The issue of 'questions of honour' for British schoolgirls , which was sometimes gone into in books and comics in intricate detail (and apparently in real life too), was a common feature of school story books etc from the Edwardian period onwards until about 1950. The idea was apparently introduced ...

It seems noticeable to me on re-reading the whole midnight feast and stealing from Matron plotlines in Claudine that Eileen is in very difficult place , caught between the demands of her bossy and controlling mother (eg to tell on anyone who has been snobbish to her so Matron can damage their clothe...

Moved from another topic. Following up on Andrew Maunder's interview [https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9320] and overall approach to Enid, I'm now going through his biography - but as said, I find the major insights on how and why she wrote particular books/ series...

Some thoughts on the Journal's latest issue, now I've finished reading it. I don't think we should give up on hopes that either the Mistletoe Farm books or the Barney series will be reprinted, given that both can be presented as being 'inclusive' and there are none of the 'stereotyped villains' or '...

My Journal has now arrived; thanks to Tony and Anita. I will respond to the various items in due course. For a start I agree that the Ragamuffin Mystery has its good points despite the appearance of yet another 'smugglers cave and mysterious noises in a secret passage' episode, like a spin-off of Sp...

My Journal also hasn't arrived, as of the Saturday post; I'll keep a look-out for it on Monday, but there is occasionally a problem in Lymington as a local block of flats has an address nearly identical to my close, some mail has been known to end up there, and if an occupant is on holiday mail deli...

I've also found that this phenomenon of using a character's appearance to denote character, and the associated habit of making 'good' characters look attractive, was a common one in Enid's time. It may have arisen from the books that the authors read as children; in the Chalet School series , Elinor...

I assume that the 'overalls' mentioned as being part of the clothing that the girls kept in the cloakroom were what they wore for cookery or crafts/ art over their normal clothes so that these did not get splattered and need washing. These would be long-sleeved , buttoned, usually knee-length light ...

My guess is that the circus camp had a (caravan) booking office where tickets were sold for the Big Top performances when th circus was open, and that this had a phone-line rigged up to attach this to the main local telephone line's overhead wire line (which would be strung between a line of telegra...

I'm not quite clear on the dating of the changes to the legal position, but I know that originally there was a ban in law to married women teaching - or doing many other jobs. This was the case in Edwardian times , when Enid was at school, and it was lifted in the First World War to enable more wome...

Not a direct Blyton reference, but one to the 1995 Famous Five series locations. On 'Only Connect' on the evening of 26 February (Monday), Victoria Coren Mitchell had a series of four 'Picture Clues' , in this case four photos of grand buildings, with a common theme running through them. One of them...

I think the whole story of the 'ragging' an obviously awkward and inexperienced mistress who would not be able to handle it is another of the examples of how Enid was still 'feeling her way' in writing a school story series with the early St. Clare's books - or she was content to show things from th...

Thanks for the pics of the Dads' Army museum; really fascinating. I must go up there some time and take a look: I was really fond of Cromer but haven't been there for decades. Hopefully it's still pretty unspoilt away from the main resorts and the Broads; most of the stories you see on the TV about ...

Part of the 'old-fashioned' atmosphere for the series - the outdoor shots at least - may come from the fact that it was filmed in remote areas of Norfolk, from the late 1960s onwards , which had not changed much from wartime. Nowadays, or even in the 2000s, I suspect that outdoor shots of the fictio...

I saw the first primroses of the year on Sunday 28th, in a sheltered garden in Lymington. A record for this part of the South coast? (Snowdrops, though, appear if it's warm enough weeks earlier.) Huge flocks of Brent geese on the creeks and fields around the 1978 FF series filming site at Hurst Cast...