The Enid Blyton Society

Yes, found it after writing this. Thanks.

Courtenay wrote:I've always been grateful that both my parents were (and are) great readers. And Enid Blyton fans, at that!

On the topic of reading, there was a delightful news item last night regarding a lady of 87 who had just learned to read, it was absolutely heart-warming how thrilled she was to read out headlines in the newspaper, shows its never too late........

I find it truly incredible that there are still people out there who can't read - but I know there are, as vast amounts of 16 year-old's are still leaving school without being able to read - which to my way of thinking is diabolical in 2017! Clearly our education system has to gear up to tackle this problem. We seem too intent on teaching children so many different subjects, and seem to forget that 'the three R's' are what matter most.

On a related note (even if it's not Blyton-related), I enjoyed this lovely news item from India this morning: The school for grannies in India

I've just spotted another Blyton reference in an old series that I don't recall noticing before.

In an episode of Porridge, Ronnie Barker's character Fletcher is trying to order some new books for the prison library, but most of them are deemed unsuitable by the prison officer. Fletcher comments that they have allowed him to order Enid Blyton's Omnibus though.

I turned on the Jeremy Vine Show on TV Channel 5 this morning to get halfway through a discussion about whether fishermen should henceforth be referred to fisherpeople.

The fisherman from Suffolk who was being interviewed didn't seem very keen on the idea, but then she added "this isn't out of some Enid Blyton Noddy novel".



In the public's imagination, is EB now the byword for political correctness?

Viv

Two mentions of Enid Blyton I spotted today.

The first was in an episode of Are You Being Served, when Mrs Slocombe refers to Mr Rumbold as 'Big Ears' and asks the way to Noddy's house.

The second was in last week's Strictly when the contestants of the semi-final are referred to as 'The Famous Five'.

I was watching the Red Arrows on YouTube and they have a five jet formation called ‘Enid’ after the Famous Five. I guess everyone here has heard of this but I was delighted - what a nice surprise and acknowledgment of EB.

Just watching a programme on BBC Alba about people's memories of their schools on Harris, and one woman, probably about my age-ish, said that her favourite book as a child was "Don't be Silly Mr Twiddle", which made me smile.

It's good to hear of Mr. Twiddle getting a mention as a favourite, Laura. The Twiddle tales don't receive much attention but Mr. Twiddle is rather endearing and the best of the stories have a certain amount of warmth and tenderness along with the comedy.

This is a radio rather than TV reference, but in the same mould of showing that Enid still has a major influence on people currently active in culture. On BBC Radio Four's daily arts programme yesterday, 7 January, the recent winner of the Costa Book Award, children's novelist Natasha Farrant, was interviewed about her winning entry 'The Voyage of the Sparrowhawk' - the story of a pair of children taking a canal narrowboat across England and the Channel to France in 1919 in the aftermath of World War One. The book was compared to the Famous Five and to Arthur Ransome's 'Swallows and Amazons' for having child protagonists who are able to have unusual and potentially dangerous adventures without much adult supervision or interference, and the author said that she had been influenced a lot by reading both authors as a child - Enid in French as she had grown up in France and is of part-French origin. (She originally thought that Enid must be French as her name did not sound like a usual UK Christian name.)
'Enid Blyton made me a reader'. she said - so that's another one of us.

That's interesting, Tim. I've got The Children of Castle Rock by Natasha Farrant but haven't yet read it. However, the title made me think of Enid Blyton at once!

Just watched an episode of Grange Hill from 1981, and there's an Enid Blyton reference in an end of term general knowledge quiz.

Who wrote the Famous Five?
Don't know.
Enid Blyton.
Who's she?

In a children’s quiz show called Hobby Horse, broadcast on the BBC in 1978, one of the specialised subjects in the final was the works of Enid Blyton. This final was broadcast on the 22md of August 1978.