The Enid Blyton Society

I've been to the Mount a couple of times, but didn't spot Block snooping around!

he was no doubt in one of the secret passages underneath!

... or hiding behind some curtains, careful to hide his shoes this time...

Good thing the Five are presumably heading in that direction on the train, then!

Just going back a few posts, the route is Paddington London, ending at Penzance. As Nigel says, not anyway near the Swanage, Corfe etc as that is another line entirely.

But a good advert when all said and done.

An excellent advert, thanks for posting it Nigel. As others have said it's good to see the FF used properly and sympathetically rather than depicted as a bunch of stick figures or whatever. The line looks to me to be the London - Penzance route as I have been on it before and thought I recognised places but I am certainly no expert. I do remember loving the Dawlish part of the line as it runs along the seashore. And that is certainly St Michaels Mount at the end, a place I loved and must revisit soon.

Sorry if I confused some of you. I wasn't specifically referring to the Five going to Dorset on the advert, but was speaking generally that three of them used to get the train to Kirrin from a London station. That wouldn't have been Paddington, if Kirrin was based in Dorset as some people think. It would have been more pertinent to me had the SWR made this advert.

Courtenay, I was referring to the Southern Railway - formed after the 1922 Grouping. The LSWR ran trains before this date from Waterloo to the West Country. The Southern Railway franchise of today is a completely different concern, running trains from Victoria to Brighton and the south coast. Ironic too as the new franchisee for former LSWR lines is called The South Western Railway. All trains from London to Devon and beyond are now, for the first time ever, owned by one company - the First Group. They own GWR and SWR. So much for competition.

Courtenay wrote:I was simply thinking in the context of Purbeck being more or less the "official" Famous Five Country, and yet it's not GWR territory. Anyway, if Southern still ran trains to Swanage et al, the ads might have to be Five Have Their Holiday Cancelled Due to Another Rail Strike.

Yes, that was my point - well done for understanding me! However, you can catch a train from Waterloo to Wareham (the Weymouth line), and although the trial season has just ended, you could have changed at Wareham and hopped on the Swanage train.

Floragord, GWR have been the sponsor of ITV West/Wales for some time now. I imagine they are using the Five to reinforce their current advertising campaign. I will watch your local weather tonight out of interest!

Thank you very much for the links and this thread Nigel. I've really enjoyed reading through it along with everyone's well informed comments.

If you have Sky and aren't in the ITV Westcountry/Wales areas, you can add this local channel to your 'other channels'.

Press services on your sky remote
Go to Options >Add channels

Then put in the following details:

Freq: 10994
Polarity: H
Symbol: 22
FEC: 5/6

Save

To watch: Options>other channels> ITV (area not shown, but that will be the saved channel)

Before my dad started driving in the 70s, I vaguely remember once or perhaps twice going on the train for our yearly holiday in Cornwall. And I do remember around the Devon area there being successive tunnels.

We actually stayed in Dawlish in 1984 when I was 11, and I do remember being fascinated by the trains running alongside the beach. It was great fun to be on the footbridge as the trains passed underneath, although at the same time could be quite alarming as you got hot diesel fumes in your face!

Anyone who happens to be passing by the Swindon area and is interested in the history of the GWR should really visit this place. I've got a yearly pass and have been on numerous occasions (including today!) The final part of the exhibition is all about holidays to the West Country on the line, and it includes a waxwork tableau of a typical 1950s family sitting in a train compartment as they make their journey to the sea. Just like something out of a Blyton story!

Just noticed there's another video by GWR that I didn't watch before — I'm not sure if anyone posted the link (sorry if someone did and I missed it). This one is another "making of", but specifically an interview with the animators about how they created the advert, beginning with hand-drawn artwork and then digitising it. Worth noting that one of the team talks of working from the Eileen Soper imagery!

Great stuff, Courtenay! It's fascinating to have an overview of how the animation was done.

Its a shame we never see the advert on TV...at least, I haven't. I think it must only be being shown regionally.

I’ve seen it three times here in Brighton.