Text modifications in Egmont editions and elsewhere

Rob Houghton · Post by **Rob Houghton** » 23 Jun 2006, 13:14

Talking of money matters, I've been reading a modern edition of 'Five o'clock Tales', where the money has been decimalised - but in an extremely annoying manner. In one story, about Billy-Bob, called 'A Busy Morning', Billy-Bob is given 50p to spend. However, the publishers havent written it as '50p', or even 'Fifty pence' but written it in the incorrect form of 'Fifty p', which looks very odd. They've done a similar thing with 'thirty-five p' in the same book. To me this is even worse than simply making the money decimal!

Viv of Ginger Pop · Post by **Viv of Ginger Pop** » 23 Jun 2006, 13:37

The picture of the lovely model - any chance of seeing a better resolution version, Robert?

Best wishes

Viv

Post by **Anita Bensoussane** » 23 Jun 2006, 13:56

If you look on the Home Page at the quick links to the Forum messages, all you can see of Viv's message is: "The picture of the lovely model - any chance of seeing a better resolution..."

Crumbs, I thought - we've come a long way from Enid Blyton there!

But of course it was all perfectly innocent!

Anita

Rob Houghton · Post by **Rob Houghton** » 24 Jun 2006, 18:13

Hi Viv,

It's a photo of a model I made in clay of Kirrin Island, but not sure how to make it any bigger...I'm not well versed in posting photo's...!!! But I know Tony has a copy of it...

Raci · Post by **Raci** » 24 Jun 2006, 23:02

You wouldn't be able to make it any bigger while its an avatar but you could post it in this thread (seeing as thats where its being discused) in the same way we posted pics in the personal photos thread, there are instructions in that thread on how to do it.
I too would be interested in seeing a pic showing it in more detail if thats alright

Post by **Tony Summerfield** » 25 Jun 2006, 12:29

Taking this thread back to where it came from, I have just posted a link on the News section of the Home Page to an article in today's Sunday Times, but for those that never go to the Home Page I have put another link here http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 42179.html

This is going to be followed up in tomorrow's Daily Mail

Best wishes
Tony

Lucky Star · Post by **Lucky Star** » 25 Jun 2006, 12:55

Thanks for posting that link Tony, very interesting article, I'll look out for the Mail article tomorrow.

Post by **Anita Bensoussane** » 25 Jun 2006, 14:21

Not sure where they got the idea about Bessie originally being black?

Mind you, the children's mother does treat them as slaves and, at the age of seven, Bessie has to do ironing, sewing, cooking, cleaning and gardening. In The Enchanted Wood the children are left alone in the house for the day and Bessie (then aged seven) bakes cakes, while Fanny (who can't be more than five or six) makes toffee! Jo is the oldest but he's just a boy, so he only cuts the bread and butter!

Anita

Post by **Tony Summerfield** » 25 Jun 2006, 14:51

No-one was suggesting that Bessie was black Anita, it is apparently just the name that was objected to as Bessie is supposed to produce images of black American slaves - something in the back of my mind is ringing bells about Gone with the Wind, but I'm probably wrong here.

Tony

Moonraker · Post by **Moonraker** » 25 Jun 2006, 15:49

Tony Summerfield wrote:No-one was suggesting that Bessie was black Anita, it is apparently just the name that was objected to as Bessie is supposed to produce images of black American slaves

Bessie, a black character with a name associated with slavery, is now a white girl called Beth,

Like you, Anita, I read it that the character was originally black.
I had an Aunt Bessie, who lived in Gloucester in the 50s. She took in lodgers, and it was quite common to see signs proclaiming:

Vacancies - No Coloureds

in windows, then. My Aunt Bessie had a lovely black African lodger called Sonny.
God bless her.

Raci · Post by **Raci** » 25 Jun 2006, 16:03

The Sunday Times wrote:Dame Slap has become Dame Snap, who now scolds naughty children rather than giving them a smack.

Bessie, a black character with a name associated with slavery, is now a white girl called Beth, while in the Far Away Tree stories Fanny and Dick have been changed to Frannie and Rick.

Not a very accurate article but at least its bringing to wider atention the dreadful changes that are being made!

In the faraway tree cartoons Dame Slap is now Dame Tickle and instead of slapping people she tickles them with a feather

I too would agree that this article does read as if Bessie was originally written as a black character and has now been changed to be white

Post by **Anita Bensoussane** » 25 Jun 2006, 17:22

[Raci:] "I too would agree that this article does read as if Bessie was originally written as a black character and has now been changed to be white."

Yes, swatitsez. It's there in black and white!

I think the rest of the article is accurate, though.

Anita

Viv of Ginger Pop · Post by **Viv of Ginger Pop** » 25 Jun 2006, 18:01

Tony Summerfield has volunteered me to do an interview with BBC Radio Ulster at 8.20 BST (9.20 GMT) tomorrow morning. (ie 14 hours 20 mins from now)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/radioulster/#

The theme is how Blyton is being PC'd, updated etc, which is one of my favourite topics. However, if anyone else has a succinct sound-bite I'd be pleased to hear from them.

You can imagine the usual subjects "“ Gollywogs, Dame Snap, updated names etc.

This follows on from an interview with Barbara Stoney (Blytons biographer) and Tony (Blyton Soc.) in today's Sunday Times p7.

I'm off to watch the Queen's birthday party!

Best wishes

Viv

Post by **Tony Summerfield** » 25 Jun 2006, 21:55

Yes, sorry about that Viv, I would have phoned you to let you know, but as a result of that Sunday Times article I have spent almost the entire day on the phone - I wanted to work on the Journal and managed one page!! Radio Ulster was one of three radio stations wanting interviews on tomorrow morning's breakfast shows and I am aware that this is something that you would be happy to talk about. Several papers were also interested, but the only one of any note is the Daily Mail who are running two articles tomorrow (I have had seven phone calls with them alone today!!).

For this reason I hadn't even had a chance to read that article properly but you are both quite right Anita and Raci - she did say that Bessie was black. What I should have said is that no-one else is saying that Bessie was black, but that is still the reason why the name was changed, as I asked about it at the time. I think these name changes are really stupid - luckily these same people don't put on pantomimes or we might be watching Rick Whittington!

Barbara Stoney has also been on the phone all day and we have been liaising between calls to make sure we are saying the same thing - neither she or I mentioned either Bessie or Dame Slap - though you wouldn't know that reading the article! The article in tomorrow's Daily Mail has been written under Barbara's name, but it was actually written by a ghost writer so we wait with some trepidation to see what it says.

I took the phone off the hook to watch the Play from the Palace - and frankly I needn't have bothered, I don't know what anyone else thought of it, but I'm afraid I thought another phone call might have been a welcome relief!!!!

Best wishes from an exhausted
Tony

Raci · Post by **Raci** » 25 Jun 2006, 22:44

Viv of Ginger Pop wrote:The theme is how Blyton is being PC'd, updated etc, which is one of my favourite topics. However, if anyone else has a succinct sound-bite I'd be pleased to hear from them.

You can imagine the usual subjects - Gollywogs, Dame Snap, updated names etc.

Hi Viv!
About pointless updates - don't forget the ridiculous shorts/jeans changes in the F5 books.
So far I've gone through the first 11 of the 17 chapters of Five on a Treasure Island to see how much has been changed. I've found 96 alterations to the text and in chapter 6 there were 16 alterations. The word queer has been changed to read - odd, funny, perculiar, strange, amazing, weird and uneasy. I could go on!

Tony Summerfield wrote:I think these name changes are really stupid - luckily these same people don't put on pantomimes or we might be watching Rick Whittington!

I took the phone off the hook to watch the Play from the Palace - and frankly I needn't have bothered, I don't know what anyone else thought of it, but I'm afraid I thought another phone call might have been a welcome relief!!!!

The name changes are a very good example Tony!

Why is it only Enids books that are being ruined like this? I don't know of any other authors whose work is receiving this sort of damage.

I didn't get an opportunity to watch the whole of the party/play as I was cooking dinner. My daughter (7) watched it all and loved it, shes cross with me now for not recording it so she can see it again

Kids!
What I did see of the end seemed pretty cleverly done (in terms of combining charaters not the storyline) although I didn't notice any reference to characters from CS Lewis's Narnia series which I was suprised about - unless I missed them in the first part.

I hope all the interviews you are both doing go well

And you get a chance to recover soon!

Text modifications in Egmont editions and elsewhere

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Sunday Times article

Bessie

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Sunday Times article

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