing with tractors almost when they move the hay!
So we’re back to #16 in the series this week, for my 16th review. I was supposed to do this one last time but got the order wrong!
This is a strange little story, I have to say.
We begin with the postman instead of the milkman, and Noddy receives an invite to a party at Big Ears’ toadstool house. Tessie Bear, the grown up Tubby Bears, the Wobbly Man and Miss Fluffy Cat are also invited according to the postie who has a lot of gossip to impart along with letters.
After a minor incident with a Toy Soldier and his gun Noddy gets himself ready for the party and uses his car to ferry some of the guests there. It turns out that it’s the birthday of Whiskers (Big Ears’ cat) and that’s what the party is in aid of. Everyone is glad that Tessie Bear has left Bumpy Dog at home they know he would cause chaos.
You can see where this is going, can’t you? Yes. Suddenly there’s barking in the distance. The Bumpy Dog then gatecrashes the party and Whiskers runs off.
Big Ears is absolutely furious and does a lot of shouting before using his stick to hit Bumpy Dog – which I’m sure will have been edited out in newer editions. Saying that, it’s illustrated on the back cover and I wonder if that’s been changed as well.
Big Ears blames Tessie Bear for not locking Bumpy Dog up securely and the party breaks up with very bad feelings between Noddy and Big Ears.
Of course nobody holds grudges very long in Toy Land and the next day Noddy goes to check on Big Ears, to see if Whiskers has come back. He hasn’t and Big Ears has gone to search for him.
Noddy and Big Ears end up in Toy Cat Town as they think that’s where Whiskers might have gone, even if he is a regular cat and not one who talks or wears clothes. Some of the Toy Cats look down on “common” cats who walk on four paws and only say miaow and hiss.
Anyway, Whiskers only passed through Toy Cat Town on his way to Wizard Town. Noddy is apprehensive of tangling with wizards, but being a brownie, Big Ears is unfazed. Wizard Town is full of houses with towers and quickly find a shop selling black cats, which of course, are good for helping wizards with spells.
Big Ears faces off with the first wizard he comes across and snaps his wand (I wonder if he had problems after that, like Ron Weasley, and ended up dribbling slugs.) He then finds out the shop has sold Whiskers to Wily Wizard for sixpence.
Naturally they then seek out Wily Wizard, who turns out to be not that wily at all. He just talks and talks and goes on and rambles and doesn’t let anyone get a word in edgeways. Between that and his ardour for Noddy’s car it means Big Ears is able to fetch Whiskers with little trouble.
I’m not going to give away the ending but it’s not as simple as Big Ears just walking, or driving, off with Whiskers. Wily Wizard not being that wily and Noddy being very generous contribute to the solution, as well as some rather un-Blytonian trickery from the good guys.
So there you have it! I prefer the Noddys with an element of mystery to them and in general I would place the magical or fantasy tales (from any of Blyton series) at the bottom of my preferences.
Out of the two Wishing Chair books I owned as a child, I always preferred the second – The Wishing Chair Again (published in 1950) – because the adventures were longer and seemed more interesting. It also introduced the character Winks the brownie, whose sheer naughtiness led them into some very unusual situations. So I was delighted to find this book in my husband’s childhood book collection and wrote this rather-long review (I just really enjoy this book!).
Cover by Hilda McGavin
It starts with Mollie and Peter coming home for the holidays and wondering where Chinky and the Wishing Chair are, as they can’t be found in their playroom at the bottom of the garden. Chinky has been looking after the chair while they’re at school and since he couldn’t get into the playroom because the door was locked, he had to keep hiding it in the garden all morning!
In the first book the initial adventure is quite short, but this time they end up on a much longer first adventure (starting in the second chapter) when Peter tells the chair to take them to “Goodness Knows Where” – apparently it’s a real place – but the chair first takes them along a moonpath and then to Chinky’s cousin Sleep-Alone.
From here, they go to consult Goodness and then find the chair has been stolen, so they have to spend a couple of chapters first getting home and then finding their chair in Pin Village. But life’s never that simple and after a goblin called Tricky gets to it first, it takes until the end of chapter six before they finally have their chair back.
This is, of course, only the first adventure of many, with the chair taking them to the Village of the Slipperies and having its wings cut off. The growing ointment they get to solve this problem soon leads to another when the children use it to make their toys and Chinky’s wand grow wings and they take off for Toyland. The children and Chinky set off after them and find that the toys have ended up at Mister Grim’s School for Bad Brownies!
This is where they meet Winks and Mister Grim, who appears to be the male version of Dame Slap from the Faraway Tree as he asks ridiculous questions – if he takes 52 hairs from his floor-length beard, how many will be left? – and deals out strokes with a stick for punishment. The stick is actually Chinky’s wand and the pixie soon devises a plan to get it back and use it to escape, so they can lead an army of toys to the school (led by a Golliwog – I’ve got one of the older versions that hasn’t been changed) to rescue the toys belonging to Mollie and Peter.
The children and Chinky rescue Winks at the same time and the brownie simply can’t stay out of trouble. There’s a visit to the Land of Goodies (one of my favourites from the Faraway Tree books), with delicious-sounding jam tart flowers, a ginger-beer stream and ice-cream growing on another plant in the cool valley. Winks first orders red pepper soup to be funny and then starts breaking and eating someone’s house, so he’s left behind and has to find his own way out of the chocolate cake prison.
The brownie is some help when Chinky and the chair disappear while the children are at the seaside – apart from dyeing his hands blue when they go to Mr Spells for help – but soon afterwards he steals a wand from Witch Wendle and turns Chinky into a puff of smoke. He in turn becomes a horrid smell as Chinky cast a spell with his own wand at the same time and the children have to go to Witch Wendle to find out how to get them back.
Witch Wendle says that the still smelly Winks really has to go back to school, but Mollie pleads for him to stay until she and Peter have to go back to boarding school. On their last day of holidays they make another attempt to get to the Land of Goodness Knows Where before deciding to land on Island of Surprises instead.
Like the last land at the end of each Faraway Tree book, the Island provides them with mostly nice surprises, like the car race and the ice-cream fountain. Winks tries to misbehave several times, but here the magic punishes him for being greedy or naughty and when he finally manages to annoy a witch, he’s sent back to Mister Grim then and there. Peter feels sorry for him and gives him the Tidbit Dish that he won in the car race, so he’ll get enough to eat at school – every time you lift the lid there’s a tidbit there, like a sausage or a bar of chocolate. Winks is sent off on a swan and the children and Chinky have to leave too, as the Island of Surprises always disappears at sunset.
Wow, where has the year gone? It will be summer before we know it! We’ve had a great week on the blog, and smashed our best daily views record too. This is what our stats page looked like that night.
Hopefully we’ll have another good week this week, here’s what we’ve got for you to read:
P.S. Thanks for the get well soon messages. I’m feeling much better now!
I will just end with a few pictures from my last walk (from before I fell ill!)
The Ship of Adventure I bid on. Picture taken from eBay listing.
I finally got around to finishing The Ship of Adventure for this week’s blog, at approximately 8pm yesterday (Sunday) and then had to sit down and write the blog. It was a good thing that I re-read the book as although I could remember vague details I didn’t remember enough to write a review on the book.
Just to summarise the story for those who don’t know, The Ship of Adventure starts with Dinah, Philip, Jack and Lucy-Ann trying to decide what they are going to do in their summer holidays, and wondering what Mrs Mannering has planned for them as she’s being all secretive. The children are excited to find out that she’s taking on a big cruise ship around the Mediterranean where she can “keep an eye” on them so they don’t fall into any more nasty adventures.
First of all, I would like to admit to something, something I only realised with this re-read. Now I have only read The Ship of Adventure once before, so I hope you can forgive me for not realising this until now, but I assumed that the Ship that was referenced in the title was the Viking Star, the big cruise ship that the four children and Mrs Mannering join to go on their cruising holiday. However in fact I believe the ship is actually the one that is found in the bottle that Lucy-Ann gets Philip for his birthday, as that is the one that starts off the big adventure.
Anyway so off the children go on this big ship with not a whiff of adventure in the air. This reminds me a little of one of the Famous Fives, Five go Down to the Sea I believe, where Julian makes them all promise (for Anne’s sake) that if an adventure comes their way, they shall just leave it and walk away. Its a similar feeling for the Trents and Mannerings in this adventure, because the first half of the book is a little slow paced, like nothing is going to pick up. Its not until just after half way through the book that things start to happen.
Naturally before Lucy-Ann finds her ship in a bottle for Philip’s birthday, the aforementioned boy finds himself another pet. This time a monkey called Micky that he rescues from a group of unkind children. Micky the monkey then plays a big part in the adventure and discovery of the all important treasure map. He also, strangely enough, gets taken home to England, allowed through customs and taken home. I don’t think Mrs Mannering would have been too impressed. I suppose Micky being allowed home with Philip is maybe a sign of how different things are now. Perhaps in the updated versions he’s left at the last place they visit or something. I don’t have a modern copy handy so I can’t check.
So the children are settling into their cruise when a boy joins them, Lucian who is accompanied by his Aunt and Uncle, Mr and Mrs Eppy. Mr Eppy always wears dark glasses and doesn’t like his nephew or the children. This makes him one of those grownups that has to be avoided and quite naturally (and rightly) the bad guy. We find out that Mr Eppy is extremely rich and likes to buy and sell islands in search of treasures, which for this treasure hunt makes him the perfect adversary.
There are lots of ins and outs in this adventure, lots of little things that add up quite quickly to a big adventure. Part of the reason everything seems to happen in the second half of the book is that poor Mrs Mannering has to leave to go and look after Aunt Polly, who you will remember from The Island of Adventure, (and oddly enough is described in this book as Mrs Mannering’s aunt rather than that of Philip and Dinah – have I missed something here?) Anyway, Bill offers to look after the children for Mrs Mannering and comes out to join the cruise. So far the children have found the map to the treasure and done a little investigating but are being stalled and stalked by Mr Eppy who is keen to know their secret.
Whereas they do not tell Aunt Allie what is going on, the children agree to let Bill into the secret. (Note that the Famous Five never tell a grown-up until its time for the police to be called in!) Bill agrees they should see if they can get to the bottom of the mystery and in the end, they all end up on the island of Thamis where the map is showing the treasure is buried. Bill seems intent on ignoring his promise to Mrs Mannering by letting the children drag him into an adventure and this turns out to be have been the worst thing he could have done because they get stranded on the island; something rotten abounds.
I won’t give away anymore, but all I can say is that this is where the real excitement and page turning begins. Bill saves the day in a way, through having brought a colleague who tracks them down on the island, and Philip’s monkey Micky also helps save the day. Its lucky Philip adopted him really!
Anyway, this is all very thrilling, but my romantic soul enjoys the very last chapter the best where Mrs Mannering hears the whole story and tells Bill she won’t be able to trust him again. Distraught at the idea of losing Bill from their lives, Lucy-Ann comes up with a plan! Why don’t Aunt Allie and Bill get married? Then they can all keep an eye on each other and the children get a new father. It seems a very sudden arrangement, because apart from Allie and Bill being seemingly fond of each other, I never picked up on anything more than that, but right there in the last chapter is the moment where you can feel that there is something more in the air.
I could tell you what the outcome of this is, but I shall leave you to read the book yourself… you won’t be disappointed.
Overall Ship isn’t one of my favourite Adventures. There are some beautifully classic moments in it, and I do enjoy the romance at the end, but it takes a long time to build up even though the exotic setting is enjoyable because its somewhere new and back in the fifties that sort of holiday would have been out of the reach of most of the children reading the book.
So go and read The Ship of Adventure and let me know what you think of it!
Next review: The Circus of Adventure
I’ve been very good this week and actually listened to this in advance of blogging day. I was also a bit forgetful and forgot to turn off the shuffle feature at first, so started with a random chapter. Oh well!
I sometimes wonder if there are any two recordings with the same voices for the Five. This one has George played by someone who has voiced Anne in other recordings; she’s a bit too girly for George and it makes me think Anne’s speaking when she’s not. Timmy is back to sounding like a very small, yappy dog unfortunately. Dick is voiced by the same actor as he is in Five Go Off to Camp (the only Blyton cassette tape I had as a child) and even though he has rather a lisp (he’s really imprethed at one point) he’s Dick to me. Julian and Anne are perfectly fine, but I can’t recall which recordings if any they have been heard on before.
I did notice, though, that we don’t hear Anne at all until the face appears at her window (chapter three in the book). She’s mentioned by the narrator but I didn’t hear her make a peep before then.
Some updatings have crept into the story – George and Jo both wear jeans instead of shorts and Julian is no longer Master Julian when Joan speaks. I think some of the descriptions of Jo and her father have been tampered with too, but I didn’t have the book to hand while I listened so I can’t be sure.
Plenty has been left though – they still talk about how boys shouldn’t hit girls, and Dick and Jo still come to blows.
There isn’t a huge voice cast in this recording, but then there perhaps aren’t as many incidental characters. There’s the Five, obviously, plus Aunt Fanny and Uncle Quentin (briefly so they don’t make too much of an impression). Then there’s Joan, Jo, Jo’s father Simmy, Jake, Markhoff, Red Tower and one policeman.
Markhoff and Red Tower are both given stereotypical Russian sounding accents. Votch instead of watch and so on. It’s almost like Grandad in Only Fools and Horses doing his best German. “Vot is your name?” and all that. Both of them sound pretty similar. As do Simmy and Jake when it comes down to it, I just assume Jake has dialogue towards the end at the house on the cliff as it was hard to tell who was talking sometimes. Simmy/Jake may also have been in Five Go Off to Camp, actually, as it sounds rather like Wooden Leg Sam.
Anyway, Jo’s decent if a bit girly and Joan does a good ‘country woman’ accent.
There’s one big omission that I’m quite disappointed in. The whole chapter where the Five have to put out one of Uncle Quentin’s notebooks to be collected is just narrated. So we don’t get to heard Sid at all. I would have liked to have heard his ‘coos’ and about him being ‘partial to chocolate mould’. I know, it’s a fairly inconsequential part of the story and there isn’t room for everything but I just really like that part!
Normally I don’t notice all the little bits that are cut to make it fit into an hour, it’s not until I’m flicking through the book that I go “oh yes, they missed this, or that,” but I really noticed the lack of Sid. Poor lad.
And that’s all I really have to say about it, I think! A good listen, even for one of my less favourite Fives. But then, you can’t really go wrong with the Five, can you?
Fiona
pippastef
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