80 Years Ago This Month - Sunny Stories 1938

[Kate Mary]

Hurrah! Tony has been busy and the poems, pictures and bits and pieces from Sunny Stories have resumed:

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/maga ... ?magid=303" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A huge thank you to Tony, I do so enjoy these pages from Sunny Stories. I hope you are now fighting fit after your stay in hospital.

[Tony Summerfield]

You have jumped the gun a bit, Kate, as I haven't quite finished 55, but I will do so and load it this morning. I have got rather behind with this as the four issues that are needed for the month take me 8 to 10 hours, so that on top of the day job, weekly letters, fortnightly magazines and a new Journal that I have just sent to the printers has proved a bit of a mouthful.

I am doing a bit more on this thread for 2018, as I am including all the illustrations with a brief taster of the title page of a story and I will also include any appropriate competition pages. I still have February and March to do, another few hours!

I am still mending from my pneumonia but I am very much improved, apart from my voice which seems to have got lost somewhere along the way - I have not been able to speak properly this year which I am sure some will see as an advantage!

[Kate Mary]

Oops! Sorry Tony but you know I'm always ferreting about in the Cave. It's good to know you are getting better, my sister had pneumonia a few years back, it was an awful time.

[Courtenay]

Glad you're well on the mend, Tony — thanks for all the work you're doing.

[Eddie Muir]

I’m glad to hear that you’re getting better, Tony. That’s great news.

[Rob Houghton]

Thank you for all the work you do, Tony - on the Journal and my EB Magazine scans and this thread, as well as so many other things. I'm pleased you are improving - though I know recovering from pneumonia can be a long slow slog - and it doesn't help when we are being gripped by sub-zero temperatures at a time of year when we would expect it to be warming up!

I guess, looking on the bright side, at least you can make 'sexy phone-calls' now your voice is so husky!!!

[Tony Summerfield]

I have now added No. 55, so January is all there. I don't normally put the painting competition in but as this one was so appropriate and also painted quite nicely I couldn't resist it!

[Courtenay]

Did you paint it yourself, Tony?

[Rob Houghton]

That's very well painted! I wonder who did it? Maybe even an adult, as it was never sent in to the competition. Some of the painting pages were lovely - especially in Sunny Stories. I'm not so keen on those that are included in the EB Magazines, as they seem a bit bland compared to Sunny Stories.

[Anita Bensoussane]

It's brilliant that you've found time to start putting up goodies from Sunny Stories again, Tony. Thanks very much indeed for doing this - we'd never have the chance to see these gems otherwise. I hope you'll soon be completely recovered, including your voice!

As well as the 'Snowy Weather' painting competition, the snowman cover by Marjorie Thorp (Issue 52) feels just right for today, and what a lovely illustration by Grace Lodge for the poem 'Fallen Leaves'. My favourite Enid Blyton poem from this January 1938 batch is 'The Kitten After Its Tail', which is rhythmic and amusing. Elizabeth Dadd's poem, 'If I Had', is charming and I also like Jean Webley's Riddle-Me-Ree.

Enid's editorial letters are wonderfully warm and chatty and would have made readers feel as though she knew them and was addressing them personally, especially when she says things like, "You and Gillian usually like the same things!"

I love the lively pictures for 'Toby and the Butcher's Boy'. What a pity we don't know who did the illustrations for many of the picture-strip stories.

[Anita Bensoussane]

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/maga ... ?magid=307" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The February 1938 issues of Sunny Stories have now been scanned - thanks, Tony! - and I've enjoyed being whisked into a bygone world while looking through them. Dorothy Wheeler is the stand-out illustrator for me this time. Her cover for Issue 56 ('Billy-Bob Goes to a Party') is charming and I'm fond of the black line drawings she also did for the Billy-Bob stories. They capture the innocent fun and wonder of early childhood.

It's always lovely to see the extra Secret Island illustrations too, by E. H. Davie - and the picture by 'VH' for the 'Pixie Birds' painting competition is adorable.

I'm impressed with the poems by Jean Woodman ('Winter') and Evelyn Jackson ('Over the Hills and Far Away') and I very much like Enid Blyton's poem, 'The Clock Shop'. I too love clocks with all their different ticks and chimes, and I always stop to look at old clocks in antique shops or stately homes.

I had fun doing the puzzle about railway stations (Issue 56)!

[pete9012S]

Absolutely fantastic. Many thanks Tony.
The only problem is I now desperately want to read the whole 'Black Boot Buttons' story!!

[Katharine]

Although I'm lucky enough to have a few Sunny Stories magazines, I know that I'm unlikely to be able to collect them all, especially the very earliest ones. So I thought I'd try and see if I could read as many of the stories as possible which have ended up in other books.

So I started with Sunny Stories for Little Folk. The first issue doesn't appear to have had any of its stories printed elsewhere, so I moved onto the second issue - July 1926. One of the stories in that issue is The Wonderful Tar-Baby which was reprinted in 1934. I thought I'd check The Cave to see if it appears anywhere else, and found a number of stories with that title.

I've tried tracking them back to see if they are the same story, just reprinted a few times, but have hit a problem. Apparently it was reprinted in 1934, and again in 1940. Both books are also probably hard to come by. Then I found a story with that name in the Dean books, which I already have a copy of. When I tracked that back through The Cave, it was first printed in Sunny Stories No. 42, in 1937. Which is 11 years after the original story.

Does anyone know if the 2 stories are the same, or just have the same title?

[pete9012S]

A very interesting question Katharine.

There are as you rightly say,quite a few stories with Tar-Baby in the title in the cave.

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

Tony has kindly reproduced one that featured in the 1946 calendar:

[Rob Houghton]

Absolutely fantastic. Many thanks Tony.
The only problem is I now desperately want to read the whole 'Black Boot Buttons' story!!

The story can be read in 'Tales of Green Hedges' or 'Andrew's Robin' - which is a paperback.

I have Tales of Green Hedges, so I've posted the story for people to read. Unfortunately the story in Tales of Green Hedges isn't illustrated as the Sunny Stories version is. Apologies for the rather blurry images - I can only photograph things as I haven't got a scanner at the moment. Hopefully they are just about readable!