The Enid Blyton Society

Thanks for checking, Tony. I have all ten books in the series but, unfortunately, I don't have any first editions.

I'm reading A Fortunate Grandchild by Miss Read, the first part of her delightful memoir of a childhood spent with her grandmothers, one in Lewisham and the other at Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex at the time of the Great War.

Speaking of Worzel Gummidge, we met him at Longleat when our first son was small. As you can see, although a huge fan of WG, he was a bit overawed at the time! Apologies to those who have seen this before.

A great photo and well worth seeing again, Nigel

A lovely picture, Nigel. Is that a young Simon?

Great photo, Nigel! You look quite a bit like Roald Dahl from that angle!

Great photo, Nigel. Which one is you?

Great picture Nigel.

Leaving Evelyn Waugh aside for a while I have borrowed John Grisham's latest The Whistler from the library. As always with him it's a page turner.

I'm reading the second childhood memoir by Miss Read - "Time Remembered". This covers the years 1921-24 when she attended a village school in Kent. A charming, gentle read.

I'm currently ploughing through 'The Invisible Man' by H.G.Wells and it's incredibly readable. Not quite as outlandish as the Nineteenth Century science fiction of Jules Verne, but some of the characters are so O.T.T. they're almost Dickensian!

Meanwhile by the milk and biscuits, I'm just finishing off Jennings and Darbishire where using a printing set they publish the Form Three Times but nearly burn a developing dish learning the art of developing ones negatives and get themselves lost around Pottlewhistle Halt. All the things that you might just do at that age having nearly set fire to things and gotten lost myself around the ages of ten through thirteen.

Yesterday I received Anthony Gilbert's "The Woman in Red" on which the film noir "My Name is Julia Ross" (with Nina Foch) is based, one of my all-time favorite movies set in Cornwall and very suspenseful.
However, the novel is different in several ways, so I always wanted to reread it again since I've requested it from our local library a few years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Gilbert_(author" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

My copy from 1943 was published in the US and the pages look as if this copy never has been read before. It doesn't even smell like old books usually do. I praised the seller on amazon.com for the mint condition of his book.

I too have always liked the film, "My Name is Julia Ross". It must surely be the only film in which Dame May Whitty played a villainous role. Nina Foch acquits herself very well also. I've not read the book, "The Lady In Red", but would buy it if I saw it.

Dave