Did Enid Really Say This?

[Moonraker]

That phony Hike quote was shared on Facebook again this week. By the official Enid Blyton page, no less.

I trust you put them straight!

[natalieb]

My reaction to false quotations:

[Fiona1986]

That phony Hike quote was shared on Facebook again this week. By the official Enid Blyton page, no less.

I trust you put them straight!

I thought about it, but no They don't seem particularly responsive to comments on their posts.

[Moonraker]

Well, I did. I simply asked for the chapter number as I didn't recall that quote.

[natalieb]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ViZipJUcD0

[Anita Bensoussane]

That phony Hike quote was shared on Facebook again this week. By the official Enid Blyton page, no less.

Do you mean on the following Facebook page, Fiona? I had a quick look but can't see the quotation.

https://www.facebook.com/EnidBlytonOfficial


In August 2019, Tony and I went to see the Malory Towers musical (which we thoroughly enjoyed) at The Passenger Shed in Bristol. During the interval, quotations from Enid Blyton books appeared one at a time on a screen. I was sorry to see that that fake quotation was among them!

[natalieb]

https://www.facebook.com/EnidBlytonOffi ... 0655563620

[Anita Bensoussane]

Thanks for that. It's strange because Hodder (who run the "EnidBlytonOfficial" Facebook page) published the original Famous Five books and have kept them in print (with some tweaking of the text) ever since!

[natalieb]

i suspect that their social media pages are run by people who shave with a sponge.

[natalieb]

We should be cautious when quoting things. Some of them are apocryphal - possibly devised to discredit the originator.

Some examples are true enough, however. For example, space flight, we need only turn to the dear old NYT, which in an editorial back in 1920, attacking Robert Goddard's rocket science programme, saw "fit to print" the following:

"That Professor Goddard, with his 'chair' in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react -- to say that would be absurd. Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools."

It was only in 1969, after the launch of Apollo 11, that the NYT retracted and apologised for their display of gross ignorance of Newton's Laws! Of course, that came too late for Goddard: he died in 1945.

[natalieb]

To anyone who keeps spreading Enid quotes all over the internet without checking their provenance, i can give you a reward of a luxury cruise. Now, where did i put the ticket...

[pete9012S]

Couldn't help but be reminded of my old mate, Doctor Stephen's post regarding Enid Blyton and the Titanic after seeing the above pic:

As the centennial anniversary of The Titanic sinking approaches this weekend (in about 24 hours' time, to be precise as I write), it is worth noting that Enid Blyton was inspired to fictionalize this event in The Family At Red Roofs, for as I note in The Anecdotage, Mr. Jackson has been promoted in his firm on condition that he represents his company for six months in the United States. However, en-route to America, his ship, the Albion, collides with another ship, an accident that results in the sinking of both liners. As a result of the collision, Mr. Jackson is presumed dead, but is later discovered to have been amongst the several passengers rescued by the many lifeboats sent in by several ships via wireless communication. There is no doubt that the sinking of the Titanic was big news in Enid Blyton's days since she was barely 15 years of age at the time. Enid substituted an iceberg with another ship during the collision in The Family At Red Roofs.
Stephen I.

[Lucky Star]

Ah Good old Dr Stephen Isibirye. Was there any event so trivial that he could not shoehorn it into an Enid Blyton book?