The Enid Blyton Society

Help bring back memories to my three children who fondly recall a Noddy story with a character we think was called Soloman Sly Bear. He had ears of different sizes discovered when his hat blew off. We can't find any reference to this story anywhere, so far. It must be out there somewhere since all three of our grown-up children remember it with affection. Was it in Marks and Spencer Big Book? Any help to track it down would be really appreciated!

Marks and Spencers seem only to have done three books - My Enid Blyton books 1-3. There aren't any Noddy stories in those.

A search for Noddy brings up an incredible amount. http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/sear ... arch=noddy+" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. All I can suggest is browsing the Cave and hoping a book cover strikes you as familiar. There's no story or book with Noddy and bear in the title anyway.

There were numerous Noddy stories published in the 80s and 90s, the majority of which were not written by Enid Blyton, so I stopped adding Noddy books to the website after those published in the 1970s. I don't know how many of the large format Noddy books were produced by M & S, but I have four of them all published in the 1980s and these do seem to contain Blyton stories. Soloman Sly Bear was definitely not a character from a Blyton story, so no doubt it comes from a later book. I look on these books as too modern to include, but of course some of them are nearly 40 years old now!

After some searching in my various Noddy books, I finally found the story!

Mr Solomon Sly is actually an Enid Blyton character (sorry Tony! ) from a story written for the 1956 Big Noddy Book -




It may well have been featured in other, slightly more recent, Noddy books - and this Big Noddy Book, like many others, was reprinted in the 1970's - the copy I have was 70p.

The story is called 'Well Done, Noddy!' and features a trip to Teddy Bear Village, and a bear who has a suitcase belonging to Mr Tubby Bear's brother, so Noddy presumes that's who the bear is. Noddy soon begins to get suspicious of the bear's behaviour as his passenger and remembers a 'wanted' poster outside the police station for a Bad Bear with odd ears - but his passenger has a hat on so Noddy can't see if the ears are odd - until Noddy drives very fast and the bear's hat blows off. Noddy then delivers the bear safely to Mr Plod!

You don't need to be sorry, Rob, I am more than happy to be corrected on a Noddy story as I freely admit he doesn't figure highly in my bedtime reading! I should probably have said that he is not a regular Enid Blyton character.

Hopefully ChrisB looks in again and reads this!!

Tony Summerfield wrote:I am more than happy to be corrected on a Noddy story as I freely admit he doesn't figure highly in my bedtime reading!

No??

Dear Rob. Fantastic - "Well Done Rob", that's exactly the story! We've been looking for ages and until now have drawn a complete blank everywhere we asked. Our son began to convince us the story didn't exist and he's the one who had two different ears when he was little. We're on the case and should have a copy for Christmas and hopefully there will be a pleasantly surprised 38 year-old! ChrisB in Handsworth Wood - not that far from you.

Glad I could help! Keep us posted as to the outcome!