The Secret Seven

[fozzy]

I thought it was interesting that in Secret Seven Win Through, there is a reference to Colin bringing his "whole set of" Famous Five books to the cave. Considering Secret Seven Win Through was first published in 1955, the whole set at that stage must have only consisted of 13 or 14 books (Five have plenty of fun was only published in 1955 too). Can't have been quite as heavy as Colin makes out (although they'd have all been hardback I guess)!

I have another Secret Seven question. Most of my copies are Hodder & Stoughton paperbacks from the late 1970's/early 1980s and the cover pages show photos of real kids as opposed to illustrations. Do we have any idea who these kids were - there's no reference or names in any of my copies? To my knowledge, the Secret Seven books haven't ever been televised so it can't be like the editions of the Famous Five books that show the actors from the 1970's TV series on their covers. Did they just get some kids to pose purely for book covers? Seems a bit unlikely.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Photos of those children also appear on (and in) some of the early 1980s Secret Seven annuals but I don't think the children's real names are given there either. Perhaps the publishers thought that using photos of modern children would make the books look more "trendy" and "with it" for late 1970s/early 1980s readers!

The Find-Outers books had photo covers too at one point.

Anita

[Maggie Knows]

I seem to remembver there's a Secreat Seven story where one of the characters refers to currently reading the "latest" Famous Five book - and the book in question is Five go down to Sea.

Back to SS conotations - Jaguar cars were SS Jaguar up until WW2 - the SS originally stood for Swallow Sidecars.

The SS bit was dropped in 1945 and never came back.

[Rob Houghton]

The Find-Outers books had photo covers too at one point.

My first proper reading copy of 'The Burnt Cottage' was a paperback from 1988 (I never read it when I was younger) and that version has a photograph cover of the Find outers in polo shirts and jeans, looking very 1980's!

I have several secret seven annuals with the photographs on the covers of a very gormless group of kids posing as the secret seven. Mention is made of them in journal 15 (summer 2001)and that the photograph was probably used so as to match the 'sister' Famous Five annuals which were coming out at the same time. I also have a photograph on the cover of 'Secret seven Adventure', a paperback from the early eighties.

[Julie2owlsdene]

I'm only just reading these books, as I never read them as a child. So far the stories have been fine. A nice read for the younger reader, before going onto the Famous Five books. I'm still a bit puzzled yet, (not yet having read all the series) why Susie is always left out, and exactly why they think she's a nightmare! The few books I've read, I don't think the seven are being fair to her to keep her away. I still cannot see as yet, exactly what she's done wrong.

[Rob Houghton]

Suzie never really did anything wrong except be a younger sister.

Anyone who's ever had a younger brother or sister will know what I mean...

I havent got younger siblings, but I was one, so I should know!!

[Anita Bensoussane]

Thinking about SS, another SS associated with Enid Blyton was the magazine Sunny Stories (don't know whether it was ever actually abbreviated to SS when being referred to by publishers etc, but it could have been.) Yet another SS was Blyton's adult play, Summer Storm.

Anita

[Moonraker]

Suzie never really did anything wrong except be a younger sister.

I thought Susie was Jack's older sister.......

[Ming]

Older siblings don't usually want to join clubs in which their younger siblings are members, do they? My brother keeps miles of distance between me and my clubs and himself. Aarham though, pokes his nose in. I always thought Susie was the younger one.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I always thought Susie was slightly younger than Jack too, though I don't think we're ever told the actual ages of any of the children.

Anita

[Wolfgang]

Suzie never really did anything wrong except be a younger sister.

Anyone who's ever had a younger brother or sister will know what I mean...

I havent got younger siblings, but I was one, so I should know!!

I recently read the Secret seven books, some of them even for the first time. Suzie was Jack's younger sister, and goes into the same class as Janet. And Suzie did surely things that were wrong. She was frequently quite destructive - if she planned things she usually planned to destroy the fun of others instead of creating fun for herself or her buddies and she didn't respect the privacy of others. When she announced to destroy the bonfire of the SS and that really happened, she was taken aback that the others really believed she was responsible for it (Secret Seven fireworks). In the same book she complains that Jack made her walk up a hill with a false trail when she intended to destroy the bonfire when her friend hurt herself, and her mother takes her side - which makes me wonder why. How did Jack force her to walk this way?
Another example was when she founded her own society and pretended that there was a mystery about just to annoy the SS, and how angry she was when she found out that Jack was spying on her (Secret Seven on the trail). Wasn't it exactly what she wanted them to do? In other books she spied on Jack herself and took his badge just to pretend she'd be a member of the SS, and another time she even lied to Jack to spoil the meeting of the SS.

I think there were reasons the others didn't want her to be a member, and the way EB portrayed many of Suzie's actions makes it understandable for me.

[Lucky Star]

Susie was certainly wilful and more than a little spiteful when she wanted to be. I always felt a tad sorry for her though. She clearly wanted very badly to be a member of the SS and would have made a far better member than some of those who were in the club yet she was consistently denied any chance to join. She was always at her worst when the Seven were snubbing her and could actually be quite nice when they treated her decently.

Apart from that I think Blyton deliberately made her as annoying as possible as I recall there were several occasions when Susie's actions were central to the eventual resolution of the plot.

[Moonraker]

Yes, I stand corrected! I can only imagine that I thought Susie was older as she always seemed so bossy - a trait usually found in older siblings!

My brother keeps miles of distance between me and my clubs and himself.

What sort of clubs do you belong to, Ming? Any secret ones and if so do you solve mysteries?

[Rob Houghton]

Lets face it, none of us would find Suzie even remotely interesting if it wasnt that she is so annoying and disruptive to the S.Seven! She's a brilliantly entertaining character because she's such a pest, rather like Eunice in the Five Find Outers (a character I wish had appeared more often).

[Moonraker]

I'm not nit-picking, but I notice several people are spelling Susie as Suzie? I am wondering if this is yet another update in modern reprints?