Blyton BBC Archive

[Anita Bensoussane]

It seems almost as if they are trying to imply that Enid's work is not beneficial. Personally, I have learnt many things e.g about puffins' extinction (Island of adventure, I think) and much more.

You mean Great Auks, Anna, but yes, I agree that while reading Enid Blyton as a child I learnt a lot about nature as well as things like folklore, proverbs and sayings, myths and legends, history and general knowledge. And I absorbed the information effortlessly, while enjoying a ripping yarn!

I've just had a look at some of the 1950s radio programmes, thanks, Nigel. It seems that children listened to Larry the Lamb, Jennings, Sherlock Holmes, The Water Babies, etc. I honestly can't see why Noddy, Mary Mouse, Mr. Pink-Whistle and Enid Blyton's short stories about fairy folk, animals, nursery toys and naughty children wouldn't have gone down just as well with small boys and girls as Larry the Lamb! If Jennings proved popular, why not serialise The Naughtiest Girl in the School? Fatty is often compared to Sherlock Holmes and I'd have thought the Find-Outers stories would have been more suitable than the Holmes ones for an audience of children. As for The Water Babies, I read that as a child and tried it again as an adult, and I found it pretty dull on both occasions! The Land of Far-Beyond would have been perfect for the Sunday schedule. The BBC missed out on some gems by ignoring Enid Blyton after, it appears, having judged her on a mere handful of fairly early books.

Anita

[Moonraker]

The BBC missed out on some gems by ignoring Enid Blyton after, it appears, having judged her on a mere handful of fairly early books.

That is the trouble with state owned monopolies. The BBC still hesitates with Enid's work. Noddy is on Five and the FF series as well as The Castle of Adventure were all shown on ITV. The BBC saw itself as the nation's serious informer, educating its humble licence payers. Enid Blyton was always deemed to be the fodder of the uneducated and working class, so they pumped out Dickens and Conan Doyle. I must say though, as an avid listener of Toytown, I was a great Larry the Lamb fan! I also loved Listen With Mother!

[Viv of Ginger Pop]

Enid Blyton was always deemed to be the fodder of the uneducated and working class,

...yet others criticised her for being too middle class!

Viv

[Moonraker]

Enid Blyton was always deemed to be the fodder of the uneducated and working class,

...yet others criticised her for being too middle class!

Yes, that is so true. I remember being laughed at for reading Blyton as a junior school pupil, why was that? If Enid's books were as popular as they were supposed to be, surely the rest of my class would have been as enthralled as I was with them? I remember now, the snobbery against Blyton from my peers. I can't remember any other child who read and loved them at all. Maybe they were read under the covers and not talked about. Any others of my age have any thoughts or memories?

[Eddie Muir]

Any others of my age have any thoughts or memories?

I'm a bit older than you, Nigel!!! However, I do recall lots of other pupils in my junior school and in my first year at grammar school enjoying Enid Blyton books, but on several occasions we were told by our grammar school teachers that they were too young for us and that we should be reading books more appropriate for 11-12 year olds! Dickens, whom I love, was one author deemed to be more appropriate!

[Julie2owlsdene]

I can't remember anyone, parents or teachers, telling us we can't or shouldn't be reading Enid Blyton books. The shelves were always full of them in the library, and if you didn't get there quick, you'd loose a book as they were always in great demand.

I always used to buy them with my saved pocket money and my aunties always bought me a Blyton for Christmas or birthday.

[Tony Summerfield]

I have just received the following email and as the sender has no internet access (a friend sent it for her) I thought I would post part of it here for everyone to read:-

'Apropos media storm re BBC ignoring Blyton for nearly 30 years, I interviewed her, on Frank Tilsley’s Readers and Writers BBC TV series on 24th April 1951; 12 years before her supposed first “appearance” on Woman’s Hour in 1963!

I was just 13 and a great fan of hers. I treasure the memory of our meetings – and my ride in her lovely Rolls Royce – and still have the charming card she sent to me when on holiday in Swanage.

Frank Tilsley was my father – he was a highly regarded (and very popular) novelist and broadcaster until his early death in 1957.'

I have to say that I have been going through my archives of BBC material today (I have much more than is currently shown online) and I have found evidence that some of Enid's short stories were used in Children's Hour in 1943. She was also invited to appear on Woman's Hour back in 1951, but she replied saying that she had another engagement on that day.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Fascinating, Tony. I wonder which short stories were used for Children's Hour? It's good that the media are focussing on Enid Blyton at the moment and people are coming forward with little-known information.

I know it was after Enid Blyton's death, but I've just remembered that, according to Sheila Ray and David Rudd in their books about Enid Blyton, The Island of Adventure and The Circus of Adventure were serialised on the BBC TV programme Jackanory in (if I recall correctly) 1974 and 1986 respectively. I didn't see those serialisations myself. Is there anyone here who remembers watching them?

Anita

[chloe1]

About to listen to Viv.

The radio presenter is very sexy in his photo;)

[Eljay]

That is indeed fascinating revelation, Tony! Very little exists of Enid Blyton on film, apart from that 1946 Pathé newsreel, in which she doesn't speak. There's a very short clip of her being interviewed at a Noddy rehearsal (presumably 1950s?) which was shown on the 1996 'Secret Lives' documentary on Channel 4 - where's that from and how long is the interview in full?

The only two radio interviews which are known to exist are the aforementioned 'Woman's Hour' one from 1963 and another from 1966 - although the latter wasn't used broadcast until 1974. But if, as your correspondent claims, Enid made a television appearance as early as 1951 (when only people as wealthy as Enid and her family had television), it wouldn't surprise me if she did some other radio interviews before 1963. The problem with TV and radio programmes made before the 1960s is that most of them went out live and were not recorded. Even when recordings were made, very often the tape was wiped for re-use or the film destroyed, to save on money and storage space. This practice of 'junking' continued well into the 1970s. Therefore the chance of such material existing today is unfortunately very slim. I wonder if the BBC has any documentation, hidden away somewhere, about this 1951 BBC TV interview - maybe even a transcript? We can but hope!

It is certainly true that most Blyton adaptations have been on *commercial* television, which doesn't seem to have looked down on her work like the BBC has. (I think, to date, the only BBC TV one has been the hugely successful 'Noddy' series of the '90s)? 'The Island of Adventure' was read in ten fifteen-minute instalments on Radio 5 by Peter Davison in 1993 (before it becaming a rolling news and sport network), and a dramatisation of 'The Castle of Adventure' was broadcast by Radio 4 in 1988 as part of a children's magazine programme called 'Cat's Whiskers' - I remember listening to both. I don't know of any other radio broadcasts of her work.

I wonder if Enid's refusal to appear on 'Woman's Hour' in 1951 was 'sour grapes' to the BBC for not broadcasting her work? Or perhaps she was genuinely too busy, which would no longer have been the case by 1963 when she was quietly slipping into retirement. Do you know which stories were used by 'Children's Hour' in 1943, Tony? If not, it should be possible to confirm from 'Radio Times' - although dates would be useful to narrow down the search for the appropriate issues.

[Eljay]

Golly! The BBC has now put lots of other Blyton goodies online - the two radio interviews, three radio specials (from 1975, 1997 and 2008) and a TV documentary from 1974! There are also some photographs which I've never seen before.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/blyton/index.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This lot should keep me busy for a while!

[Madpants]

The start of that documentary shows them demolishing Green Hedges...........sacrilege!

[Anita Bensoussane]

Golly! The BBC has now put lots of other Blyton goodies online - the two radio interviews, three radio specials (from 1975, 1997 and 2008) and a TV documentary from 1974! There are also some photographs which I've never seen before.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/blyton/index.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Amazing stuff! Thanks for the link, Eljay. I'll enjoy going through that bit by bit. I was interested too to hear that The Castle of Adventure and The Island of Adventure were broadcast on the radio in the 1980s/90s.

Anita

[Petermax]

Golly! The BBC has now put lots of other Blyton goodies online

Thanks for the link Eljay, what a treasure trove! If only there was a way to download BBC archive video to watch at ones leisure. Never mind, let's just hope that it all remains online for a decent amount of time.

[Eljay]

The start of that documentary shows them demolishing Green Hedges...........sacrilege!

Indeed. Enid's children did not inherit the house as it belonged to the company, Darrell Waters Ltd, who apparently had to sell it to pay off Enid's death duties. Gillian and Imogen were given 'first refusal' on buying it, but understandably neither wanted to live there as they were both settled elsewhere with young children. With hindsight it was an extremely short-sighted business decision to sell it at all, as far more money could have been made from the house and garden in the long term by opening it to the public as a museum and children's park than any short-term income gained by selling it to developers.

It's also a pity they didn't film the whole house and garden properly, before all the furniture, fixtures and fittings had been removed and it had started being smashed to pieces! The end of that short footage confirms that Green Hedges was, indeed, number 42 (Penn Road), as was suggested in a previous thread on this forum (where it was also established that the houses on either side, numbers 40 and 44 - 'Upton Leigh' and 'Northfield' - still stand). Presumably most of the contents, including the nursery toys and Enid's vast collection of her own books, were all sold along with the house at auction in 1971. Incidentally, the uncredited voice in the footage is Enid Blyton's biographer, Barbara Stoney, who was present at the demolition in '73 and took some plants from the garden! (Why Barbara wasn't interviewed properly is anyone's guess, but that 'Success Story' documentary was very poorly and cheaply made, with many interviewees shown only as still photographs!)

Nevertheless, we should be glad it was filmed at all, and that a Beaconsfield parish councillor campaigned to have the new cul-de-sac on the site named 'Blyton Close' in Enid's memory. Enid would be sad to know that her beloved house and garden are no more, but happy and proud to have a street named in her honour!