'From My Window' in Teachers World

[Kate Mary]

What a good idea to start the From My Window columns from the beginning, I'm always up for a re-read of these wonderful essays. I see Tony has added them up to June 1926 at the moment, I hope we get all 209 From My Windows eventually.

This week's column is brilliant and so true I think, people's outward appearance is often a reflection of their inner self. I hope other people enjoy these columns too.

[Katharine]

I've just read the first of these and found it very interesting, not so much from Enid's observations, but from a historical point. She ponders at the start about the topic to write about, and mentions 'salaries, conferences and lock-outs'. I had to look up the meaning of a lock-out - it would appear it is the opposite to the strikes that some teachers took part in a while back, as for pay, and conferences - it would seem that the 'politics' of teaching haven't changed in almost a century!

I also enjoyed her comment about the 'modern psychologist', I wonder how different/similar their ideas would be to those of today.

I'm looking forward to reading more of the articles.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Yes, these columns are a real slice of history. It's interesting too to see Enid Blyton writing for an adult readership.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I like hearing about what Enid Blyton read, though the "fine book" she discusses this week (Man and the Attainment of Immortality by Professor Simpson) sounds terribly solemn! Enid describes it as "picturesquely vivid in presenting new facts" - a fabulous phrase!

Again, Enid emphasises the importance of finding analogies - just as she did in her very first column about the minds of the child and the genius. She says that a scientist like Professor Simpson must have a broad knowledge and understanding, and "wisdom enough to find analogies between the different pieces of knowledge in any realm of science, he must be able to correlate them, to use one piece to corroborate another, and to show that they all tend in the same direction."

I'm very much enjoying these varied, thoughtful columns. Thanks again for putting them up, Tony.

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[Kate Mary]

I had a look on Ebay for Professor Simpson's book and astonishingly it is still available in the USA! It was reprinted in 2007 and at least a couple of copies are for sale for £30.66. I think I'll stick with Enid and my other favourite authors though. Interesting that Enid says that "few teachers ... can afford to belong to a first-class library", obviously free public libraries were still not universal even in the 1920s and Enid refers to subscription libraries like W H Smith's circulating library or Boots Booklovers Library. Absolutely fascinating as always, I learn so many interesting things from these columns.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Good point about the libraries, Kate. I didn't fully take that in when I read the column.

[Anita Bensoussane]

It's fun observing rock pool life with Enid, though I hope that sea anemone was okay after all those pebbles! I love the phrase "stricken with compunction"!

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[Courtenay]

Poor sea anemone!! That was quite cruel of Enid, really, as she must surely have known it couldn't digest pebbles and might end up being harmed. We had sea anemones in the rockpools at our local beach when I was little and I must admit I always enjoyed giving them a poke — only gently! — to make them draw in their sticky tentacles and close up into a soft red stump, then gradually open out again. But I wouldn't have stuck stones in them!

Mind you, this experience of Enid's must have at least partly inspired one of her Pip the Pixie stories, "A Very Queer Flower", in which Pip is exploring rockpools by the sea and discovers a sea anemone, which opens itself "just like a flower blossoming" and asks Pip if he can send it any small shrimps that come by. Pip does so and is promptly horrified when the "flower" seizes the shrimp, drags it in and spits out the remains...

"Why — you've eaten it! You're an animal, not a flower!" cried Pip. "You're a fraud. You pretend to be a pretty flower, and all the time you're looking out for things to eat. All right, I'll give you some!"

And the naughty pixie put bits of seaweed, grains of sand and a few tiny pebbles into the centre of the anemone's petals. They closed on them at once and tried to eat them. The anemone was very angry at Pip's trick.

It suddenly flung out its petal-arms and caught hold of him. He felt himself being dragged inside the anemone — and dear me, if his friend the hermit crab hadn't come along at that very moment and pinched the anemone hard that would have been the end of Pip the Pixie!

Just as well for Enid, in her own anemone-teasing incident, that she was rather bigger than Pip!!

[Anita Bensoussane]

Thanks for the reminder of the Pip story, Courtenay. I learnt a great deal about nature from The Adventures of Pip as a youngster. Having the information presented in the form of stories revolving around an appealing character means that children absorb a lot of facts and have their curiosity and interest aroused while feeling that they're being entertained rather than taught.

[Courtenay]

Totally agree, Anita. I first bought The Adventures of Pip when I was 9, from my parents' second hand bookstall that they always ran at our school's Easter Fair (can't remember how much Mum charged me for it... probably only 40 or 50c in those days) and read it avidly and just loved the way every story brought in some kind of fun fact about nature. It didn't matter to me in the slightest that they were all set in Britain and most of the creatures and plants featured were nothing like the ones we have in Australia — I always wanted to visit the UK one day anyway, and now I live here and often see little aspects of nature that I remember learning from Enid. (And we do have sparrows and blackbirds in Australia as introduced species, so I already knew about their little black bibs and golden beaks, for which of course we learn Pip was responsible! )

[Kate Mary]

I don't think lying in a rock pool is a good idea, Enid must have shared it with all sorts of creatures, and sea anemones must dislike being sat on even more than being fed stones! It must have spat them out eventually surely. I agree about The Adventures of Pip, it's a lovely book with beautiful Raymond Sheppard illustrations. I like the fact that the Dean edition is an omnibus of both books and much easier to get hold of than the Sampson Low editions.

[Courtenay]

Yes, I have the Dean edition (a better copy than the one I bought aged 9, but otherwise identical). I love the illustrations too.

I don't think lying in a rock pool is a good idea, Enid must have shared it with all sorts of creatures, and sea anemones must dislike being sat on even more than being fed stones!

Er, yes, quite. It sounds like she was sitting in it and leaning back against a rock, not full-on lying down, but that's bad enough. Good thing she wasn't sitting one of our rockpools on the coast of Australia, or she might have sat on a blue-ringed octopus (deadly venomous) or a cone snail (not as dangerous to humans but still pretty nasty). I've always loved exploring rockpools, but from a young age we're taught NEVER to put your hands under a rock or anywhere else where you can't see what you're touching, and NEVER to touch either of those creatures (I've never seen live ones of either in the wild, thank goodness) or anything else if you're not absolutely sure what it is!!

(Incredibly foolish (and lucky) people here: Tourists in Australia unwittingly play around with extremely poisonous octopus)

[Anita Bensoussane]

My copy of The Adventures of Pip is also Dean & Son - the laminated version with the pretty cover and spine by Rene Cloke.

I must admit I used to sit in rock pools as a child, but only for a few minutes at a time and I kept an eye out for crabs and jellyfish.

[Wolfgang]

I must admit I used to sit in rock pools as a child, but only for a few minutes at a time and I kept an eye out for crabs and jellyfish.

Were you that hungry ?

[Anita Bensoussane]