Letters to Enid part 53: From volume 3 issue 15

Posted on July 24, 2024 by Fiona

Previous letters pages can be found here.

Letters page from Volume 3, issue 15.
July 20th – August 2nd, 1955.

OUR

LETTER PAGE

A letter from Dianne Patten, Walsall, Staffs.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I wonder if this is a record – I have found 39 four-leaved clovers, two five-leaved, and one six-leaved. Twenty-two were found in our garden and the rest on a walk that I went with Mother and Father, I have enclosed one for you and I hope it brings you good luck. Lots of love from,
Dianne Patten.

(I think you really must hold the record, Dianne – I have never heard of anyone finding so many lucky clover-leaves before. What a lucky garden you must have! Thank you for the magnificent four-leaved clover you sent me – the biggest I have ever seen.)

A letter from Rosemary Jenkins and Janet Knapman, Plymouth.
Dear Queen Bee,
In our Busy Bees News this month we read about the Mobile Dispensary Caravan coming to Plymouth. We have both wanted to inspect a P.D.S.A. caravan for a long time. The man in charge was very nice and showed us round. We thought it was lovely and enjoyed our visit very much. Before we left we gave a gift of three shillings and sixpence, which we had saved up from running errands for people. We are both Busy Bees and think it is a very interesting Club.
Yours sincerely, Rosemary Jenkins and Janet Knapman.

(I am so glad that you two Busy Bees managed to inspect one of our P.D.S.A. vans. I wonder when I shall have a letter from someone who has inspected our own Busy Bee Van!)

A letter from Ruth Clare, Newport Pagnell, Bucks.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I am writing to tell you about the wrens in our garden. Last year they built a nest in a very tiny hole in the trunk of one of our trees. The mother laid five eggs which all hatched out, and she was kept busy feeding the youngsters. One day they all flew past me and fluttered down to the ground, and the mother gathered them together. At night she took them all back into the nest, brought them out next morning into some brushwood nearby and took them back again that night. I have never heard of a wren doing this before.
With best wishes from
Ruth Clare.

(What an interesting letter, Ruth ! You must have loved watching the little wren-family.)

How is it that I have NEVER found a four-leafed clover? OK, so I haven’t exactly spent hours hunting for one but honestly I have often wondered if they’re a myth as I’ve never seen one. And yet, here’s Dianne finding 22 in her garden alone? There was a letter about finding a four-leafed clover back in issue 13 too, so I’ll hold off on calling them a conspiracy theory just yet.

I thought that Queen Bee was an odd way to start a letter, but it’s probably not if you do call yourself the Queen of the Busy Bees!

I’ll have to keep a look-out for wrens now as I’m not sure I’ve seen one of those, either. (Perhaps THEY’RE the conspiracy theory?). They are, apparently, the most common breeding bird in Britain with 8.5 million breeding pairs in the UK. However they are very small, and it also says that they are scarcer in northern England and Scotland, which might explain it.

Posted in Magazines | Tagged Enid Blyton's Magazine, Letters page, Letters to Enid from volume 3 | 2 Comments

Monday #589

Posted on July 22, 2024 by Fiona

This is late going up as I just couldn’t decide what to write this week. I don’t like doing the same things week after week somehow, yet all the other ideas I have are things that will take longer than a few days to put together.

Letters to Enid part 53

and

Reading The Valley of Adventure to Brodie

I bought something new last week – Six in a Caravan. No, I’ve not been mucking around with the Famous Five titles again – this is story by Bridget Mackenzie. I mostly bought it because it has illustrations by Eileen Soper, and I wondered how it would compare to Blyton’s caravan-featuring books.

Something else to go on my list to blog about!

Posted in Blog talk | Tagged Bridget Mackenzie, July, Monday, Six in a Caravan | Leave a comment

Reading The Castle of Adventure to Brodie

Posted on July 20, 2024 by Fiona

We have read 2o of the 21 Famous Five books so far. When Brodie asked for the next one at bedtime I said This is the very last one, ever

Immediately he said he wanted to make it last, so could we read something else. I offered the Castle of Adventure and he said yes, we would read all the adventure books and then the last Famous Five as we will

“Save the best until last. Isn’t that what they say, Mummy?”

I just hope he’s not disappointed when we come back to the final Famous Five. I’m quite glad to procrastinate over it as it’s my least favourite one!

First impressions

Sometimes I can read whole chapters and he hardly says a word, other times I can barely get a few sentences out before he interrupts with comments and questions. This was one of the latter situations.

First he spotted the opening illustration

and said OOH knights. That looks scary, I don’t know if I want to read this now, it looks too scary. He really likes castles and knights at the moment too!

I got as far as reading the first few words – Two girls sat on a window-seat on page one and he looked at the illustration asking Who are they? BULLIES?

I reached paragraph two, and had managed one sentence of Lucy-Ann speaking when he said that she sounded like Anne and that the girls were obviously both based on the same character. He has a point, and I do pretty much give them the same voice. Later he also remarked that Dinah helping Mrs Mannering cut sandwiches was Just like Anne!

He said Philip sounded like a terror of a boy regarding the earwigs under pillows and thought he might come home with a tarantula this time.

Obviously he had forgotten that Jack and Lucy-Ann no longer lived with Uncle Geoffrey as he repeated Once lived with in an extremely questioning way.

When Jack was described as having freckles he added Too many to count! as that’s what’s said about Lucy-Ann and her freckles.

Spring Cottage

As soon as I mentioned the spring he said That means they have water too. I asked him if thought Spring Cottage sounded like a good place to stay and he said yes very firmly.

He wasn’t impressed with the illustration of the girls at the spring, saying that The ones in the Famous Five are much, much better. He actually wasn’t a fan of the pictures throughout – he found them too dark. Sorry, Stuart Tresilian, the art critic has spoken!

Early on the children discuss not having more adventures.

I think they’ll have more adventures – there wouldn’t be more books if they hadn’t.

This is true of course!

He guessed it was Bill Smugs they were bumping into in town- or at least the man from the last book! He then remembered Bill Smugs! but couldn’t remember his real last name.

When Tassie arrived with Button he looked at the illustration and was puzzled. A cat? Is it a dog?

Kiki

As always he found Kiki hilarious – I try to do my best parrot voice for her of course.

He laughed like anything at Kiki at the station, encouraging the porter to answer her by shouting Yes, yes!

When she starts her Turn to page 6 stuff he said she’s saying school words, but wanted to know why she kept saying to Open your books.

He loved her sniffing/using a hanky trick.

Like the children Brodie was momentarily startled by Kiki falling but he quickly pointed out that she’d fly back up – or at least he hoped she’d manage to fly before she hit the ground!

He blamed her for touching the children’s heads and shoulders in the castle – but really it was the cobwebs.

He found it particularly funny when she got muddled up and would correct her loudly – it’s pop goes the WEASEL!

When the men shot at her in the courtyard he was very upset and worried – convinced, in fact, that she had been hit.

The Castle

He was confused by the “tunnel” – the narrow space between the cliff and the outer walls – thinking it was inside the castle.

He thought Tassie should jump across from the cliff to the window – obviously he has as much faith her in abilities as she does. I asked him if he would go across the plank into the castle and he said yes, but in real life I’m not sure that he would! A tree branch a few feet off the ground yes, a plank wedged up a cliff, not so likely.

According to him the puddle of water just meant that the pump was leaky.

He was sure that Jack was mistaken about the light at night – it must have been a moon or the stars. Then he turned to me when Lucy-Ann mentioned seeing the light, eyes wide. There WAS a light!

The faint light coming from under the floor of the great hall was in his mind a cellar with a chandelier – you get chandeliers in castles, don’t you.

He was adamant that Philip should just step off the pedestal and attack the two men – he couldn’t see how Philip would be awkward and slow and probably easily pushed over.

He guessed that the plank was gone and that’s why they couldn’t see it – but it begs the question – where DID the men put the plank? They didn’t just knock it to the ground. It’s not in any of the rooms – there’s no mention of any locked rooms or cupboards – it’s not in the hidden room, they don’t find it in the hidden passage… Also makes me wonder why Tassie didn’t bring a plank or a tree branch (or just jump like she initially wanted to) instead of taking the underground tunnel. Also that Button wasn’t soaking and freezing himself which would have given them a clue! (Reading the books aloud really does make you notice new things!)

He didn’t remember that Tassie can’t read – but he groaned like anything when Philip reminded the girls.

After a little prompting he also guessed that it was Bill in the house, and he cheered when it was revealed that it was Bill.

Once Tassie had swapped places with Jack he complained a little that the book was too confusing, and he was very tense, almost too tense during the final chapters. I think he remembered the near-drowning at the end of the first book as he did ask why the children always ended up in such bad situations.

He was concerned that Tassie didn’t know Bill Smugs and wouldn’t trust him like the others did.

Once Bill’s lot get into the secret room he was desperate for the men to step off the pedestals and attack. Then he asked why there was always someone smashing a lamp and I had to explain why a lamp was better than torches.

He was frustrated that Scar-Neck and the other man had got away and would be in another country by now.

He was very upset about the castle being damaged – he was almost in tears about it in fact! He guessed that the castle had fallen in on top of the secret room – still very upset about the castle not being whole any more – and said they’d need to go down the secret passage.

Questions and explanations

I often get distracted from the book when Brodie asks a question as I go looking up information and/or spend ages trying to explain things.

I had to explain carbolic soap to him, sort of, seeing as I’ve never seen the stuff in real life. I assume it was strong and smelly? I’m actually tempted to buy some now (he really wants me to!) and find out – though I’m not sure how accurate modern stuff is to what the books were talking about. I always imagined it as cream/white – but apparently it’s always dark pink/red!

We had a very long conversation about taking photos with film rather than digital. He’s never questioned it, but I asked him if he knew what they meant. So we talked about the rolls of film making negatives and having to get them developed. Not being able to see what you’d taken, not knowing how it had turned out until they were developed, you could only take so many exposure – 24 or 36 per roll (I vaguely remember) – and then that was it unless you had a spare roll. Then we were on to home developing with chemicals which I know less about.

He knew what a hide was but had to ask me what furnished, a cloud burst and the vagaries of the rock meant. Blyton gets a hard time for her simple writing – vagaries of the rock is not a simple expression!

Something else he asked was why every book had to have someone hiding/sheltering inside a gorse bush. Good question – gorse bushes are not the comfiest places I imagine. I sometimes point out gorse bushes on walks and ask him if he’d like to make a shelter out of it, but somehow he always says no!

Changes to the text

Obviously I’m reading the original text but I found myself making a few small changes as I read.

I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I changed a little of the way they speak about Tassie and how smelly she is as honestly it sometimes came across as a bit mean and judgemental.

I down-played the foreign-ness of the men – not to make them not foreign but just the assumption that they must be up to no good simply because they’re foreign.

I also said each other or children instead of the girls sometimes when it came to helping / being scared / having to doing the dishes. Not so much that the girls did the dishes, more the expectation that they would do them because they are girls. We’ve had plenty of discussions about how out-dated these attitudes are already, so I don’t see a need to keep repeating the girls-should-do-the-housework statements.

The End

At the end he was disappointed that he never got to see the police arresting the men. Me saying that Bill and his men ARE the police, kind of surprised him, but they didn’t seem to count!

He wasn’t at all pleased that the men seemed to have been killed, because there should not be people killed in a CHILDREN’S BOOK!

He was still really sad that the castle was ruined even though he loves exploring ruined castles. Honestly, I don’t feel like I’ve expressed just how sad he was – it really upset him! I wasn’t expecting that, I thought he’d find it exciting.

It was very late when we finished the book and so I forgot to ask him about his favourites unfortunately. I suspect his favourite characters would have been (as usual) all of them!

Posted in Book reviews | Tagged The Adventure Series, The Castle of Adventure | 3 Comments

Enid Blyton references in other works of fiction, part 4

Posted on July 17, 2024 by Fiona

I knew this would happen – a matter of hours after part 3 went up I found another reference! But it has taken me over five months to collect enough to create a whole new post.

Tilly and the Map of Stories – Anna James

There were a couple of Faraway Tree references in the first book of the series (which I had in part 3), there was nothing in book two, but I’m on book three now and found another reference.

Tilly and Oscar find themselves on a rather magical train (the Sesquipedalian) where they are offered a meal…

Inside the powder blue menus were a lists and lists of every kind of food you could possibly imagine, and what book they were from. There was clam chowder from Moby Dick or a picnic with all the trimmings from a Famous Five book, and you could follow it up with an apple pie from The Railway Children, or some Turkish Delight from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

The only thing better than a Famous Five picnic is a Famous Five farmhouse meal!

Studies – Jenny Colgan

Not surprising – another Jenny Colgan reference from her boarding school series. Not surprising because there were references in the first book (as well as two others from another series).

Claire (our boarding school teacher) is on a weekend trip with some of her pupils to an outdoor activity centre.

The first is not a direct reference but given Colgan’s previous references and her talking about taking inspiration from St Clare’s and Malory Towers I feel like this has to be counted:

The children fell on lunch with an appetite…. and like all food eaten outside, in the sunshine, after some strenuous exercise, and a bit of a thrill, tasted unbelievably good.

As a side not the food included rice balls and halloumi alongside the more Blytonian chicken, salad, ham and egg pie.

And the second reference is a direct one:

With noise and chatter, the campsite came together in a clearing and it was undeniably fun – and a little Famous Five – to be on an island.

In her author’s note she also acknowledged Blyton again:

I have always loved boarding school books so much. Malory Towers, St Clare’s…

The Flatshare – Beth O’Leary

I’ve actually read this before but somehow did not note the two Famous Five references in the physical book, I got them when listening to the audiobook, though!

In the Flatshare Leon works nights as a nurse, and Tiffy works day time hours at a publishing house. That means they share the flat (and the bed) but never see each other in person. So they write a lot of notes to each other instead.

Leon writes:

Seems you’ve been shopping too. I like the blue and white dress on the back of the door. Looks like the sort of one the Famous Five might wear for going on adventures.

The only one who’d wear a dress would be Anne, but perhaps Leon didn’t read the Famous Five, or has forgotten their names.

Later Tiffy is getting read for an unknown adventure that Leon has invited her on and thinks she will wear

The one Leon calls my Famous Five dress.

Lost for Words – Stephanie Butland

This is the first book about the bookshop Loveday Cardew works in – but I read the second, below first. I didn’t realise it was a series else I’d never have done that.

Anyway, there are various flashbacks to Loveday’s childhood.

I could pretend that I was enjoying the sun, which was something that adults seemed to consider a worthwhile use of time. I took The Famous Five book I was reading from my blue school backpack.

Dad had given it to me because he said The Famous Five were the best thing about his childhood. His name was in careful capitals on the inside front cover. I opened it, but I wasn’t reading. I was listening, despite myself.

And

I looked through the pile of my books that were starting to seem too childish for me, or had been reread so often that I wasn’t interested in picking them up again. The Secret Seven had lost their charm, and so had Captain Underpants.

Found in a Bookshop – Stephanie Butland

In this there are multiple narrators including Kelly who also now works at the bookshop. Kelly says:

I remember my first time reading a lot of things – even as far back as my first Malory Towers!

The Librarian – Salley Vickers

The Libraran in question is Sylvia, who has just taken a job at East Mole library in the 1950s. She has big plans to engender a love of reading in the children of East Mole, but has to contend with a boss unwilling to allow change and the various intricacies of village life and gossip.

It appeared that the children at number 3 were not obviously acquainted with any actual books. Sylvia, hoping that this was not to be Swindon all over again, suggested, “How about Enid Blyton?”

“Noddy’s only for the Infants”, Sam said scornfully. “Stupid little twit.”

“Mrs Stewart reads it us”, Jem offered. “I liked it when he was got by the goblins and they took off all his clothes.”

Given that this is the 1950s it actually would have been gollies, and not goblins that the book (Here Comes Noddy Again, 1951) features, as the goblins were a much later edit to the book. I wonder if Salley Vickers had only seen a newer copy, and not realised it had been changed, or deliberately chose not to refer to gollies.

Noddy comes up again later:

Sylvia consented to being fed a banquet of wild flowers until the twins grew bored. Would you like me to read to you?”

“Is it Noddy?”

Sylvia was learning that candour with children was an ally. “Actually, Twins, I don’t like Noddy.”

“Noddy hasn’t got a willy”, Jem confided. “We saw when the goblins took all his clothes off.”

And then a more oblique (and perhaps unintentional) reference:

“That ash’s dropped half its branches on your roof – looks like most of the tiles are gone.”

Then in the author’s note Salley Vickers writes a bit about Blyton.

One last word: Miss Blackwell [the librarian who inspired the character of Sylvia] had a fierce dislike of Enid Blyton and I have given this prejudice to her name-sake. I mention this as people often imagine that a character’s views reflect those of the author, just as they imagine that what a character does is what the author has done or might do… I don’t share Miss Blackwell’s or Sylvia’s opinion of Enid Blyton. While her books are not lastingly important to me, as a child I enjoyed them and I still think that her Famous Five books in particular are good in their own way. It was a great spur to my enthusiasm that my atheist Socialist parents, otherwise unusually tolerant, refused to have Enid Blyton in the house and, as a consequence, I was obliged to read the Famous Five round at a friend’s, where I was also allowed Chocolate Spread sandwiches made with sliced white bread.

My parents also outlawed the Beano and the Dandy on the, I now suspect, spurious grounds that the printers of these comics were forbidden to be unionised – happily, I was able to read those in wet playtimes at school. This had the interesting effect that for many years sliced white bread, Enid Blyton, Dennis the Menace and God formed an unholy alliance in my subconscious, one that I naturally wanted to be part of. I have lost my taste for sliced white bread and chocolate spread but I still have time for Enid Blyton, who got children to read who might not have done so otherwise and for that alone she deserves praise. But in any case, tastes differ, thank goodness, and not even the best children’s librarian is, or should be expected to be, perfect.

And so we have another varied selection of Blyton references. No doubt I’ll find another one as soon as this goes up!

Posted in Other Authors | Tagged Anna James, Beth O'Leary, Jenny Colgan, Salley Vickers, Stephanie Butland | Leave a comment

Monday #588

Posted on July 15, 2024 by Fiona

I was away on holiday last week, which is why there were no posts! Came back to some freshly ripe strawberries, massively grown potato plants and still growing sunflower stems (though they had flopped over and needed propping up.)

Our holiday was in Newtonmore, home of the Wildcat Experience and the Highland Folk Museum.

A Scottish Wildcat, for those who haven’t seen one before!

I’ll share more about it when it comes to my July round up, for now, back to regularly scheduled content.

Enid Blyton references in other works of fiction, part 4

and

Reading The Castle of Adventure to Brodie

“Oh BLOW!”

– Brodie any time something doesn’t go his way.

I love he’s picked that up – along with saying Fusty Musty Dusty any time he hears any of those words.

Posted in Blog talk | Tagged July, Monday | Leave a comment

Letters to Enid part 52: From volume 3 issue 14

Posted on July 6, 2024 by Fiona

Previous letters pages can be found here.

Letters page from Volume 3, issue 14.
July 6th – 19th, 1955.

OUR

LETTER PAGE

(I have chosen three letters from overseas this time so that our far-away readers may know that they can share this page too.)

A letter from Joyce Simmers and the other four members of her F.F. Club, S. Canterbury, New Zealand.
Dear Enid Blyton,
A short while ago my four friends and I held a small sale to raise money for your little Children’s Home. We sold dolls’ clothes, toffee apples, books and magazines and home-made sweets, and we had a Peep-Show and charged a penny a peep. To our amazement and delight we found we had raised £2 10S. 0d., which we are forwarding to you.
Yours sincerely,
Joyce Simmers,
and the four other F.F. Club members.

(I wanted our F.F. members in this country to know what F.F. members do overseas, Joyce, so I have printed your letter. You win the prize this week!)

A letter from Maureen Brooks, Helmond, Holland.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I am a Scottish girl living in Holland, where they make much more fuss of birthdays than in England. At school here you take a bag of sweets on your birthday. Every one in your class gets a sweet, and then you take two or three of your friends with you to the other classes, and in each class you give the teacher and some of your friends a sweet.
With love from
Maureen Brooks.

(I think this sounds rather nice, Maureen – especially if there happens to be a lot of birthdays !)

A letter from Rajindar, Dar-es-Salaam.
Dear Enid Blyton,
The other day when I went to the book-shop, I saw a little girl looking at the books. She saw my F.F. badge and asked me what it was for. I told her all about it and she wanted to be a member. I’ve given the F.F. address to 68 girls and they all wish to be members.
Yours sincerely,
Rajindar.

(No wonder our F.F. membership goes up, Rajindar. Good luck to
you!)

A theme this week of letters from over-seas, of which I’m sure she received a great many.

Joyce’s letter perhaps reads a little differently today as modern use of peep show generally means something far less innocent.

I’m a fan of Holland’s sweet sharing traditions on birthdays, it sounds fun!

And Rajindar sounds like they did good work, drumming up lots of new members for the Famous Five Club!

Posted in Magazines | Tagged Enid Blyton's Magazine, Letters page, Letters to Enid from volume 3 | 1 Comment

June 2024 round up

Posted on July 4, 2024 by Fiona

That’s us halfway through 2024 already!

What I read

I finished 19 books in June which takes me to 39 ahead of schedule. I doubt I can keep up the pace, but if I did… having read 88 books in 6 months, I’d end up reading 176 by the end of the year. Pretty unlikely, and I’m definitely not going to up my goal that much!

What I have read:

The Lighthouse Kid – Rhondda Kemp-Mottau
Doing Time (Time Police #1) – Jodi Taylor
Reading Companion to Just One Damned Thing After Another – Hazel Cushion
The Castle of Adventure – I’ll share Brodie’s thoughts on this soon
Cool Girl Summer – Amber Eve
Wartime for the District Nurses (District Nurses #2) – Annie Groves
Found in a Bookshop (Lost for Words #2) – Stephanie Butland
Hard Time (Time Police #2) – Jodi Taylor
The Cornish Wedding Murder (Nosey Parker Mysteries #1) – Fiona Leitch
The Lonely Book – Meg Grehan
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
The Underground Library – Jennifer Ryan
Saving Time (Time Police #3) – Jodi Taylor
The Cornish Village Murder (Nosey Parker Mysteries #2) – Fiona Leitch
Lost For Words (Lost For Words #1) – Stephanie Butland
Strong Female Character – Fern Brady
About Time (Time Police #4) – Jodi Taylor
The Valley of Adventure – Brodie’s thoughts also coming soon
Killing Time (Time Police #5) – Jodi Taylor

I ended the month still working through:

Girl Sleuth – Melanie Rehak
A Dead and Stormy Night (Nevermore Bookshop Mysteries #1) – Steffanie Holmes
The Perfect Cornish Murder (Nosey Parker Mysteries #3) – Fiona Leitch
The Treasure Hunters (Brodie’s thoughts coming soon.)
The Enchanted Castle – E Nesbit

What I watched

We are up to ER season 12 (only three to go!)
We finished Is it Cake? season 3 so watched The Proposal (my first time).
I’ve dipped in and out of Green Wing but haven’t finished series 2 yet.
I continued series three of Malory Towers and reviewed the next few episodes.

What I did

We did some garden care with our new lawnmower, shears and loppers. (Nine years we’ve lived here and this is the first time we’ve ever cut the grass!) We also installed a raised planter for our strawberries and planted potatoes in a bag.
We went to Longforgan for their annual scarecrow trail, this year’s theme was Video Games.
We went to a comic con and Brodie met a couple of Transformers.
Brodie and I saved an exhausted bee we found in the hall by giving it some sugar water
We had a nice walk along one of our favourite disused railway lines and found lots of tiny wild strawberries plus a couple of geocaches.
We went to the beach and I managed my first (brief) sea swimming of the year.
We took a trip to Perth on the train to see the model railway exhibition then headed to the newly opened museum to look around, and ended up visiting their unicorn exhibition too.

How was your June?

Posted in Personal Experiences | Tagged Doing, June, Monthly round up, Reading, Round Up, Watching | 2 Comments

Monday #586

Posted on July 1, 2024 by Fiona

First post of July! The weather continues to be Not Very Good, with plenty of rain and wind and not all that much sunshine. Our strawberries are doing well, though, and our potatoes have done a lot of growing so here’s hoping there’ll be something edible at the end of it.

The schools came off on Friday for six weeks, so hopefully we’ll find lots of things to keep us busy!

June round up

and

Letters to Enid 52

I’m not very green-fingered so I’m going to keep on showing off the stuff I have managed to grow here, while feeling amazed that nothing’s been destroyed by slugs or eaten by birds. (Yet.)

Posted in Blog talk | Tagged July, Monday | Leave a comment

Reading the Famous Five to Brodie, part 9

Posted on June 29, 2024 by Fiona

These two books we read from April 17 to May 8. That’s only 11 days a book, which is not bad considering I can’t read t him every night due to my working pattern.

Five on Finniston Farm

We began with the question of What’s Dorset? I limited my answer to an area in England, and left off that it will have the same Cornish-esque-ish accent I use for all the south west parts of England.

Although George is not with the boys at the beginning of the story he gasped when they refer to Georgina and said He called her Georgina! She won’t answer! He was dismayed when I said that it was OK because George wasn’t with them.

He groaned. So it’s just the boys? That means there won’t be an adventure! (So at least he’s equally disappointed by members of the Five being missing, not just the boys.)

Julian also says the four of us, which Brodie immediately corrected with FIVE!!! before Dick could say the same thing.

Looking at the illustration of the boys (I always pause reading and move the book closer so he can examine every illustration) he said of Dick’s hat It’s a round hat like the patterned ones those people wear and they hold the shaker things and do this… whereby he waved some imaginary shakers.

Yes, he meant Mexican people with sombreros and maracas, and he did some more imaginary maraca shaking.

He laughed as Julian tried to roll over asleep against the gate.

He thought Old Grandad’s supposed loud voice sounded like the other guy’s voice from the last story. That would be Morgan, then, even though he was supposed to sound Welsh.

We had a disagreement as he didn’t like the poppy heads referred to. People have heads apparently, not flowers. I said lots of other things have heads, like beds and boats. Windows don’t, he pointed out rather smugly. Which is true, aggravatingly.

Of the twins in the illustration he said They’re small and so the same! They’re very the same! Later he pointed out that Dick and one of the twins are wearing watches, like twins – and to be fair the twins are a bit like younger versions of Dick. He got a bit stuck on twins and also told me that he and one of the teachers at school were like twins as they had the same medal on one time…

He said that jackdaws don’t made good pets. They go CHACK CHACK too loudly all the time. He chacked a lot doing this chapter, in fact. Every time Nosey chacked (in anger, or like he was laughing) Brodie provided the sound effect.

For some reason for most of the book he didn’t really like old grandad but he couldn’t find a word for what was wrong with him. He also didn’t like it at the end where Old Grandad swings the sword around as it was a bit much(!).

He has a dog, though! he said looking at the picture of Grandad and Timmy. I asked him what he thought of the Harries and he said I don’t think they get along. That’s why they never smile.

Tune in next time for tales of bad American accents…

But first he said he’d like to milk a cow but he doesn’t know how. You don’t just… squeeze it, do you? I reminded him (or tried to at least) of the fake cows he’s milked at a couple of farm/play places.

Looking at at the picture of Junior facing off against Timmy he declared That’s not George! He wasn’t wrong, but he seemed quite incensed that someone other than George should be drawn beside Timmy.

He desperately wanted to know what the old tool they found was and, as is so often the case, was disappointed that I couldn’t figure it out from the absolutely zero clues given.

He misheard me read Strong as an ox, which led to this bizarre conversation.

Brodie: Strong as an auk? A great auk??
Me: No, an ox.
Brodie: An AUK?
Me: No! AN OX. You know, like OXEN?
Brodie: A toxin??
Me: OKsen.
Brodie: Boxin? Soxin? What’s oxen?
Me (wearily): Like cows… Here, look at the pictures on Google.

Thank god for smartphones and search engines! It was funny that his mind went to auks as he first heard of them from The Island of Adventure. He’s starting to make the same associations as me, I think.

Once the twins unbent he demanded to know which was which – right before they explain who is who.

One night I realised that we forgot to buy macaroons after talking about them last time. He’s still not convinced he will like them – this post I think proves otherwise. He asked if he could have chocolate macaroons or ones with jam in them. I suggested we try making some and he was even more suspicious. (We did in fact remember to buy macaroons later and – unsurprisingly – he declared that he loved them and ate at least half the pack. And I think we will have a go at making our own in the holidays.)

He was aghast to hear of Finniston CASTLE!? He didn’t who the Normans were and even though I tried to explain they were a group of people a bit like Scottish people are Scots he said Norman, like naughty Norman price? (From Fireman Sam in case anyone doesn’t get the reference.)

He asked how a stone castle burnt to the ground not long before George did, and wondered what Mr Finniston meant by full of prayer, before the girls did. That was a hard one to explain. But he reminded me that I don’t believe in Jesus, not unless he has two hearts and that’s how he came back.

I asked him what he thought was in the dungeons. Skeletons? There must have been dead bodies around. Why were there no skeletons in George’s dungeons? That doesn’t make any sense.

He suggested there would be a mark in the grass where the castle had stood, as things always leave a mark where they’ve been. The darker green grass that they fins was, according to him, still recovering from being flattened by the stones of the castle. Grass dies when it has things on top of it. I don’t think that he can comprehend that the grass has had at least a few hundred years to recover.

He didn’t ask what horse brasses are (obviously didn’t feel like that was important) but I asked him if he knew, and he guessed horse shoes. I showed him pictures from a James Herriot children’s book of a horse done up with brasses on and he asked why would you want to buy weird things like that?

He was confused by the idea of embers and bricks in people’s beds, in case they got burnt (which I guess is a risk!) and he wanted to know why they didn’t just use plastics if they didn’t have rubber for hot water bottles.

Every time the Five mentioned not letting Junior know (about the castle, the treasure, etc) he sighed and said Junior already knows! I think he forgets sometimes that the characters don’t always know the same things that we do.

He argued with Dick about moles, saying they are not very large and showing me with his hands the size he thought they were.

He couldn’t guess what oyster shells and bones meant specifically, but he did guess that it meant the castle was near. I really notice now how good Blyton was at knowing when to explain things – usually via the younger Anne or Bets type characters – as so often Brodie asks what a kitchen midden etc is and the next paragraph is Anne asking the same question. Obviously lots of things were common at the time the books were written and didn’t need explained, but have to be explained now.

He was concerned that the Five would be lying when they said they wanted to dig because they’d found old bones and shells. I had to explain that they weren’t really lying they were just not giving all the information i.e. they thought that there would he treasure there. I love that he’s picked up on their scrupulous honestly though!

He was astounded by the £250 payment for digging (he has no better a grasp of large amounts of money than of time passing, and doesn’t quite understand that a pound in the 50s isn’t the same as a pound today). He was even more astounded when I worked out that with inflation it would probably have been £7200 today, and with the further £250/7200 the Philpots could probably afford the new tractor they wanted.

In a similar vein he declared it would take a hundred and thirty two hours to dig into the cellars. A hundred and fifty!

It took some prompting to think about it but he did eventually work out that they could find the secret passage and get into the dungeons before the men!

With the dagger and the ring he said It was the woman! meaning Lady Finniston, thinking she dropped them in the passage as she fled – not a silly guess at all. He thought it would be easy for the Five to just squeeze down the rabbit hole, though.

Around this point we found a stain on the pages of the book, like a drop of tea or coffee dripped on one page then mirrored on the other when the book was closed.

He demanded to know what it was (he’s very against damaging books!) and I said someone must have spilled something on it. Like tea! he said. No, like COFFEE! It must have been Gran when she was reading it. Grandad must have made her coffee and she went to get it from the machine and she must have splashed it on the book!

Many of my hardbacks were indeed my mum’s but not this one, she had the Knight paperback, and anyway she wouldn’t have been drinking coffee made by my dad when she was reading the Famous Five as a child. So she’s off the hook!

He was not happy about having to stop reading for the night, just as the enter the passage as it was getting exiting and to the actual adventure.

He instantly knew that the feathers they found came from the jackdaw. I think he and I both thought that the Five were being pretty stupid not to realise that straight away. He also knew that the weird noise was the jackhammer the men are using before the Five worked it out.

He loves knights so he was very excited by the armour and kept wanting to know if there were shields as well.

He couldn’t work out what had spilled from the chest, even looking at the illustration. He suggested Bells? a dog??

He found it really exciting when the children went to tell everyone what they’d found, and didn’t think they should have to wash up first (but then he never thinks he should have to wash his hands before a meal regardless of what he’s been doing first!).

It took me a while to get him to understand how underhand Mr Henning was being when he undervalued the treasure.

He asked me – before we’d even finished the book – if the next one was going to be about them uncovering all the treasure and selling it and was really disappointed when I said no. That’s been a common theme, actually, as Blyton regularly wraps up the story a bit too early for him!

Things he didn’t know about also included sacks of meal, (thinking of actual meals in a sack) meat pie (again) saying they should just have called it a pork pie if that’s what it is, slew, shelling peas, and myxomatosis.

There wasn’t so much to laugh at in this book – he wasn’t that amused by George and Timmy going for Junior in bed for example, but he did find Timmy falling off the Land Rover was pretty funny.

At the end he said he LOVED this story. His favourite characters were his usual (he literally said my usual), Julian, Dick, George, not Anne, Timmy and Snippet and the Jackdaw, Mr Philpot and Mrs Philpot and Grandad, and the person from the shop (Mr Finniston, not Janie or her mum), Mr Henning and Junior, though he agreed that they were awful so maybe more a loved-to-hate them more than actually liked them. He couldn’t choose a favourite part as he said the whole book was so exciting.

As for me? I thought the accents went OK. The Generic American Accent definitely slid into a deep Southern sort of drawl, but it wasn’t quite as hard to switch between Cornish and American now that there’s no Welsh in the mix. However it was hard to do Dick doing an American accent as mine is already so bad.

Five Go to Demon’s Rocks

He was disappointingly not that excited about the lighthouse! He thought it was a weird place to go.

In fact he wasn’t as keen as usual to read the next Famous Five, and said he was bored of them. I pretty much ignored that and said we’d give the next one a go. Unfortunately I forgot just how long it takes them to actually GET to the lighthouse! It was over six chapters. I kept (inaccurately) saying They’ll be off to the lighthouse in just one more chapter… but eventually, on our fourth night of reading they actually got to Demon’s Rocks and he became as enthralled as ever.

He was pragmatic about the household problems – The Five will just have to go and stay somewhere else.

He liked to provide the car noises as mine apparently weren’t very good. The cheek! My seagull noises also didn’t impress.

I showed him Beachy Head lighthouse, as although he said I know what a lighthouse is! I wanted him to understand about the rocks and it being out to sea. He asked Is that the real lighthouse from the book? and I told him that it’s my theory that she based it on that one. He declared then that it was that very lighthouse, end of discussion.

He loved Jeremiah Boogle’s name and kept correcting me every time the text called him just Jeremiah. Jeremiah BOOGLE! It got to the point I was actually adding Boogle in just to keep him happy (when I remembered, anyway).

He kept asking Who’s talking? when Blyton addresses the Five (which she does quite a few times) as clearly he can’t tell the difference between me making comments and Blyton’s voice!

When Anne suggests the things they should buy when they go out the next day he interrupted with And post cards!

He was suspicious at Jeremiah (Boogle) saying he had story – namely that we wouldn’t hear it. It always says that, and then we don’t hear it. But in this case we do get to hear the story.

He guessed it was the policeman shouting up the stairs. Perhaps aided by me using the same voice as I’d used for him earlier. In my best Cornish-ish accent, naturally.

From the picture he thought Mischief had found a ring – obviously he doesn’t think Soper drew coins well! And after a moment the treasure!

Whenever the Five mentioned looking for the other way into the underground passages – or wondered how they were going to get out of the lighthouse he (with increasing despair) said Down the shaft! But he did also accuse the locksmith of coming along and locking them in.

He agreed with Julian that they had been in worse fixes than this – he thought that being trapped underground at Finniston Farm (or – the place where the thing burnt down as he described it) – with NO FOOD AT ALL – was worse.

He asked what kind of hammer hits a bell – like a tool hammer?

Has anyone heard the bell/seen the light? No, I don’t think so. He’s such a pessimist!

His favourite characters were: Dick, George, Timmy, Jeremiah Boogle, the policeman, the doctor(?), Timmy, the boy, Mischief… I had to remind him about Julian!

He liked the book but was disappointed that we didn’t get to see the boys recover the rest of the treasure. Who’s saying goodbye? Why is she saying good bye, it cant be the end, they haven’t found the treasure yet?

He also wasn’t too impressed with the lighthouse as he likes it best when the Five have a proper adventure – camping and surviving outdoors. The lighthouse was just like staying in a house. His favourite part was them ringing the bell and lighting the lamp – which is my favourite part too.

Things we looked up this time: The lighthouse at Alexandria. He asked if it was still there before Dick did.

Posted in Book reviews | Tagged Five Go to Demon's Rocks, Five on Finniston Farm | Leave a comment

Letters to Enid part 51: From volume 3 issue 13

Posted on June 26, 2024 by Fiona

Previous letters pages can be found here.

Letters page from Volume 3, issue 13.
June 22nd – July 5th, 1955.

OUR

LETTER PAGE

A letter from Madeleine Edward, Bieldside, Aberdeenshire.
Dear Enid Blyton,
In the summer we play a game of the Faraway Tree, we all choose a name like Silky or Moonface, and play their part. The person who is Dame Washalot has a bucket which we pull up and down. First, we ask Mummy for a few dusters, and we put them in the bucket full of water and pull it up the tree to a branch. Then Dame Washalot washes them and hangs them on a line. Then she pours the water down the tree! We can’t have a slippery-slip for Moonface, so we have a rope to swing on. I am a member of all your clubs, and am very proud of my badges.
Love from,
Madeleine Edward.

(I had only space to print half your interesting letter, Madeleine. I was most amused to hear how you played a game of The Faraway Tree, and even had a Dame Washalot!)

A letter from Joyce Evans, Llandovery, Carmarthen.
Dear Enid Blyton,
One day I was passing one of our friend’s houses which has a drive. At the end of this drive there is a tree in which there is a letter-box to put Colonel Blandy’s daily paper and letters. Now, as I passed this letter-box I saw a little bird coming out of the mouth, but as it was not my box, I did not look in. The very next day this gentleman wrote and told my father, who is a postman, that a little bird had built its nest in the letter-box, so would he please not put the daily paper or the letters in the box, but place them on top. The nest is lined with moss and white hairs from the horses nearby. I thought you would like to hear about the little bird, so I told you.
Yours truly,
Joyce Evans.

(A well written and interesting letter, Joyce, which I think all our readers will enjoy. Thank you for sending it.)

A letter from Richard Johnson, Bitterne, Southampton.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I found a four-leaved clover and gave it to Mummy, and that evening Daddy brought home a puppy. So wasn’t that lucky?
Love from,
Richard (aged 51⁄2)

(Very lucky, Richard. I wonder what you called the puppy?)

I love Madeleine’s letter and really wish there had been room for it all. It reminds me of when I used to play Famous Five with a bunkbed for a tower and a washing basket for a boat (but nobody got wet).

Joyce’s letter is interesting and shows how times have changed – could you imagine trying to make a request like that to Royal Mail today??

I use a website to extract the text from the scanned letters pages and it normally does very well – I only have to correct the odd mistake where the page has been marked or torn. This time however Richard’s age was given as 51 and I thought it rather odd until I checked the image.

Posted in Magazines | Tagged Enid Blyton's Magazine, Letters page, Letters to Enid from volume 3 | 1 Comment

Monday #585

Posted on June 24, 2024 by Fiona

It’s almost the end of June and I am tentatively going to say that summer has actually arrived, at least, for the moment!

A few of our strawberries have ripened (and been eaten) and our potatoes have finally started peeking out of the compost and another layer has been added.

Letters to Enid 51

and

Reading the Famous Five to Brodie part 9

I’ve already included one photo but let’s have another one. (I can still dimly remember when Stef and I used to put up dozens of photos some Mondays!)

Here’s Brodie and me enjoying a few chapters of Valley of Adventure. Naturally he’s wearing a sunhat I bought myself years ago and just discovered at the back of the wardrobe.

Posted in Blog talk | Tagged June, Monday | Leave a comment

Malory Towers on TV series three – Episodes five and six

Posted on June 21, 2024 by Fiona

Now that Miss Johnson is the (acting) head mistress, I really hope that they start to reveal what she is up to.

The New Headmistress

What I liked

Well, let’s just say that Miss Johnson doesn’t hang around! My first note for the episode was

Dolores Umbridge has arrived!

And honestly, short of making the children carve lines into their own hands, I feel that stayed a pretty accurate interpretation.

The first thing she does it put up an educational decree, sorry, a new set of rules. Unlike Umbridge she puts them all up at once, instead of one at a time, but it very much reminded me of the trio coming downstairs to find that all clubs and groups etc had been disbanded.

I paused the episode a few times to get the full rules which are as follows:

1 Exemplary behaviour is expected from pupils at all times

2 No talking in the corridors during mealtimes or in class

3 Full school uniform, smart, clean and ironed, must be worn within the school building

4 No jewellery is to be worn and all hair must be tied back

5 No food or drink outside of the dining room unless with permission

6 Valuables and personal objects must remain in the common room or dormitory

7 No leaving the school building without a permission slip

8 No fraternising with the grounds staff

I have a lot of thoughts on these rules which I’ll come to later.

I like Jean’s shrewd comment about rule 2 – So she can stop us talking to one another.

Miss Johnson, infuriatingly smugly, declares that “Every one of my rules will guide you to becoming exemplary young women.” I can see it being carnage, I just hope none of the girls get punished too harshly.

Bill getting caught with a carrot on her was pretty funny especially when she ate it in front of Miss Johnson, pretending it was for her. Unfortunately while being reasonably convincing that she wasn’t going to see Thunder (breaking the rule on not seeing him during the week, and probably rule 7 into the bargain as she knew she wouldn’t get permission) she still fell foul of rule 5, and possibly rule 6 if we are considering a carrot a personal object.

Although coming under the heading of me hating Miss Johnson, it was pretty clever (and cold and cruel) of her to have Ellen give a science demonstration for the class and trick her into explaining the green bubbly sink trick from the previous episode.

It was heartening to see the other girls offering up their privileges in return for Darrell getting to play lacrosse, and them all helping her (including Gwen, but I suspect she was being self-serving here as she didn’t want to play lacrosse in Darrell’s place!) put the book back together (though I wonder where they all learned book-binding).

I assume that Miss Johnson was just being cruel when she told Darrell she could pay lacrosse if she fixed the book, as it was surely an impossible task do to it before lights out. (I had betted that Miss Johnson had kept back a few pages to prevent it being fixed but it seems I was wrong.)

As Darrell snuck out of the dorm at night to finish the book, that would have an order mark and a lacrosse ban for sure, but she was between a rock and a hard place and Miss Johnson knew it. I wonder if she also hoped to catch her breaking rules to punish her further. Nothing would surprise me!

Just because I’m liking the Harry Potter parallels I also liked that she decided to confiscate all the science materials and decreed learning would be from texts only.

My note here simply read HELLO UMBRIDGE.

I loved Matron’s little cough as Gwen stuffs up her father about teaching the other girls all she knows about lacrosse.

Thank god the scout saw through all the Gwen nonsense and chose Darrell for the county team, it was definitely deserved.

Things I didn’t understand

What’s Miss Johnson’s goal here? Her time as headmistress is surely temporary. Is her goal to keep them from talking to Ron and/or visiting the stables and the other rules are just to disguise these? Or… does she really just love control and has grabbed it for as long as she can?

Her rules are pretty draconian but several of them actually don’t make sense, or lack clarity to make them properly enforceable.

I assume rule 3 doesn’t include the changing rooms or the dormitories, or are the girls going to have to change into games kits outside and sleep in their uniforms?

Rule 2 needs a comma, otherwise it says specifically that they can’t talk in the corridors during mealtimes, but presumably can talk elsewhere at meals times, and in the corridors at other times.

Rule 4 has no allowance for girls whose hair is too short to tie back (like Darrell and Bill) – but at least Miss Johnson doesn’t try to punish them for not following that rule.

Does rule 5 include even water? Is permission given for them to store their tuck boxes in the common rooms like they always used to?

Does rule 6 include books and other learning materials?

Rule 7 sounds like an awful lot of work to sign a slip for every girl who wants to go to the stables, practice lacrosse, go for a walk or swim…

I’d love to see some real malicious compliance from the girls, only I fear there would be strong repercussions. I’d love the girls to keep checking that permission has been given for the food in the kitchens, the vegetables in the gardens, and so on. The girls refusing to speak when spoken to by a teacher in the corridor or at meal times, as per the rules. Refusing to attend games lessons until every girl has a signed slip, and so on.

Miss Johnson reveals a plan for healthier meals – I’m not sure what that’s about unless by healthier she means cheaper (and she plans to pocket the left-over catering money), as the books always said that the cakes and fancy food was only a first and last night sort of treat. I think they got more standard meat, potatoes and veg style meals the rest of the time. Or does she mean smaller meals, hungry and down-trodden girls who won’t answer back?

Ron comes to the lacrosse match and Miss Johnson does nothing about him sitting talking to the girls – which is in direct contravention of rule 8. If you’re going to come up with unfair rules at least enforce them!

(This time my note read RON STOP FRATERNISING WITH BILL!)

Everyone kept shouting on (only) Darrell during the match, were they forgetting that it’s a team effort?

Gwen’s was eating the oranges which surely are for the girls at half-time? (Presumably permission was given for the oranges to be outside of the dining hall.) Nice book/period reference, though.

Things I didn’t like

Although in-keeping with Miss Johnsons nastiness I didn’t enjoy seeing her punish the girls in unfair ways, like giving order marks to Darrell and Jean for coming inside in their games kit – having obviously missed the rules on their way out, if they were posted that early in the morning.

Any reasonable teacher even with these rules would have given a warning and tell them they know better for next time.

It was infuriating to see Miss Johnson drilling them in class on the rules – (and slightly annoying that nobody seemed to pick up on the loopholes I noticed!)

As much as I love Danya Griver’s acting Gwen was back to being hated as she clearly loves the new rules and plans to suck up to Miss Johnson. She’s also pretty awful and snobby about them not “fraternising” with the staff, despite all the ways Ron has helped her.

Lacrosse filming continued to underwhelm, with an awful lot of shots of running feet in between very short moments of actual play.

I’m enraged at Matron for being so gung-ho about enforcing the rules – she seems to be enjoying it almost as much as Miss Johnson, despite being initially shocked at her taking over. In fact, at one point in my notes I call her a real Filch as that’s who she reminded me of!

While I do feel that Darrell’s temper hasn’t been a plot point as often as it was in the books I felt her display of temper here was a bit weird and irrational. Yes it’s very Darrell to rail against any unfairness she sees but she goes from sitting quietly to practically screaming at Miss Johnson. She’s told off – not in a particularly harsh way – and then throws a textbook across the room at the door which Miss Johnson has just closed behind her. It’s definitely a temper, but it’s not Book Darrell’s temper. Book Darrell could be impetuous and certainly answer back but I don’t recall her ever being truly disruptive or destructive.

She also doesn’t rub her nose when her flare up subsides which was one of Book Darrell’s little things.

Things I was ambivalent about

Gwen (having caused the world’s silliest accident by letting her hanky blow in Mary-Lou’s face, causing her to go blind and fall over) has to play lacrosse.

On one hand I felt like she deserved to be made to do something she didn’t want to, but on the other I felt really sorry for her as her father was there watching.

It truly was embarrassing (and quite funny as we know that Danya Griver is/was a much better player than Ella Bright) to see Gwen flinging the ball wildly around almost taking out the lacrosse scout and Ron. Proof that having an attitude and being able to run isn’t a replacement for actual lacrosse skills like catching and aiming.

Her scoring also had me torn. It wasn’t deserved as she had just hacked Darrell’s feet out from under her, ruining her chances of scoring.

I wrote If the scout picks her [Gwen] I’ll scream.

Miss Johnson picked Gwen as woman of the match. I did groan, even if I didn’t scream.

And again it was sad to see Gwen embarrassed by her father – as he and Miss Johnson agree that Gwen didn’t deserve woman of the match, it was just done to encourage her.

The Voice

I assumed this episode would be about Mavis, but I had questions as obviously they’ve changed around the character and the plot already.

Is Mavis going to have to sneak off for her audition due to the permission rule and perhaps become unwell? But then it couldn’t tie in with Thunder getting ill, and the dramatic double rescue which would surely be the main plot and title of an ep (and later in the series too)?

Things I liked

Sally is back!

I wasn’t the biggest fan of Sally in the first series, I thought she was a bit flat but Sienna Arif-Knights really shines in this episode as she stands up to Miss Johnson. Her speech about the importance of freedom for the girls was great, and her plan to write to Miss Grayling was a good one. I did think she should have gotten the address from Miss Johnson before giving her speech, but I think it showed her passion for what’s right.

I loved her response to Miss Johnson suggesting that she post the letter (an obvious attempt to prevent the letter reaching Miss Grayling!) A superbly curt and derisive

“No need. Good day.”

My notes here read OOH Sally! Well done.

Sally continues to be clever by calling the hospital, hoping for a more immediate response. Although disheartening, the scene where Miss Johnson comes up behind Sally as Miss Grayling calls back was nicely dramatic.

Although different from the book I thought the overall story of Mavis and Irene auditioning was done well. They kept some elements – arriving late, not getting to audition (at least at first), missing the bus back, and so on, but added new elements like Miss Johnson keeping their acceptance to the conservatoire from them (I was groaning when the conservatoire lady handed the letters to Miss Johnson and wrote if she had a shredder I bet she’d use it!)

I also referred to her drawer of evil which is where Miss Johnson put Miss Grayling’s photos, the conservatoire letters, and Sally’s letter to Miss Grayling. I can’t wait to see what else goes in there!