If Enid had lived longer

[Daisy]

The two "Six Cousins" books are the sort of thing Enid Blyton would have written if she had lived and carried on writing into the late sixties - I believe.
It's a bit weird those 2 books. It's like they were written ahead of their time.

I have been thinking about this Redrachel, and have come to another opinion altogether. Enid was, I think, reflecting the prevailing attitudes of her times when she described a character with flowing hair and sandals as someone who was ridiculed by his peers (Cyril) and probably not someone it would be "nice to know" (Benedict). Had she been writing the same story 20 years later, she might well have made the descriptions of 'Benedict' and Cyril stand out in a quite different way, in order for the story to unfold as it did. It's an interesting thought! The contrast between a child of the '40s and '50s and 20 years later is quite startling when one thinks about it.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Pat in Holiday House (1955) also warns against men with long hair:

"Beware of young men with long hair - that's what Dad says, isn't it? He says he never met a long-haired young man yet that was any good - so we'd better beware!"

I remember my sister and I laughing like mad over that when we first read Holiday House in the 1970s, especially as one of our uncles had long hair.