Teachers World Letters, Jan 1930 - July 1934

[Daisy]

Glad you had the same result Tony. Yes, the cure grows near the cause!

[Eddie Muir]

Gosh I thought that was a well known thing, since I was a small boy (and that wasn't last year!) I have always rubbed a dock leaf onto any nettle sting and the pain goes instantly. I have found it is almost always the case that docks grow in the close vicinity of nettles - or I have just been lucky all my life!

My friends and I also used dock leaves when we got stung by nettles and I’m talking about the late 1940s/early 1950s. As you say, Tony, dock leaves always seem to grow in the close vicinity of nettles.

[Jack400]

Dock leaves were also covered on "Reality on a Secret Island".
Here's a link to it.

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/foru ... es#p330514" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I found the leaves very useful in the 1970s and occasionally to this day. They must like the same conditions as they always appear to grow near stinging nettles.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I too have always used dock leaves on nettle stings.

[John Pickup]

And so have I. I've found that they tend to grow near nettles too, which is very handy!

[Anita Bensoussane]

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/blyt ... perid=1194" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Enid's description of "a wild, beautiful day, a day of dazzling sun, purple shadows and tossing wind" strikes a chord as the day before yesterday was exactly like that here in Essex!

Poor Sandy, having unpleasant and painful encounters with a hedgehog, a toad and a bee.

The puzzle-poem is easy to work out but lovely to read.

Thanks very much to Tony for putting up these pages each week.

[Kate Mary]

When Enid mentions a 'wood dove' she must mean a wood pigeon, perhaps they were rarer in Enid's day, we have hundreds where I live, I've no need to look up a picture of one. A nice little story and puzzle poem this week, thank you Tony.

[Courtenay]

When Enid mentions a 'wood dove' she must mean a wood pigeon, perhaps they were rarer in Enid's day, we have hundreds where I live, I've no need to look up a picture of one.

I would assume so too, except for Enid's description — she calls it a "pretty little wood-dove", and wood pigeons are anything but little (I remember how amazed I was, when I first came to the UK, to see how much more massive they are than ordinary town pigeons). Also, she describes it as calling "croo, croo, croo", which doesn't sound like a wood pigeon — they always call "croo croooooo croo, croo-croo", in a very distinctive way. (One of my books transcribes it as the wood pigeon's answer to a Welshman who had just stolen a cow: "Steal twoooooo cows, Taffy." ) Enid is usually pretty diligent with how she describes bird calls, so I wouldn't think she'd have got it so far off the mark if it really was a wood pigeon.

There are only 5 species of pigeons and doves in the UK in total (I'm checking the RSPB's website as I type! ), so that doesn't leave a lot of scope. The turtle dove has a very long "purring" kind of coo, so that doesn't seem likely. The collared dove is small and does have a triple cooing call, but according to the website, it's only been found in the UK since the 1950s (self-introduced) and of course Enid is writing in the 1930s. So I can only guess that by "wood-dove" she means what's now called a stock dove. It looks rather like a common pigeon (rock dove) but is smaller, and it does have a repeated "croo" call (though more than three croos at a time, going by the RSPB's recording!). So that's what my money's on, so to speak.

Aha, I've just gone looking online to see if the stock dove has any alternative traditional names and found this useful website that I think solves the mystery... 21 Facts on Stock Doves

20. There are many regional names for this dove, ranging from blue rock to wood dove, cushat, sand pigeon and stoggie.

Lovely letters again — I especially enjoyed Bobs'. Poor old Sandy!! I had to laugh at the thought of Bobs in a cap and apron as his nursemaid!

[Anita Bensoussane]

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/blyt ... perid=1195" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Enid is lucky to have a moorhen nesting in her garden. I've come across several moorhens' nests in the countryside or parks this year and it's delightful to see the chicks - each one a little ball of black fluff with a red-and-yellow beak poking out. Enid doesn't shy away from telling her readers a sad tale about her moorhen family though.

'The Caterpillar and the Butterfly' is a wonderful poem - rhythmic, engaging, informative and humorous. One of Enid Blyton's best!

Thanks, Tony!

[Courtenay]

Lovely letters again this week. I notice Bobs' letter, unlike Enid's, doesn't make any mention of his faux pas with the father moorhen!! We have moorhens in Australia too — a native species, but very similar to the British ones — and I love seeing them with their chicks. I did enjoy Bobs fulfilling the fisherman's wish for a "bite"!

"The Boast that Came True" is a simple and fairly predictable but amusing little story — sounds like an earlier version of Binkle and Flip — and "The Caterpillar and the Butterfly" was delightful, though I'm a little baffled as to why the butterfly apparently didn't remember its origins at all! I do remember at least one later Blyton story in which the butterflies (or moths?) give a party for the caterpillars to teach them about what life will be like when they too become butterflies, and the caterpillars don't believe any of it, but of course it comes about soon enough...

[Daisy]

Another delightful page - I wonder how mamy teachers used it... I would have loved to have it as a resource in my teaching days.

[Kate Mary]

Enid was doing sterling work collecting silver paper for the children's hospital. I checked the amounts on the Bank of England inflation calculator, £65 in 1934 is over £4,422 and £12 is over £816 in today's money. These must have seemed fabulous amounts to children then and they felt they were doing their bit for sick children. I bet this won't be mentioned in the new biography 'The Real Enid Blyton'.

The Caterpillar and the Butterfly is another gorgeous poem and one in which the children get the joke even when the creatures in the poem don't.

Great stuff, thank you Tony.

[Anita Bensoussane]

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/blyt ... perid=1196" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A gloriously summery page this week, with mentions of a seaside holiday, steamers, hollyhocks, rambling roses, raspberries, etc.

Poor Bobs, afraid of being a "Manx dog"!

Dorothy Tredwin's riddle kept me occupied for a minute or two.

Thanks, Tony!

[Kate Mary]

A lovely description of Enid's seaside holiday this week, she was lucky to see the Mauritania, it must have been one of its last Atlantic crossings, it was taken out of service later that year. The Salt, Salt Sea is a grand little story that I haven't read before, but I'm still puzzling over Dorothy's riddle-me-ree.

[Courtenay]

What delightful letters this week! I love Enid's description of the Isle of Wight and Gillian's reaction to the sea, and poor old Bobs having to stay at home and guard the house and wishing he had a burglar to bite — and not wanting to become a Manx dog!

I also haven't figured out the riddle-me-ree yet — it helps when the line at the end gives you a clue as to what the whole word is! But I'll keep working on it.

"The Salt, Salt Sea" is another lovely "how it came to be" story from Enid — actually, it bears some resemblance to a Chinese legend I had in a book as a child, though I don't know if Enid would ever have read it. It was about an honest and kind man who was given a magic stone grinder that would produce anything it was asked, but would only start when asked with a "please" and only stop when told "thank you". His mean and greedy older brother promptly stole the grinder and took it away on a ship and asked it to please grind him some salt, which he was intending to sell in a far country for lots of money. So it did, but in his greed the wicked brother forgot that he had to say "thank you" to make the grinder stop, so it went on and on pouring out salt until the ship sank under the weight, and then of course they say it's still grinding away somewhere under the sea...