The Mystery of Blyton and the Appeasers

[Ming]

Just a jab to the Napolean theory - Enid did have Bets say, "Do you really want to look like him? I don't think he was very nice. I don't like people who go about thinking they can conquer the whole world".

Beat that!

[Moonraker]

Just a jab to the Napolean theory - Enid did have Bets say, "Do you really want to look like him? I don't think he was very nice. I don't like people who go about thinking they can conquer the whole world".

Beat that!

Well done, old girl! She who laughs last, eh?

[Viv of Ginger Pop]

Here's the Bourneouth Echo piece

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/d ... s_scorned/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Viv

[Fiona1986]

Good for you Viv!

[Anita Bensoussane]

A good article!

[Wayne Pyer]

Well done, Viv. Nice to see the journalist pouring a bit of scorn on it too.

[Enikyoga]

It seems that Germany in the 1930s was the most powerful nation on earth. So it would not have been surprising that out of intimidation, maybe, who knows, Enid Blyton may have wanted at some point in her life wanted to appease Germany, just as then British Premier, Neville Chamberlain tried to do so at the Munich Agreement of 1938. However, does that make Chamberlain a Nazi sympathizer? In addition, during that dinner or whatever it was, it was not dinner for a party sympathetic to Nazi ideology or philosophy. Enid's staying for dinner does not suggest anything, after all she was expressing her free will. She wrote a lot of books resisting the Nazis after the war had began, including The Children of Kidillin, Smuggler Ben, The Adventurous Four, etc.
Stephen I.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I don't imagine that the appeasers felt intimidated by the Nazis. Rather, I agree with Viv that they were probably anxious to try to avoid another war so soon after World War I. Did you read the Bournemouth Echo article, Stephen? Some good points have been made in that article and in the rest of this thread. The books you mentioned were cited earlier. And of course there's also the 1940 short story 'The Boy Who Changed His Name" (reprinted in Journal 40), about a British boy who happened to be called Adolph and who was treated as an enemy by the other children because his first name was the same as Hitler's.

Anita

[Lucky Star]

A good article. It was nice to see that the journalist didn't succumb to the sensationalist tendency of some other hacks and that he treated the story with the ridicule it deserved. I have a lively interest in Second World War history from both sides and the issue of how to deal with Hitler was a lively topic of conversation up and down the land in the late 1930's. Anyone who reads any of the memoirs of the time, including the excellent ones compiled from the Mass Observation diaries by Simon Garfield will know that, as war drew closer, people actualy talked of little else!

We do not, of course, know what exactly was allegedly said on this particular occassion, or why Hugh stormed out, but its safe to say that there was probably no real pro-Nazi opinions on display.

[Viv of Ginger Pop]

I And of course there's also the 1940 short story 'The Boy Who Changed His Name" (reprinted in Journal 40), about a British boy who happened to be called Adolph and who was treated as an enemy by the other children because his first name was the same as Hitler's.

Anita

Blow - I forgot about that excellent story.

I was too busy winding up the journalist...
(sorry James!)

Viv

[Anita Bensoussane]

In his book The Enid Blyton Story (1987), Bob Mullan writes that the 19th March 1947 edition of the Sunday Graphic contained an Enid Blyton poem about Winston Churchill, called 'A Lion Once We Had.' He quotes only the final two stanzas:

If ever a man was England, this was he,
Old Lion-Heart, whose heart was England's own,
Leader of men, a Marlborough grown in stature,
He stood for us when England stood alone.

And now, when all our glory's dimmed and shadowed,
What would we give to hear a dauntless roar,
To range ourselves behind a trusted leader,
One for all and all for one once more!

[Moonraker]

a Marlborough grown in stature

What's a Marlborough (apart from a cigarette or a market town in Wiltshire)? (I found stanza in the dictionary!)

[Timmylover]

Winston Churchill was the grandson of the seventh Duke of Marlborough.

[Moonraker]

Thanks, Timmylover!

[Viv of Ginger Pop]

Was it his school?

I'm sure I saw a letter about this poem from Downing Street, in with some papers that Gillian had.

Viv