35 Signs You Read Enid Blyton As A Child...

[Moonraker]

Yes, Julie; I don't think calling it Torquay Towers and naming Basil, Basil Smith, would have worked so well.

I would have thought they should be Chicken flavoured Quorn.

That would also be wrong, as no chicken is in the ingredients!

[Rob Houghton]

Surely 'chicken flavoured' implies that there's no actual chicken used? A bit like hedgehog flavoured crisps a while ago...

[walter raleigh]

     Can a Maxey enthusiast enlighten me on what qualities her work has that give them merit, which I am somehow totally missing?

For me it's partly the nostalgia factor that Pete and Anita have alluded to, but also that I'm a fan of that particular style of art. Mininmalistic detail, clean lines, the simplicity of it appeals to me. I accept that in many ways Soper is the more accomplished artist, but her style seems too old fashioned and cluttered to me.

Although not everything she tries comes off, some of Betty Maxey's drawings are very effective. She's particularly good at drawing animals, and I think her covers are gorgeous.

[Fiona1986]

For me Maxey's covers are much better than her line drawings. Am I the only one to look at the dog (presumably Timmy) above and wonder where his other front leg has gone?

[Rob Houghton]

I agree the cover illustrations by Maxey are much more effective than the internal ones. I remember when I was 7 or 8 I used to look at my sister's Famous Five library (all paperbacks with Maxey covers) and think how grown-up they looked! They were definitely attempting to make the Five series appeal to girls in particular who were into the young teenager magazines of the day such as Jinty and Tammy.

As for Timmy's leg, I would just presume it was under his head out of shot.

[pete9012S]

Yes, Julie; I don't think calling it Torquay Towers and naming Basil, Basil Smith, would have worked so well.

As usual,Paul raises a good point.I think John Cleese had to come up with an alternative name for both the hotel and its owner to avoid any legal action from the establishment the comedy was based on:

Based on a True Story: The story goes that when John Cleese was still a member of Monty Python, the group had gone someplace by bus, and the bus broke down in Torquay. Because they couldn't have their bus fixed that day, they had to stay at the local hotel - the Torquay Gleneagles, owned by one Donald Sinclair - overnight. About an hour after checking in, all the Pythons except John Cleese left and walked to the next town to find another hotel. Cleese? He bought pen and paper.

In particular, Basil's treatment of his US guests in "Waldorf Salad" is based on Sinclair's treatment of Terry Gilliam. The man supposedly attacked Gilliam's accent and claimed his table manners were too American.
He also apparently threw a timetable at a guest who asked about a bus, and tossed Eric Idle's suitcase over a wall because he thought it contained a bomb (actually an alarm clock).
Sinclair's family complained that he wasn't as bad as the show made him out to be, saying that Sinclair had simply taken a disliking to the Python members in particular. However, a former waitress from the hotel claimed that Sinclair was, if anything, even worse than Cleese had made out.
"The Kipper and the Corpse" was based on a story told to Cleese by hotelier Andrew Leeman. The dead guest was named in his honor.

What alternative name for the hotel and its owner would Paul have chosen I wonder?
I do hope he lets us know,but he doesn't usually get back to us once he has made his initial comment.
Do tell us your alternative choice of hotel & manager's name Paul.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Great Betty Maxey pictures - they're very expressive and I love them both!

[Paul Austin]

Pete:

It's like how the concept of Batman's disguise doesn't work in the modern day, with voice recognition software and satellites that can track the BatMobile.

[Poppy]

I also really like those Maxey illustrations - particularly the one of Timmy, though I don't think it reflects my vision of him. It is a lovely picture, though.

[pete9012S]

since Basil must have gone through his entire life being mocked for his surname, why did he not only keep the name but also name the hotel after it? And why did Sybil let him?

Within the universe of the show, that's never made any sense to me.

What alternative name for the hotel and its owner would Paul have chosen I wonder?
I do hope he lets us know,but he doesn't usually get back to us once he has made his initial comment.
Do tell us your alternative choice of hotel & manager's name Paul.

Pete:

It's like how the concept of Batman's disguise doesn't work in the modern day, with voice recognition software and satellites that can track the BatMobile.

How I wish Paul's analogy could be applied to modern day shoddy hotels,but alas we've still experienced bad service,noisy neighbours and yes even poorly washed cutlery and crockery.
Still,at least the hotel and the manager had a nice universally accepted name!



Plus,can't fault the receptionist,although we noticed he clearly had a dog's life!

[MJE]

She's particularly good at drawing animals

     I find that Timmy quite unattractive. It looks not too good-natured a dog, whereas Timmy as shown by Eileen Soper looks friendly and good-natured, and only gets aggressive when there is good reason to, such as defending the other members of the Five.

Regards, Michael.

[Daisy]

I also really like those Maxey illustrations - particularly the one of Timmy, though I don't think it reflects my vision of him. It is a lovely picture, though.

I agree Poppy. It's a nice drawing of a dog but to me it just isn't Timmy...

[Anita Bensoussane]

I think Timmy is adorable in that picture - flopped down and gentle, with kind eyes. He looks a little ungainly as his head is slightly too big for his body, but then that's how Enid Blyton describes him!

[Daisy]

It really is a case of "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," isnt it!

[Courtenay]

As I've said before, it's a very good drawing of a dog, but he doesn't look like a mongrel at all - much more like a Labrador, or Labrador cross. Enid tells us very clearly in the first book that Timmy is such a mixture that it was "quite impossible to tell what kind of a dog he was dog he was supposed to be", and admitted elsewhere that even Eileen Soper's version of him didn't exactly match what she (Enid) had in her own imagination.

I always wonder what the "original" Timmy actually looked like - he was based on a real dog that Enid knew - but I suppose each of us imagine him slightly differently anyway, and that's how it should be.