It must be a slow news day. The Independent newspaper has published an article whereby Ida p
Pollock appareantly accusses our Enid of being a Hitler appeaser. I dont wish to impugn this elderly lady but she does really seem to be simply stirring up trouble here. I mean, she wasn't present herself and gives no details of what was supposedly said. We are not even told whose house the conversation took place in, nor who was there. There is a link below to the article.
"What a lot of trouble one avoids if one refuses to have anything to do with the common herd. To have no job, to devote ones life to literature, is the most wonderful thing in the world. - Cicero
Seems to me that The Independent are making a mountain out of a molehill. It's hardly a story at all. Enid Blyton may well have stayed to argue against the Hitler appeasers, or simply out of curiosity to see what they had to say about why they felt as they did!
"Heyho for a starry night and a heathery bed!" - Jack, The Secret Island.
"There is no bond like the bond of having read and liked the same books."
- E. Nesbit, The Wonderful Garden.
This is pure journalistic nonsense - the comments supporting Enid say it all.
"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers".
Charles W. Eliot, The Happy Life, 1896.
Looks like she just wants to sell more copies oh her memoirs. Surely though, your memoirs should be about yourself not your husbands ex wife who just happens to be more famous than you.
"It's the ash! It's falling!" yelled Julian, almost startling Dick out of his wits...
"Listen to its terrible groans and creaks!" yelled Julian, almost beside himself with impatience.
Timmylover wrote:This is pure journalistic nonsense...
I agree. Note that it's Andrew Johnson of The Independent who states that Enid Blyton "may have been a Nazi sympathiser." Ida Pollock says no such thing. The article also gets the title of Ida Pollock's memoir wrong. I'm reading it at the moment and it's called Starlight, not Stardust! I'm utterly absorbed by it - more than I thought I would be, as I'm not a fan of romantic fiction and I've never read any of Ida Pollock's novels. I don't want to give too much away but Ida paints an in-depth picture of her youth, her family, the war years, her relationship with Hugh, her career as a novelist, the many houses in which she has lived over the years, etc. There are a few anecdotes about Enid, Gillian and Imogen and they are not unsympathetic on the whole. Certainly there is nothing about Enid being a possible Hitler appeaser/Nazi sympathiser! (In fact those seem to me to be two quite different things.) I get the impression that Hugh Pollock was an intelligent and sensitive man, deeply committed to his work, but that his drinking made him difficult to live with at times. And Ida appears to have had the maturity to handle the dark periods perhaps better than Enid did.
Anita
"Heyho for a starry night and a heathery bed!" - Jack, The Secret Island.
"There is no bond like the bond of having read and liked the same books."
- E. Nesbit, The Wonderful Garden.
Anita Bensoussane wrote:I don't want to give too much away but Ida paints an in-depth picture of her youth, her family, the war years, her relationship with Hugh, her career as a novelist, the many houses in which she has lived over the years, etc. There are a few anecdotes about Enid, Gillian and Imogen and they are not unsympathetic on the whole. Certainly there is nothing about Enid being a possible Hitler appeaser/Nazi sympathiser! (In fact those seem to me to be two quite different things.)
I must get a copy of the book and read it. It does sound like an interesting viewpoint on Blyton. Its good to see that the vasy majority of the comments under that article are very positive about Enid and her legacy.
"What a lot of trouble one avoids if one refuses to have anything to do with the common herd. To have no job, to devote ones life to literature, is the most wonderful thing in the world. - Cicero
I've often debated from the viewpoint of Hitler, Stalin, Puttin, against all religions and goodness knows how many more controversial and often the "wrong side" of issues. Shoot me, because that makes me a Nazi sympathiser.
What a stupid article.
Ida Pollock's memoirs do sound interesting - have fun reading them, Anita and LS.
Can't believe the way this was twisted. Perhaps Enid was just too polite to walk out? I read the article and one part struck me as particularly interesting. It said that Ida met Hugh while he was still married to Enid. Although she said she didn't expect anything to develop between them, I seem to recall from the Enid programme that was on recently, that Enid accused Hugh of having another woman in his life, does anyone know whether Ida and Hugh did infact have a relationship while he was still married? If that's so, it seems pretty unfair that so much attention has been paid to Enid's affair with Kenneth if it was a case of six of one!
Just wanted to add that I didn't mean to imply, in my last post, that Ida Pollock's memoir is not critical of Enid Blyton at all. Ida talks of Hugh's "devastating shock" when he was unable to return to work as a publisher after the War because Enid Blyton had informed publishers who printed her books that she would terminate her contracts with them if they employed Hugh. Apparently the contracts had been carefully set up in her favour - ironically, with the assistance of Hugh! In addition, a smear campaign had been set in motion so that "most of the London publishing world lined up against him."
Enid is also reported to have said something extremely unkind when a relative of Ida's was sent to Green Hedges to ask if Hugh might have some money (to help his daughter Rosemary, who was a sickly child) from the Trust that he had set up for the benefit of Gillian and Imogen. However, Ida adds: "I am sure she regretted what she said, and in fact the Trust was opened - eventually - to release two hundred pounds." In Enid's defence, I think it would be natural for anyone to feel hostile under those circumstances and to say no in the first instance (and perhaps add a few cutting remarks), before taking time to reflect on the request.
In answer to Katharine, Ida writes in her memoir that she felt drawn to Hugh from their first meeting, when she went to Newnes to sort something out regarding a novel she had submitted for publication. As the years passed they would meet up for lunch and talk, and Hugh offered Ida a job as his secretary. Eventually it was obvious to both that things had gone beyond friendship but Ida doesn't reveal any details about when (or whether) the relationship became physical. According to Ida, it was Hugh who asked Enid for a divorce. When writing about the divorce between Hugh and Enid, she states that "Enid's affair with Kenneth Darrell Waters had almost certainly been going on a good deal longer than my relationship with Hugh," though I suppose that depends on how one defines "relationship." It appears that Hugh and Ida formed a deep emotional bond early on, but that Ida (I'm not sure about Hugh, as she describes things from her own point of view) didn't expect that they would ever be able to marry.
Anita
"Heyho for a starry night and a heathery bed!" - Jack, The Secret Island.
"There is no bond like the bond of having read and liked the same books."
- E. Nesbit, The Wonderful Garden.
Reading through the comments on the newspaper article, I notice that someone refers to another crazy story printed by The Independent. Apparently, The Independent accused Labour minister Ben Bradshaw of supporting human rights violations because he went on holiday to Sri Lanka! People might just as well say that everyone who holidays in - or lives in - Britain supports junk journalism!
If Andrew Johnson really believes Enid Blyton "may have been a Nazi sympathiser," he ought to read The Adventurous Four, The Valley of Adventure, The Children of Kidillin and The Children at Green Meadows!
Forgot to mention earlier that I've now finished Starlight and, while it's an interesting read, I find it frustrating that it doesn't contain more photos. There are only six rather fuzzy black and white photos, none of them very early. The book looks as if it has been self-published, which is odd considering that Ida Pollock is the author of so many traditionally-published novels (under nine pseudonyms).
Anita
"Heyho for a starry night and a heathery bed!" - Jack, The Secret Island.
"There is no bond like the bond of having read and liked the same books."
- E. Nesbit, The Wonderful Garden.
Oh dear - a journalist from the local paper has just phoned me about this. I said that yes, it was common knowledge that Blyton was a closet Nazi - she encouraged every child in the land to paint SS on the shed door... And he took me seriously.
Viv of Ginger Pop wrote:I said that yes, it was common knowledge that Blyton was a closet Nazi - she encouraged every child in the land to paint SS on the shed door... And he took me seriously.
It wouldn't surprise me if Enid Blyton was being deliberately subversive in choosing the initials "SS", determined to reclaim them for something innocent.
"Heyho for a starry night and a heathery bed!" - Jack, The Secret Island.
"There is no bond like the bond of having read and liked the same books."
- E. Nesbit, The Wonderful Garden.
Viv One moment of utterly glorious satisfaction, followed by that feeling, eh? I wonder if Tony was also phoned for a comment.
And, moving on, when can we expect to read a newspaper article blaming Enid Blyton for the 1936 'abdication crisis'....supposing that such a stale issue will still sell papers?
'Aurélien Arkadiusz'
Last edited by Aurélien on 04 Jan 2010, 13:30, edited 1 time in total.
Aurélien wrote:When can we expect to read a newspaper article blaming Enid Blyton for the 1936 'abdication crisis'....supposing that such a stale issue will still sell papers?
'Aurélien Arkadiusz'
There is a possibility that her death precipitated the breakup of The Beatles...
I have a question here - if Enid was so worried about reputations of adultery during her divorce, then how come there wasn't a scandal when she remarried?
As an aside, every time I watch Enid I feel extremely sorry for Hugh Pollock and Mrs Waters. Imogen too seemed very upset in the film. It was a contrast though, to what Imogen really said in her book, "No, I wasn't fond of him at all" or something like that. Time for a re-read, methinks.
The Independent newspaper has published an article whereby Ida p
People might just as well say that everyone who holidays in - or lives in - Britain supports junk journalism! 
One moment of utterly glorious satisfaction, followed by that 
feeling, eh? I wonder if Tony was also phoned for a comment. 
