George Greenfield - Enid Blyton

[Julie2owlsdene]

Reading journal 6 I noted a book by George Greenfield, and checked Amazon to buy it. It arrived a day later, and only took me a few hours to read. What a well written book this is. Some Society members may already have it as it was on sale at the Enid Blyton Day mentioned in journal 6 1998. It was so easy to read, without to much descriptive information and told the story of Enid simply and with much affection. I could sense the anger as he told how Eric Rodgers had Green Hedges demolished for profit, rather than what Enid's fans and major publishers would have prefered. What a fantastic venue Green Hedges would have made for an Enid Blyton Day, had it been left as a memorial to Enid. And how he had borrowed £150.000 from the company never intending to pay it back.
I could sense the sadness in his words, when he first came across Enid's illness that was to kill her eight years from then.
A truely lovely book, and I'm glad I was able to obtain a copy to add to my collection.

[Moonraker]

Yes, I have just finished this book, Julie. It was, in fact, on sale at this year's Day, and Jane snapped it up for me. I have since read Barbara's biography, although she doesn't mention the Eric Rogers incident in question. I did wonder if perhaps George had an axe to grind with Eric as Barbara made no mention of it - interesting, all the same.

[Tony Summerfield]

What you are forgetting, Nigel, is the difference in publishing dates, Barbara Stoney's book was published in 1974 and at that time Eric Rogers was still firmly at the helm of the company. George Greenfield wrote his book in the 90s and by this time Eric Rogers was dead and all these things had come to light. George was a member of the Society up until his death, and we had him as a speaker at two Enid Blyton days (one for each of his books).

[Julie2owlsdene]

I thought that maybe Barbara Stoney hadn't known Tony, due to the fact her book was earlier. I must say, that I always find something like this intruging (the money situation) and I guess being like a dog with a bone, in that situation if I was involved in the Blyton empire, I would want answers, and wouldn't give up until jusice was done, and the money returned from the guilty partners company. But of course, not knowing the full facts, this is only my opinion.

[Moonraker]

What you are forgetting, Nigel, is the difference in publishing dates, Barbara Stoney's book was published in 1974 and at that time Eric Rogers was still firmly at the helm of the company.

I must admit, I never looked at the publishing dates. That certainly explains why Barbara didn't mention it!

[Rob Houghton]

It is one of my favourite Blyton biographies, mainly because of the affection with which George writes, and the fact that he is one of the few blyton Biographers that actually knew Enid personally. It's a really well written book, my only beef about it being that the pages with the photographs soon become loose if you arent careful!

[Tony Summerfield]

As it is unlikely that anyone reading this thread actually heard George speaking at an EB Day, it is perhaps worth pointing out that he publicly admitted a huge debt of gratitude to Barbara Stoney's book and said that much of what he had written had been taken straight from it!