Teachers World Letters 1942

[Anita Bensoussane]

I remember learning about Australian 'School of the Air' classes when I was about eight, in junior school. There was a piece about them in something I was reading in the classroom - probably a Wide Range Readers book or similar, or perhaps an SRA card. They sounded fascinating.

Incidentally, I love the fact that one of Enid Blyton's Teachers World letters from 1942 has provoked such an interesting discussion in 2023. I'm sure Enid would be tickled pink if she knew!

[Boodi 2]

That's quite a story about the daughter of your mother's friend, Boodi - although if my children made choices I wasn't sure about, I'd still be there for them and I wouldn't give two hoots what other people thought.

Agreed Anita, but in those far-off days many people (including my late mother) were really concerned about "what the neighbours would think", which must have made their lives a real misery. Thankfully my late father was more sensible and did not worry about what the neighbours might think. In fact he tried to console my mother on one or two occasions by commenting that the neighbours would probably be eternally grateful to her for giving them something to gossip about!!! However, her friend (the mother of the teenage girl who eloped with a traveller/gypsy) took the situation very badly and became so depressed that she ended up being cared for in a nursing home, which is very sad.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I've never lived in a close-knit neighbourhood, which I suppose has some drawbacks but also some advantages!

[Boodi 2]

I'm not sure that close-knit is the right description...it was more a case of the valley of the squinting windows or twitching curtains!

[Bertie]

Re: boarding schools. I always hated the idea of living away from home as a youngster - and, even worse, the thought of living at the school day and night!

I never really enjoyed being at school all that much anyway, as I always loved my home life so much as a youngster. Going 9-3.30 5 days a week was more than enough for me, so I didn't really do many of the after school activities either and definitely wouldn't have wanted to live there.

I guess that's one of the reasons I've never read Enid's school books - I much prefer to read those she set in the holidays! I think I've only ever read any of PG Wodehouse's early comedy school books that he set in boys boarding schools once or twice at most. They're readable, but not a patch on his later books or on Enid's Mystery / Adventure ones.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I'm not sure that close-knit is the right description...it was more a case of the valley of the squinting windows or twitching curtains!

Bertie, if I had gone to boarding school I'm sure I'd soon have come to resent having so little time to do my own thing.

I like Enid Blyton's school stories (although Antonia Forest's books about Kingscote are even better in my opinion) but my favourite Blytons are the Adventure, Find-Outers, Barney and Secret series, along with family stories like the Six Cousins books, The Six Bad Boys and The Family at Red-Roofs. Having said that, I love The Enid Blyton Book of Brownies and the Faraway Tree series too, not to mention the circus books and various short stories (especially ones featuring Mr. Pink-Whistle, or tales about naughty children).

[Katharine]

I think as a child, part of me probably liked the idea of going to a boarding school, ie the feasts, jokes etc but in reality I'm pretty sure I would have hated it!

Like Bertie, having to go to school 5 days a week was bad enough, but at least I had home I could return to at the end of each day. Although I did have a few friends at school, generally I was one of those that didn't really fit in, so got laughed at and jeered.

I don't know what boys are like, but certainly I think if I'd gone to an all girls boarding school I would have been teased/picked on for not having the 'right' clothes, not living in the right house, liking the 'wrong' kind of music etc etc. The thought of either having to conform to avoid being picked on, or enduring spiteful comments for being myself, 24/7 would I think have been pretty traumatic.

[Courtenay]

Like Bertie, having to go to school 5 days a week was bad enough, but at least I had home I could return to at the end of each day. Although I did have a few friends at school, generally I was one of those that didn't really fit in, so got laughed at and jeered.

I don't know what boys are like, but certainly I think if I'd gone to an all girls boarding school I would have been teased/picked on for not having the 'right' clothes, not living in the right house, liking the 'wrong' kind of music etc etc. The thought of either having to conform to avoid being picked on, or enduring spiteful comments for being myself, 24/7 would I think have been pretty traumatic.

That would have been the worst of it for me too. I was relentlessly bullied at my first two schools (right up until I moved to that one in Melbourne when I was 16; that was a really nice school where bullying was surprisingly rare and if it happened, it was swiftly dealt with) — but no matter how bad the bullying got, at least I went home at the end of each day and they couldn't get me there. Having that in a boarding school would have been hell on earth. And thank goodness I left school just a few years before the internet really took off... cyberbullying, if it had been around then, would have been more than I could bear.

As for Enid's school stories, I wasn't the slightest bit interested in them (although my sister was a fan of Malory Towers) — why should I want to read stories set in schools with children doing all the sorts of ordinary things that happen in real life?? I liked Enid's mystery and adventure stories much better, along with all the ones with magic and fantasy elements in them. I was unabashedly reading and re-reading Noddy and the Galliano's Circus stories when I was way over the intended age range! (I did have an "I'm Too Grown-Up Now for Enid Blyton" phase, but it didn't last very long.)

[Katharine]

Although I don't think I'd have enjoyed boarding school life myself, it didn't stop me collecting, and reading (and re-reading) all the school stories. Perhaps the appeal for me was that apart from learning lessons, I didn't feel that the books related to ordinary life. I did like the idea of midnight feasts, and a lot of the jokes were quite funny.

Perhaps the most enjoyable bit (and also unrealistic part) was where some of the girls had faults, but learned to deal with them. I can't think of many cases where the bullies etc. learned the errors of their ways, and became reformed characters.

If I had thought that a real life boarding school would be the same, and that any nasty behaviour would be nipped in the bud fairly early, then I might have been keen to go to one - although unless I'd won a scholarship, I don't think that from a financial point of view there would have been much chance of me being sent to one.

I think that in general schools seem to be a lot better at dealing with bullying these days, although unfortunately with social media, I think things outside of school are possibly worse than in my day. As someone pointed out earlier, at least once we were at home, we could usually forget about school for a few hours.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Although I did have a few friends at school, generally I was one of those that didn't really fit in, so got laughed at and jeered.

Same here, but for me the bullying started at secondary school. I read Enid Blyton's school series when I was at junior school, which I loved. It's sad that bullying was/is part and parcel of school life for so many.

I think that in general schools seem to be a lot better at dealing with bullying these days, although unfortunately with social media, I think things outside of school are possibly worse than in my day.

Yes, I agree. I can relate to what Courtenay said - I doubt I'd have been able to cope with cyberbullying on top of the things that went on in school.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Autumn "has come with a rush to Green Hedges" and "The leaves are beginning to change colour, though they are very late this year." It's the same in 2023, with many trees still having a lot of green at the moment.

Enid writes that Gillian has started boarding school and "badly wants me to write a book about her adventures at school" - though at that stage the St. Clare's series was already underway and the Malory Towers series was a few years off.

Enid's words about children and their gifts are interesting. Much the same thoughts are to be found in her stories, where using one's brains is praised but gifts such as "cheerfulness, steadfastness, loyalty or kindliness" are also valued.

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=1907

[Judith Crabb]

At least in Adelaide, capital of South Australia, boarding schools were very important institutions in the education of children living in remote areas. Wealth did come into it of course as the 'squattocracy' and their descendants on vast rural properties tended to be very well off. Especially with those of Anglo descent, who had traditions of such schools back in England it seemed a logical way of getting the best education for their children. I've heard some very bitter condemnations of the habit as some children were sent very young, basically to get them off their parents' hands. Not to mention unruly children of the wealthier classes[*]. Older children tended to have much more positive memories. A well-off grandmother financed a young relative of mine from a large family who grew up on Kangaroo Island to become a boarder at a girls' school in Adelaide.
[*] Which reminds me of the heroine of 'Seven Little Australians' - Judy. If I remember correctly that was her punishment.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Ah yes, Judy runs away from the school and returns home on foot, hiding in the barn. A tragic story - my sister and I cried at a TV adaptation in the 1970s. So did our aunty, who was staying with us for a week or so and watched an episode with us (she'd already seen earlier episodes at home)!

[Courtenay]

At least in Adelaide, capital of South Australia, boarding schools were very important institutions in the education of children living in remote areas. Wealth did come into it of course as the 'squattocracy' and their descendants on vast rural properties tended to be very well off. Especially with those of Anglo descent, who had traditions of such schools back in England it seemed a logical way of getting the best education for their children. I've heard some very bitter condemnations of the habit as some children were sent very young, basically to get them off their parents' hands. Not to mention unruly children of the wealthier classes[*]. Older children tended to have much more positive memories. A well-off grandmother financed a young relative of mine from a large family who grew up on Kangaroo Island to become a boarder at a girls' school in Adelaide.
[*] Which reminds me of the heroine of 'Seven Little Australians' - Judy. If I remember correctly that was her punishment.

That's very interesting, Judith — whereas I, growing up in Victoria in the late 20th century, had no knowledge of any boarding schools in either Melbourne or elsewhere. Probably down to cultural changes over time and the fact that Victoria, unlike South Australia and most of the other states, doesn't have many ultra-remote areas where children wouldn't have access to higher education at all if they didn't move to the city. I'm guessing there probably were more boarding schools in Melbourne in the past, during my grandparents' generation, but they'd fallen out of favour by the time I was around. I always thought of them as something that existed only in England! (I've never read Seven Little Australians, so I had no idea there's at least one classic Australian novel that features a boarding school.)

[Boatbuilder]

The book mentioned is available from Amazon, Courtenay, although there does appear to be two books of that title listed by different authors.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=seven+litt ... doa-p_3_24