The Adventure Series!

[Lucky Star]

I think the biggest question hangs over Mischief the monkey from Ship. They had found it in Morocco and the book ends in Greece. They could hardly have got it back into Britain with the quarantine regulations so poor Mischief's end can only be guessed at. Maybe a zoo or sanctuary in Greece?

Micky (Mischief was Tinker's pet, in Voilier's continuation story he even get a cheetah) was brought to Great Britain and got his dinner with from Aunt Allie:

"Mrs. Mannering was delighted to see them all, though she was rather cool to Bill. She had a wonderful tea ready for them, and Kiki screeched with delight to see a plate laid for her and Micky, with a lovely fruit salad."

Thanks Wolfgang. I got that completely wrong. High time I re-read the book I think.

[S-Dog2001]

Not really any further concerning what happened to Mickey then, I don't really see why he should have gone anywhere else as he was perfectly happy with Philip

[dsr]

I suppose it's not that easy finding a dog that can do the trick or is fit for film production, so they probably take a dog that can do it and if there's a selection of dogs available, they'll take the most suitable one.
The dogs in the German Famous Five films of this century are not that impressive at all and I don't think they would have made any impression to a real villain.

The combination of a large, fierce dog, several child actors, and a long day filming, has (shall we say) every risk of going a bit wrong! And it's cheaper to get a smaller dog than to replace a child actor. Mothers tend to object, that sort of thing.

I am told that on the film Lassie, they had 3 dogs to play the role in accordance with the laws on dog protection and overwork. They needed sable (brown) coloured English collies. One of them loved the job and wanted to do it all day long (collies are used long days at work and have bags of energy), one of them didn't like acting and permanently sulked, and one of them was black. Guess which one appears most in the film!

[Debbie]

I may be wrong, but child actors have strict laws about how long they can be on set etc. I'd expect there to be similar regulations how long animals can be on set-hence having more than one dog for Lassie.

I know when my husband was doing (medical) research he commented that it was easier to use a child in research than an animal. For a child, you needed ethical permission and parent's permission. For an animal only certain people were licenced as well as ethical permission and other things. He did neither, but did end up being a test piece himself several times.

[dsr]

I may be wrong, but child actors have strict laws about how long they can be on set etc. I'd expect there to be similar regulations how long animals can be on set-hence having more than one dog for Lassie.

I know when my husband was doing (medical) research he commented that it was easier to use a child in research than an animal. For a child, you needed ethical permission and parent's permission. For an animal only certain people were licenced as well as ethical permission and other things. He did neither, but did end up being a test piece himself several times.

I believe the child actor laws are so strict (and in many cases so stupid) that they often make normal working impossible. For example, the TV show Countdown used to have child contestants, but now they can't because (1) the maximum time they can spend in the studio is 1 hour, including getting miked up and retakes, which for a 50 minute programme is too tight to risk; and (2) because between programmes, they aren't allowed to stay in the same building where the studio is, they have to leave the building. The idea that sitting 200 yards away in a distant room in the studios is worse for the child than sitting in the car - .

Obviously we don't want children going up chimneys like in early Victorian times, but the idea that they can't "work" more than an hour at a time seems pretty ridiculous.

Sophie Neville (Titty Walker in the film) wrote a very good book "The Making of Swallows and Amazons" in which she makes it clear that the entire film crew looked on the child working hours as guidelines, not rules. Parents were present too, and blind eyes were appropriately turned!

That's the problem when the laws go beyond all reason. People ignore the ridiculous laws and (having got into the habit) may well develop a tendency to ignore the sensible laws too.

[Debbie]

I am a registered chaperone (stage not film) and I agree with a lot of what you've written. It's the same whether you have a tiny amateur production or a huge big professional production, the rules are the same. At times it means that adding children to a production is not going to work, so ultimately the children lose out.

Some productions are heavy on obeying every rule and others look on it as obeying the spirit of the rule and making sure first and foremost the children are happy. The latter is much better to work with and much better for the children's wellbeing too.

However it does mean that you have the regulations to produce if a director is being unreasonable. I've been in the situation where a director was being totally unreasonable, the children were unhappy and he was refusing to budge. So eventually we said that either he cut part of the production (and yes, the audience was complaining it was too long too-we're talking about a production that was over 3.5 hours and we had 2 performances, and the children were limited to 6 hours in the theatre, if I remember rightly) or we called the council in, who would have pulled the children probably for the rest of the run. He backed down. He really had no option.

Some things are frustratingly red tape too. I had one production which had 2 performances. One on the last Friday in June and one on the Saturday. Now our council had the regulation that 16yos had to be chaperoned until the last Friday in June. So I asked how I should deal with my 16yos for this. I was told in all seriousness that they must obey the chaperone regulations on the Friday-but on the Saturday they were to be treated as an adult and not allowed in the children's dressing room etc. Now I could have sympathised with them if they'd insisted they had to be under chaperone regulations for both nights, but that just felt silly.

Sometimes you get silly things. I remember one production we were inspected by the council and they wrote "serious safeguarding concern that the backstage door of the theatre's lock is broken." It was the council theatre and the council had been told 6 months previously it was broken and refused to mend it. We were only in for 3 days, and did not have the authority to mend the lock or, guess what, the council would have complained

[Katharine]

I'm also a chaperone, and didn't realise all the rules and regulations until I got involved.

Apparently the time the children are in the theatre isn't just confined to them being on the stage, it includes them arriving, getting changed and having make up applied, so we are always very conscious of the clock ticking at the end of a performance to make sure the children all leave the theatre before 'their time is up'.

I do enjoy the shows though - we've missed one because of Covid, but hopefully there's another one scheduled for next year.

Which reminds me, I must check to see if my licence is still in date - if not I'll have to re-apply, so more proof of ID.

[Moonraker]

As an animal lover, with a very soft heart towards them, thinking about what happened to the animals after Philip left was something that used to upset me about the Adventure books. The same with Barker being poisoned, how the Sticks treated Tinker, etc.
Even as I've got older, I still don't like the treatment of Tinker or Barker - but it's especially Micky, and thinking about how many animals have to face that sort of life of abuse every day in the real world, that still upsets me. So I like to think they found a safe place for him to live before they left.

I never got upset or even thought about it. After all, it is fiction. There is plenty in the real world to get upset over.

[Bertie]

Yes, I'd mentioned that in my post - that I hate reading about mistreated animals, or animals that die, as it's all too familiar with the many that are suffering every day in the real world. If I'm going to read fiction, I prefer to read an idealised version that doesn't remind me of that horrible fact. I know the fictional Micky isn't really being stoned, or Poppet being beaten, but reading about it reminds me, at that very moment, many a poor animal is being stoned or beaten in the real world. And I mostly read light hearted fiction to try and escape that kind of cruel world. The thought of animal suffering won't upset everyone to the same level, of course, but it upsets me a lot so they were amongst my least favourite moments in Enid's books.

[Anita Bensoussane]

If a book is well-written and absorbing (as Enid Blyton's books generally are), I think we do get caught up in the circumstances and emotions of the story and feel for the characters as if they were real (whether human, animal, alien or whatever!) I was left horribly downhearted as a child when Jack didn't ever find a Great Auk, as my hopes had been raised (only to be dashed) in The Island of Adventure and I kept thinking he might find one in one of the other adventures - until I reached the end of the series and it still hadn't happened! I've definitely shed a few tears over things in books - tears of sorrow and tears of happiness - but there's nothing wrong with that. It means we've been able to enter into a wide range of experiences and "live them" to a certain extent, and it's part of what makes reading such a rich and rewarding pastime.

As a child I did idly wonder what became of animals like Micky the monkey and Button the fox-cub but I wasn't worried as I knew Philip wouldn't have let anything bad happen to them.

[Boodi 2]

When my son was young he became very upset about ill-treatment or accidents involving animals in various stories and/or films and often could not sleep at night afterwards. I have never found out what upset him so much about "The Lion King" (which he watched at a friend's house), but we had to abandon "Animal Farm" when he became upset about Snowball being chased away (although the fate of poor Boxer was even worse) and he became so upset about the fire in the stables in Black Beauty that he said he did not want to hear any more.

[Bertie]

I've avoided reading books like Black Beauty. I don't think I could cope with that at all, even nowadays.
I did read Animal Farm at school, and I remember being more interested / upset about some of the animals fate (as you say, Boxer) than I was in the whole Political metaphors.

[Katharine]

I can understand not wanting to read/hear about animals being hurt, although I don't remember feeling upset about any in Enid's stories.

That's why my reading material is quite limited, as I don't really like 'thought provoking' or 'gritty' literature - there's enough of that in real life. Although I wouldn't particularly want to read about animals suffering, personally I'd find anything with children dying more upsetting.

That's why probably the only Enid Blyton I haven't really enjoyed and am not sure if I want to read it again is the circus book with Fenella.

[IceMaiden]

When my son was young he became very upset about ill-treatment or accidents involving animals in various stories and/or films and often could not sleep at night afterwards. I have never found out what upset him so much about "The Lion King" (which he watched at a friend's house), but we had to abandon "Animal Farm" when he became upset about Snowball being chased away (although the fate of poor Boxer was even worse) and he became so upset about the fire in the stables in Black Beauty that he said he did not want to hear any more.

Probably the same thing that meant my cousin was stopped from watching it when it first came out, the stampede in the gorge where Scar flings Simba's father to his death. It is pretty upsetting actually, particularly when the little lion cub finds him. It's like Bambi's mother all over again .

[Boodi 2]

Thanks IceMaiden, that makes sense...amazing that it has taken me almost 30 years to find out what upset him so much. It had such a negative effect on him that he became reluctant to visit that friend again, as he was probably afraid that she would suggest watching other upsetting videos.

Like Katherine and Bertie I tend to avoid gritty literature and films, as when I read a book or watch a film I want to be distracted from the problems/realities of life rather than wallow in them. However, despite some harrowing episodes in Black Beauty I did enjoy the book as it was written with the intention of improving the dreadful conditions under which horses lived (and died) at that time and it is very accurate in many respects.