Blytonesque Places

[sixret]

The first photo is more or less same with my mental image of the house when I read Trouble except the house is located on the left side of it and there is a lawn in front of it.

[Julie2owlsdene]

Yes, the lawn is actually facing the house, Sixret. The view of the photo I took, that is the side of the house. It has a great lawn before it, which is on the left of the photo, and it also has a smaller house in the grounds, too. But the gates are placed on the small lane at the side of the house.

I wish I had it, I must say!

[John Pickup]

When we holiday in Devon, the cottage we stay in is quite secluded at the edge of a wood. The ground is sandy and riddled with badger setts

Love Badgers. Studied them for 5 years as part of my Conservation project, a few years ago!

There's a place called Blyton North of where I live, too. Do you live in Notts, John?

No, I live in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. But the border with Notts is just over the River Trent.

[number 6]

I know Gainsborough, John. Been there a few times over the years!

[walter raleigh]

I can't think of any around me nowadays, but when I was much (much!) younger there were a couple of places that I linked with Blyton in my mind.

On the edge of the council estate where I grew up there was grand old house that was all boarded up and slightly derelict that reminded me of the house in the Rockingdown Mystery.

Behind the house where I lived there was a steep bank with a really large tree at the top. In my imagination it was The Faraway Tree, and I used to love climbing up it. It was very easy to climb, although you couldn't get right to the top as the braches got too thin and whippy, so I never found out if there was a ladder leading to magical lands. However we used to get pieces of cardboard and slide down the grassy bank, and I always used to pretend it was the slippery slip!

[Courtenay]

Growing up in Australia, we didn't have any really Blytonesque landscapes around, but I'm just remembering the two caves in the cliffs along the coast a few miles from my hometown. You can go in at low tide (they don't go far back - we never found anything in there but a few bats), but at high tide, the entrances flood very quickly. We got caught out like that a couple of times, and I'd always think of Peter and Janet's cave adventure in At Seaside Cottage. (No, we didn't have Scamper to swim for help for us - we just had to scramble over a lot of wet, slippery rocks!)


Peter and Janet's cave


Our own - The Caves beach, Bunurong Marine Park, Inverloch
(you see what I mean about the tide coming in!)

[Julie2owlsdene]

That picture is very much like Peter and Janet's cave, Courtenay.

There are quite a number of great caves along the rugged Cornish coast, which always look so appealing to go adventuring in, but some of them are dangerous as the warning signs say.

[Courtenay]

That picture is very much like Peter and Janet's cave, Courtenay.

It is, isn't it? I was delighted when I found the Peter and Janet illustration to compare, as I didn't have the original Eileen Soper-illustrated version of At Seaside Cottage, only the book where it's included among other short stories of Enid's. The cave where we got caught by the tide a couple of times is the one on the far right of the photo.

I'm hoping to visit Cornwall later this year, but will try not to get stuck in any caves!!

[floragord]

On the topic of Blyton-esque landscapes, did anyone see SECRET BRITAIN (BBC1), on last night? The presenter, Ellie, went on a boat trip with a little girl called Fiona, who'd lived near Loch Morar all her life and knew the tiny islands around there backwards. Fairy Island, a magical place full of ferns, flowers and waterfalls, really did look like something out of an Enid Blyton book!

[Julie2owlsdene]

I'm sorry I missed that, it sounded good.

[John Pickup]

We watched that programme, Floragord and thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Moonraker]

Yes, we watched that whilst waiting for ITV to get 20 minutes ahead. I thought of Kirrin Island as the boat was steered into the little cove of Fairy Island. I loved the climb of Ben Nevis, only to spend hours reaching the summit to find hordes of runners who were running up and down in 90 minutes!

Secret Britain could be a Byton title - but it isn't so secret now.

[Daisy]

I saw it too and thought how magical it looked. I was also very taken with the waterfalls in the first programme - reminded me of the Valley of Adventure.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I was reminded of The Valley of Adventure by two waterfalls I've been to - the first in Flam in Norway, and the second in Imouzzer Ida Outanane in Morocco:

[Francis]

For some reason I always imagined that Julian, Dick and Anne lived in the London commuter belt (where Enid grew up) and that their father worked in the city which would be one of the reasons they were so keen in spending their holidays at Kirrin.