Enid and modern life

[Daisy]

I thought that hats at least were normal outdoor dress for women up to about the fifties? I mean for going to the shops and stuff, not sitting in the garden, obviously!

Yes, I think many women did still put on a hat to go out shopping, but by the fifties that was dying out. There was still quite a distinct difference in dress between the 'classes', the working-class women often putting on a headscarf - often to hide or keep in place the hair curlers which would be kept in until the evening. Times have indeed changed!

[Katharine]

I don't know if there was a hard and fast rule about hats and gloves. My grandmother was born about 5 years after Enid Blyton. I never knew her to go out without her hat on, right up until she died when she was in her 90s. She never wore curlers, she had the same hairstyle - I believe called a Victory Roll - for most of her adult life. I don't know if she would be classed as working class. She came from a family of nurses, teachers, tailors etc., but lived on a rough council estate as an adult. I think she probably looked very out of place walking to the local shop dressed as she did.

As a child I used to love to try on her hat, I thought I looked very 'posh'.

[Katharine]

I've just thought, I don't think I can recall having seen a photo of Enid with a hat on. The only outdoor clothing I can picture her in is a fur coat. Maybe she never wore a hat as a rule, so wouldn't be shocked by bare headed females today?

Another aspect of modern life I'm not sure she'd be keen on is mobile phones. I've read she hated any kind of distraction when she was working, so I think she'd have had to make sure she had one that was on silent most of the time.

[Paul Austin]

Yes, instead of Lucy Loud Voice, she'd have had Melisande Mobile Phone!

[Katharine]

Can you imagine how she'd react if both her daughters, her husband and possibly some of her staff all had mobiles buzzing or ringing throughout the day?

Especially if they had unusual ring tones. My husband has one from Aleksander the Meerkat which informs him he 'is having a message'. I know someone else who has one which is a voice telling him that his phone is ringing, and it's in his pocket - it gets louder and louder if it's not answered. Poor Enid would be driven up the wall!

Maybe we should start a new thread - unusual ring tones - anyone interested?

[Redrachel76]

Enid would have been well aware of mini skirts and other icons of sixties' fashion. I wouldn't think she would have been at all shocked.

I dont know. She didn't approve of rock n roll music and made that plain in at least one short story whose name escapes me at the moment. In the story the music a little boy plays on a jukebox is described as a sound like a dog barking, a cat howling and several other non musical noises. ....

Where is that story from?
That sounds fascinating. I always wondered what she thought about the rock n roll music that was still around while she was alive and not yet ill.

[Paul Austin]

I agree about Enid being somewhat disapproving of jukeboxes and television in her later stories. It does indicate that she was losing touch with the likes and preferences of the new generation of 1950s young readers in my opinion. Enid was 58 the year "Rock Around the Clock" came out, not really the right age to be in tune with the "yoof".

[Trevor]

I think there's a difference in being shocked by modern life and disapproving.

Yes, I think you're right Fiona. There is a difference between being "shocked" and "disapprove" of modern life. I think that Enid would be shocked about many-a-thing as well of disapproving of many things, especially of the decline of modern casual dress.

But on a brighter side, I think that she would be delighted with many things also. As you say Lenoir;

I don't know, maybe Enid would have liked the concept of mobile phones.

I believe she would be enthralled with them. Computers? Sure. But of course as you say "Spitfire";

I don't know, maybe Enid would have liked the concept of mobile phones.

Yeah, she probably would have - but thank goodness they weren't invented yet to interfere with her many plots that had her characters lost or stranded or kidnapped somewhere!

Mobile Phones would have totally wrecked the stories that she wrote. Just like the new "Famous 5" books featuring the so called "Famous Five new generation", or the "Kids of the Famous Five". They use the many new technologies to solve their so-called "Mysteries". "Bah!" or as P.C. Goon would say; "Gah!"

[Anita Bensoussane]

I don't think I'm familiar with the short story mentioned by Lucky Star, but Enid Blyton shows distaste for jukeboxes and chewing-gum in The Rubadub Mystery and she also obviously disapproved of girls wearing make-up from too young an age (e.g. Zerelda Brass in Third Year at Malory Towers and Melisande in Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm).

[Trevor]

Was there or not, anything suggestion that Enid Blyton could disapprove of Lipstick and make-up on older persons as well in "The Mystery Of Tally-Ho Cottage"? I mean with the Lorenzo's and their parties and all that. The Five Find-Outers mothers and fathers didn't exactly approve of them did they?

[Spitfire]

I don't know if there was a hard and fast rule about hats and gloves. My grandmother was born about 5 years after Enid Blyton. I never knew her to go out without her hat on, right up until she died when she was in her 90s.

Both my grandmothers always wore hats out right into the early eighties (and sometimes after that, depending on where they were going) - but they were both old-fashioned even for their generation! (They were also chapel-goers, Daisy - I come from a long line of them! )

[Katharine]

My grandmother was also a regular church goer, so maybe there's a connection between hats and church attendance?

As for makeup, that was definitely viewed with disapproval by my grandfather, who again was a similar age to Enid Blyton.

I have to say though that I do agree with the view that make up on very young children isn't nice unless they are just playing at 'dressing up'.

[Fiona1986]

Enid [in her letters which feature in the current journal] said she wore a hat in Seville, where apparently none of the women wear hats, and they all looked at here in astonishment. I wonder what sort of hat it was? Surely they'd see plenty of tourists wearing sun hats which makes me think she might have been wearing a more formal one?

[Lucky Star]

I don't think I'm familiar with the short story mentioned by Lucky Star,

I think it's called On Jimmy's Birthday which I first read in the Purnell Sunshine Library's Sleepytime Tales, and which was first published in Sunny Stories and then the Eleventh Holiday Book. At least thats the only story in the Cave that I can find which is likely.

As I recall, Jimmy is being taken somewhere for a birthday treat when they stop at a cafe for something to eat. Jimmy becomes fascinated by the jukebox and wants to put his birthday money into it but his parents try to persuade him not to. In the end Jimmy puts in his money and Enid then describes a hideous noise which goes on for a couple of minutes and then stops. Jimmy is puzzled and asks "but when do I get some music"? to which his father replies sadly "I'm afraid that's the kind of music they sell in these boxes". Jimmy is then very sad because he has wasted his birthday money.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I think it's called On Jimmy's Birthday which I first read in the Purnell Sunshine Library's Sleepytime Tales...

Thanks for that. I must have read that story then because I've got Sleepytime Tales, but it was one of the titles I acquired as an adult so I don't know it as well as some of the other Purnell Sunshine Library books.

Jimmy is puzzled and asks "but when do I get some music"? to which his father replies sadly "I'm afraid that's the kind of music they sell in these boxes".

Hilarious!