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Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 27 Sep 2017, 09:00
by Kate Mary
Old Thatch garden must been huge to have a dozen hazelnut trees as well as fruit trees. I was reminded of some advice from a Victorian gardening book which said 'no matter how small your garden be sure to plant at least an acre with trees' . I suppose the only way to get copies of Bobs' book was via the address in Teacher's World, probably the teacher would send in a class's order. A dozen for 3/6. I wonder if I'm too late to get one.

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 27 Sep 2017, 09:17
by Daisy
Just a year or two, Kate Mary! :lol:

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 27 Sep 2017, 10:28
by Rob Houghton
Unless of course you can get hold of the Society reprints! Now all sold out, but maybe occasionally on eBay! 8)

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 27 Sep 2017, 10:58
by Kate Mary
I missed the boat there Rob, I saw a copy of the Society reprint of Letters from Bobs for sale at £25 a while back. That's why I'm so grateful to Tony for continuing to put them on the website, at least I get to read them each week.

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 27 Sep 2017, 11:10
by Rob Houghton
Its a shame you missed the boat - but £25 is a lot to pay!! As you say, at least you can read them each week - although the books are really great - some of my favourites of the Society publications. :-)

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 27 Sep 2017, 13:56
by Anita Bensoussane
Kate Mary wrote:I was reminded of some advice from a Victorian gardening book which said 'no matter how small your garden be sure to plant at least an acre with trees' .
:lol: :lol: :lol:

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 27 Sep 2017, 17:30
by Courtenay
:lol: :lol: :lol: to that from me too! Even in Australia where our towns and cities are so much more spaced out, a standard housing block (like the one my family's house is built on) is only a quarter acre!!

Lovely letters this week, I agree, although it seems Enid is slipping a bit with how Bobs "writes". I assume "Mistress can hardly keep the pen in my paw this morning" is meant to imply that Enid holds the pen steady in Bobs' paw as he writes (which would make sense, since a dog's paws aren't exactly shaped for holding a pen, even if Bobs was literally doing the writing himself... :P ). But there have been at least one or two letters I recall where Bobs is deliberately keeping something secret from "Mistress" — like the time at Christmas (and did this happen at Easter as well?) where he tells us what he's giving Mistress for a present and he says she doesn't know about it yet. Which couldn't be the case if Mistress was helping him to write his letters!! :twisted: :mrgreen: :wink:

I enjoyed the ending to the story. I hadn't thought of any of those exact answers to the questions, although the second one was similar to another story (not by Enid) I remember from when I was little, in which a wicked king would only undo his misdeeds (I forget what!) if he were shown "something that no-one has ever seen before". The clever boy hero of the tale presented him with an egg that was about to hatch — and of course the new baby chick was something no-one had ever seen before, so the bad king was defeated and everything ended happily. I was wondering if the second riddle in this story would have a similar answer, but it turned out to be something different — which I won't spoil for those who haven't read it! :wink:

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 04 Oct 2017, 17:46
by Kate Mary
Thanks as always Tony for putting up the TW column.

This week the kittens have outgrown the queening pen and the open ended garden room has been pressed into service as a pen to keep the kittens out of trouble but I would have thought that the little perishers would have been able to climb up the wire mesh and escape over the top. We haven't heard the last of the kittens I'm sure so perhaps we'll find out.

How wonderful for her early fans to get a reply from Enid with some hollyhock seeds from Old Thatch garden, and poor Gillian had to be rescued from the pond. It's all go at Old Thatch.

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 05 Oct 2017, 08:35
by Anita Bensoussane
A lovely page full of warmth and chatter as usual. Reading 'Snapdragon Mats' I had the same problem that I have with a number of Enid Blyton's stories about fairy folk - I hadn't been picturing the little folk as small enough for their mats to fit inside snapdragon flowers!

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 05 Oct 2017, 10:30
by Rob Houghton
Yes I have that problem too! I always picture the smallest fairy folk to be about three or four inches tall, and the others to be even bigger than that - some of them up to a couple of feet or so (like in The Faraway Tree) - so I'm always a bit shocked when I have to reimagine them smaller! This happened the other day when I was reading The Skippetty Shoes in Seven O'Clock Tales and at the end the cobbler hangs his shoes in the flowers of the dead-nettle.

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 06 Oct 2017, 10:04
by Courtenay
I was a bit slow in getting to this week's page — lovely letters as always. Yes, I should think the kittens would be able to climb over the mesh too, before too long, but we'll see what happens next. It wasn't the first time Enid had had kittens in her household, so I assume she knew what she was doing.

I had to laugh at the story of "Dilly" falling in the pond and what she said when she was rescued, but it could have ended a lot more tragically! Bobs' letter also made me laugh as usual, especially him teaching the kittens to bark! :wink:

The little poem about the hazelnuts is sweet, and I enjoyed the snapdragon story too. I also find it a little disorienting that the snapdragon pixies at the end are small enough to fit into flowers, yet we've had no indication that the rest of the people in the story — though they're obviously magic folk — are that small. But it probably wouldn't matter so much to a child's imagination.

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 11 Oct 2017, 07:37
by Anita Bensoussane
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Readers who have been used to thinking of Sandy as a boy (Enid Blyton always used to refer to Sandy as "he") are in for a surprise this week!

It's good to know that Bobs' books are selling like hot cakes, with all 5,000 gone in six days and most of the next batch of 5,000 already sold too, even though they haven't yet been printed! Bobs must feel tremendously proud!

With Dilly drinking water from a vase of flowers a few weeks ago, falling in the pond last week and eating rose hips this week (luckily not going for the poisonous berries on neighbouring bushes), it seems she's a real handful at the moment! I remember my son sucking a piece of buddleia when he was little, but thankfully it isn't poisonous - or not in small quantities, anyway. Enid was obviously shocked at the thought that Dilly might have eaten poisonous berries as she gives us a poem and a story on the theme!

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 11 Oct 2017, 08:02
by Kate Mary
Why I wonder did Enid refer to Sandy as he up 'til now? Anyway Sandy's secret is out, and Enid's readers must have been somewhat confused. This week's poem is a good one and a nice little story on the same theme.

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 11 Oct 2017, 10:13
by Rob Houghton
I don't think I ever chewed any plants as a kid, or ate 'the wrong berries' etc. I was either very well-behaved or just not inquisitive!! I remember a story about my sister as a baby (before I came along) 'eating' laburnum flowers' - which are poisonous - bur I think it was only a case of sticking a flower in her mouth and then my mom saw her and removed it! :shock:

Re: Enid Blyton's Weekly Letters in Teachers World

Posted: 11 Oct 2017, 10:33
by Eddie Muir
As an infant, I lived in Worcestershire, and I can remember eating crab apples and sugar beet on the way to school. In fact, I recall that most of the children did too. The crab apple trees used to overhang people’s gardens and we used to dig up sugar beet with our fingers from the fields that surrounded the school grounds. I not sure how unhealthy it was eating these ‘goodies’, but I don’t recollect anyone being ill as a result of consuming them. Oh, happy days of childhood! :D