As I was walking the dog this morning I saw rabbits scurrying into the brambles as she got a little to close for their comfort. It’s a scene I’ve seen many times this summer but for some reason today it put me in mind of the Brer Rabbit stories that I enjoyed as a child. In one of those strange coincidences a complete set of Secret Seven books was a raffle prize when we visited the Windsor Battersea Dogs Home open day today, I didn’t win it. Anyway I thought it might be a nice idea for a Saturday evening for us to share our favourite Enid Blyton memories from Noddy to Mr Pinkwhistle and everything in between
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Gatz says
I don’t have any memories of the books for every young children though I’m sure I read and was read them.
My favourites were the stories of Four Find Outers, or the Four Fine Doubters as PC Goon the comic working class policeman called them. They called him ‘Clear Orf!’ and he had a nephew called Ern, who was in awe of ‘Fattie’ the boy genius leader of the Find Outers.
I loved those books as a boy, and daren’t seek them out to reread even for nostalgia, because I’m pretty certain I would found them dreadful now. Enid Blyton introduced generations of children to the idea of reading and for that alone statues should be put up to her across the land.
retropath2 says
FIVE Find-Outers (and dog, I seem to recall)
Gatz says
Yeah, Mini correctly numbers them below (Fatty plus two brother/sister pairings, I think). The dog was called Buster.
ip33 says
The Secret Seven were my favourite in the seventies, they were the working class Famous Five.
Askwith says
I always preferred the Jennings books.
Anthony Buckeridge was a decent writer I thought.
Jackthebiscuit says
I am with you Askwith – I loved the Jennings books.
Such innocent days.
Gatz says
I loved Jennings too, probably the books I moved onto from Blyton. I did read some a couple of years ago and they weren’t too bad from an adult perspective.
Beezer says
Yes, me too. Jennings. Thinking back, Linbury Court must have been tiny. Just 79 boarders as far as I can recall.
Alan Bennett always puts me in mind of Jenning’s closest friend, Darbishire. Side-parted sandy hair, glasses and slightly lugubrious.
bungliemutt says
Never liked Enid Blyton. I was more of a Moomins man myself, which may explain a lot.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Ooh yes. Had a magic about them – coupled with those superb illustrations – like no other. Beautiful, strange, and a little melancholy. Works of art.
minibreakfast says
Have you heard the album of Moomins music that came out this year?
Wheldrake says
Recently reread the Moomin books to my daughter. She loved them, although they do get very strange and dark as the stories progress. Especially Moominpapa at Sea.
minibreakfast says
The Five Find Outers and Dog, The Faraway Tree series, Mr Pinkwhistle*, Malory Towers, St. Clare’s, Famous Five, Noddy, Secret Seven, Naughtiest Girl stories, Amelia Jane…. we had scores of them, and re-read them endlessly. One of my little sisters was constantly in trouble for sneaking them to the dinner table and trying to read during meals.
*hurr
Paul Wad says
For some reason a Mr. Pinkwhistle book found it’s way into our house a few years ago, so I read it to one of the kids (which means that I can’t remember how long ago it appeared in the house). I remember enjoying the Wishing Chair stories when I was a kid, but not much more. I read a few Famous Five stories, but even in the late seventies they seemed dated.
Anyway, I struggled through the book, convincing myself that me and whichever child was enjoying it, until I got to the bit where he was assuring us that a good smack was what a troublesome child required and decided to go back to Hairy Maclairy. I’m sure that 50/60/70 years ago we could have read the books without batting an eyelid at such actions, but sometimes you just have to admit that the times have left something behind.
retropath2 says
Woops, yeyep, Mini spotted that to.
Will any other red-blooded male confess to a sly read of Mallory Towers and the other girl school stories. Where’s the soap frenzy with added hairbrush.
Bargepole says
Famous Five, Secret Seven, Jennings, Just William, Bunter – happy innocent times!
Moose the Mooche says
One word: Yarooooooooooooooooo!
Lodestone of Wrongness says
Read “Five Go To Kirrin Island” aged seven. Loved it, loved it. Went back to Victoria Road Public Library and asked the nice lady behind the desk “Any more like this?”
She took me by the hand and led me to Aisle 27 Row 4. I stood in front of an apparently endless array of Famous Five’s and Secret Seven’s. I may have lost consciousness for a moment or two. I stood there transfixed. Probably the most game-changing experience of my life (well ok, Debbie Diack allowing me full access to the contents of her bra might be No1)….
Locust says
I only read a few Famous Five books as a kid (they were frowned upon in my home) and found them fairly exotic. In fact, all novels I ever read growing up featuring Brits made them seem a bit odd really! I was slightly disappointed when I finally got to England and only met very, um, normal people everywhere… Not a Mr Micawber nor a Psmith in sight! (I’ve never returned… 🙂 )
Kaisfatdad says
What a strange place this site is. Just took a quick glance and I have a choice between commenting on Millie Jackson or Enid Blyton! You can’t get broader than that.
I’ve always thought of Enid as hopelessly Goodie Two Shoes. Then I read the first Famous Five novel to my son and he (and I ) loved it. Children doing stuff that would give modern parents kittens. Say what you like about her, she really understood how children tick.
And tomboy George is a revelation. Questioning gender roles at a time when such terminology scarcely existed,
Carl says
I can still recall my first Blyton Five Go Off To Camp.
A beautiful summer’s morning in the school holidays. I was aged about seven, I’d think. My older sister had been given a load of books, but I can’t remember from where. I had nothing to do on this day, so was browsing the shelf in her bedroom and for no particular reason I can recall, chose that particular title.
I went outside, lay down on the lawn and within minutes was hooked.
Between Blyton and Capt W.E. Johns my reading for the next couple of years, was dominated by them.
Biggles – another story altogether.
mikethep says
I was an Adventure man myself, as in The Island of Adventure, The Castle of Adventure, The Valley of Adventure etc. I thought they were terrific, much better than Famous Five.
I too was a Jennings fan, and Biggles, Billy Bunter, and the Pocomoto (Westerns) and Kemlo (SF) books, which were both written by the same man under different pseudonyms, I’ve just discovered.
I went to the library all the time, picked out my four books, and settled down to read one in a convenient window nook. Sometimes I even finished it before I went home, and could go back and get another one.
JustB says
Ditto. Adventure, and Secret Seven. The Five were a bunch of smug twats, especially Julian: I’d punch his lights out e’en now.
I think my Blyton exposure was pretty short lived: my sister really loved Malory Towers, and we both had cassette Adventure audiobooks (mine was The Sea Of Adventure and whoa, Mr Proust, I’ve just remembered a portentous voice intoning “Dramatised by Edward Kelsey” at the start). But by the time I was about 9, I’d moved on to other things – swords and wizards and all that jazz.
JustB says
Just googled it. It was indeed dramatised by Edward Kelsey. Bloody hell. I can’t have given that a second’s thought for at least 30 years. Funny what sticks.
mikethep says
Talking of what sticks, any relation to Jack Kelsey, who used to play in goal for the Arsenal?
Whether or not, Edward Kelsey is Joe Grundy in the Archers.
JustB says
Huh. Dunno.
Wonder if it’s the same Edward Kelsey?
Freddy Steady says
Lashings of alka seltzer.
Dave Ross says
Well, I thought I’d try and remember a little bit more about the Brer Rabbit stories. Turns out they weren’t Blytons stories at all but traditional stories from the south of the US of A that she “adapted”. Anyway being reminded of the briar patch story and the tar baby was terrific. Has as been mentioned not sure how they’d go down with the Gangsta Granny, Captain Underpants, Harry Potter generation but they got me reading books so for that I’m eternally grateful. I still think they’re all lovely. (Even Mr Pinkwhistle and his spanking)
Wheldrake says
Famous Five were my favourites. But I also read quite a few of The Lone Pine Club books by Malcolm Saville, a now almost forgotten author who’s stories were mostly set in the Shropshire countryside (with the odd excursion to London, or the seaside).
The Dark Is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper was another great read, as were Alan Garner’s books.
Happy days.
Vulpes Vulpes says
The Boy Next Door.
Long summer holidays, a mysterious visitor next door, a tunnel under the garden fence? Houseboats abandoned and hidden on quiet backwaters, a boy from America with an odd name and a dodgy guardian who may be up to no good? Kidnapping possibilities?
Compared to the summer hols in sleepy Devon, this was rocket fuel. Little did I know that The Five were just down the coast exposing foreign agents on Kirrin Island, I was transfixed by the adventure that was happening just next door. Apart from Shadow The Sheep Dog, my favourite Blyton of them all.
Lando Cakes says
Yes! Big up for Shadow the Sheep Dog. I read that book until it literally fell to bits.
Moose the Mooche says
Blah blah blah, rocket plan. Blah blah blah, atom bomb.
Rigid Digit says
Look, Timmy has fallen over
Gosh, he’s been poisoned
Don’t worry, we’ll get another dog
Lodestone of Wrongness says
Philistines! God, I loved The Famous Five…a working-class boy frae Aberdeen wanted nothing more than to have pillow-fights after lights-out in the dorm, go on holiday to somewhere called Devon, solve a mystery or two then after leaving Oxford with a 2.1 lead the Brexit negotiations ensuring no Johnny Foreigner ever sullied our fair and pleasant land ever again. Long Live Enid!
Moose the Mooche says
That could never happen. Devon is a make of scone, not an actual place.
Gatz says
When I grew up I realised that some people objected to Blyton on the grounds that it said nothing about most children’s real lives. That’s exactly why I read them
Moose the Mooche says
Burn down the bookshop, Hang the blessed E.B.
JustB says
Ah the curse of the relevant. As if literature had any duty to do anything other than paint you a lovely new world to explore.
Freddy Steady says
Swallows and Amazons too, of a similar ilk.
Freddy Steady says
Two specific things I distinctly remember from reading Jennings and Derbyshire.
One, a phrase about a boy being “the nigger in the woodpile” and Jennings replying along the lines of ” oh no sir, he’s just a bit dusty.” and secondly a sign by a garden the boys had made saying “Privat. Hedge.”
Gatz says
I remember that too. There were rummaging around a shed for some reason that made perfect sense to them, but was lost on Old Wilkie when he disovered them.
Gatz says
Just when you think, ‘Now there’s a phrase I’m glad nobody uses any more.’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/10/tories-urgently-investigating-after-mp-uses-n-word-at-public-event
Moose the Mooche says
You can’t have racism at something called the East India club. The punkawallah might hear!
Freddy Steady says
That’s it…an old shed! And a pile of coal? Old Wilkie…bloody hell!
Beezer says
“I…. I… Corr-wumph!’
retropath2 says
Anyone for Just William?
Sitheref2409 says
Agree with many of the suggestions upthread. Would also throw in Willard Price books of which I read many.
And yes, Swallows and Amazons. “Better drowned than duffer; if not duffer won’t drown” – quick way to get arrested nowadays.
Tony Japanese says
Marginally off-topic, but I once managed to convince my work collegue that Paul McCartney wrote the theme tune to Noddy.
Moose the Mooche says
We’re. Not. Worthy.
Scarlet says
My reading obsession started very young and Enid definitely had a part to play.
My dad gave me his copy of Five On a Treasure Island when I had just turned six and I totally devoured it.
I then asked him for the next one in the series but he refused to believe I’d read the first one as quickly as I had, given my tender years.
He admitted that I must have after I gave him a detailed run-down of all the major plot points.
I also loved the Jennings books he gave me after the Famous Five, perhaps unusually for a girl.
But then I used to sit at the breakfast table and read the backs of cereal packets, such was (and still is) my adoration of the written word.
slotbadger says
I was given a job lot of Blytons from a relative around the age of 6 and was hooked. Famous Five, Malory Towers, St Clare’s, The Naughtiest Girl, Secret Seven, the ones with a red haired kid called Snubby, the Famous sodding Five, the Five Find-Outers and my favourite, the ‘Adventure…’ series. I still remember devouring ‘The Circus Of Adventure’ in which a comically-drawn ninny of a young foreign prince came to stay with the children (It was all thanks to the mysterious stepdad Bill who was something secret and exciting in the government) and got them tangled up in a hoo-ha in far off “Tauri Hessia”. Blyton’s attitude towards foreigners frequently hit lows that would make even today’s most committed Daily Mail reader blench and her evocations of a sunlit, idyllic Albion (especially popular with kids reading in dismal wartime) ludicrous even then, but as the Rowling of her day, she was unbeatable. Certainly sparked my love of books.
Happybird says
Loved Enid blyton books think my first one was 5 on mystery moor.
A world of mysteries and forgers and smugglers was very exciting .
After Enid blyton it was books about horses and ponies and horse riding.
Sitheref2409 says
As a side note, I just got my copy of “Summer Magic”, the complete 2000AD Luke Kirby run.
I have read voraciously since I was *this* high. And all the books listed above. All the classic English books and a lot of American ones. I’ fairly sure I remember Jupiter Jones, a Hardy Bros knock off.
I’m a serious reader. It’s my default status. Now that my “serious” credentials are established, I’m casting back to the more…graphic stuff I read as a child.
Luke Kirby is a good example. It’s easily accessible to a child, but hints at much more mature themes. The collection, by the way, is just great. Harry Potter? Pah. Kirby was there first. Charley Bourne though… I got Battle; Battle Action Force…everything. I saw Charley’s War through to the end. I would still have been a reader. But the quality of the comics in that era kept me engrossed in reading in a slightly different direction.
Recommendations are available.
Sniffity says
Not normally a fan of John Ridgeway’s work, but for Luke Kirby it’s perfect. And the script is just as you mentioned – better for the fact that despite being set in the early 1960s, it doesn’t feel the need to remind you of it by continually namedropping various bits of 60s pop culture.
The only non-Noddy book I ever read was The Mystery That Never Was, a 9th birthday present from a fellow in my school class who was to become my best friend for the rest of my school years. I might have read more, but for Christmas he gave me a Whitman’s Big Little Book – The Fantastic Four In The House Of Horrors….which began a love affair with comics that has lasted to this day.
Gatz says
Jupiter Jones was one of the Three Investigators, a series of books ‘presented’ by Alfred Hitchcock whom I remember making at least one guest appearance. I loved those books too, which isn’t that surprising as Jones was sort of like Fatty in the Five Find Outers, except, a little older, and American, and living (or was it just a den?) in a scrapyard in Hollywood.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Investigators