Julian - What do you think of him?

[Jomo]

When I learned about British boarding schools like the ones the Famous Five went to, I wondered if Julian was a prefect there and thus was used to having authority. But I guess he would be too young for that?

In most schools prefects would be chosen from students in their final year, so Julian might have a minor role in authority as ‘class monitor’ but would not be elevated to the status of the prefect until he was much older,

Your thoughts on Julian's school status could well be right, db105. You have to remember that the books commenced in 1942, at which time the school leaving age in the UK was still 14 and that wasn't changed until the Education Act of 1944 which raised it to 15. So, although Julian was 12 in the first book, he wasn't that far off the most senior school years of the day, so one could reasonably assume he may have had some responsibilties at school which he would possibly want to 'put to the test' in his out-of-school life.

The majority of students at a private boarding school would not be finishing until they were about 17 years old - Julian at age 12 In Five on a Treasure Island would be a very small squib with four or five years to go.

[Barnard]

Julian did not appear in ‘Secret Island’.

[Jomo]

Sorry, I meant Treasure Island. Amended.

[pete9012S]

Julian did not appear in ‘Secret Island’.

That would have changed the group dynamics quite a bit! How would he have handled the girl who was lazy to start with, was it Nora or Peggy?

I love the fact that a fictional character from Enid's mind can promote such interesting discussion.
Wonder if she came across any Julian types when she was teaching?

All the Famous Five characters seem very well rounded out. Unlike the Find Outers, they all seem to have a large part in each book.
I did like the section in Hike when Dick and Anne had their own adventure which led to Dick sleeping in that barn and having a solo adventure in the night.

Are there any accounts like that involving Julian?

I think he had a great solo adventure in Five Get Into Trouble, finding out all sorts of things about the mysterious house they were trapped in..

Are there any others?

[Wolfgang]

All the Famous Five characters seem very well rounded out. Unlike the Find Outers, they all seem to have a large part in each book.
I did like the section in Hike when Dick and Anne had their own adventure which led to Dick sleeping in that barn and having a solo adventure in the night.

Are there any accounts like that involving Julian?

In "Five get into trouble" Julian explores "Owls' Dene" all alone.

[Debbie]

When I learned about British boarding schools like the ones the Famous Five went to, I wondered if Julian was a prefect there and thus was used to having authority. But I guess he would be too young for that?

In the final book it talks about Anne being games captain doesn't it? I'd assume from that that she was 16yo (and in what we now call year 11). In that case it would be reasonable to assume that Julian was upper 6th and doing A-levels-doesn't he say something about slogging at exams at some point? (haven't got the book to check). In which case I'd assume that he could well have been a prefect.

[Barnard]

There is no doubt that, in the books, Anne is described as much younger than sixteen. In Five on a Treasure Island she is said to be ten, and, if it is assumed that she and the others get a bit older in the later books, I hardly think she would have reached the age of sixteen.
Thirteen, possibly.

[Irene Malory Towers]

I love him ! He is nice, genuine, got great manners and a thoroughly decent person. What's wrong with that ? Ok I don't adore him like I do with Fatty - he doesn''t have that brilliance and quirkiness that Fatty has but who has ? His sexism towards George was appropriate for the time he lived in. And yes sometimes he was patronising and a little bossy - but nobody is perfect. It is natural and even necessary to have a leader even informal in a group of 4 or 5. There was a clear leader in all of EB's groups - Jack in the secret series - although latterly Prince Paul took over - and Barney in the Barney ones, Peter in the Secret Seven, Tom in Adventurous Four. The only exception I can think of is the Adventurous Series where Philip and Jack were either joint or alternate - (Mountain Philip, Circus Jack). I see that mirrored in life - when there is a group of 4 or more people planning something or even just friends a leader often emerges. Otherwise nothing gets done and decisions don't get made. Just lots of talking as in the Life of Brian !

[pete9012S]

A great post Irene. Thank you.

[Jomo]

There is no doubt that, in the books, Anne is described as much younger than sixteen. In Five on a Treasure Island she is said to be ten, and, if it is assumed that she and the others get a bit older in the later books…

Julian is eventually described as being 16 years old, so Anne may have reached 14 years of age, there being 2 years difference between them. Did Anne mature much? I think so. Though still of a nervous disposition, she found a lot more courage. Julian always just seemed so much older, and Eileen Soper’s depictions of him in the later books show a much taller, adult appearing youth.

[Judith Crabb]

You're right up to a point Jomo. By the twelfth book, 'Five go down to the Sea' the children are depicted by Eileen Soper as mid-teenage. Then Enid Blyton must have faced the dilemma that all lengthy series present, no longer being able to age the children any further. She was lucky in having such a sympathetic illustrator. From the twelfth book on the children do not appear any older - in fact they start to look younger and by the eighteenth book, 'Five on Finniston Farm' Eileen Soper makes the children and Timmy appear about the age they were in 'Five on a Treasure Island' - the dust-jacket gives it away. Timmy is a mere pup!

[Barnard]

You’re quite right, Judith. In the later books, Anne seems to be about eleven.

[Jomo]

From the twelfth book on the children do not appear any older - in fact they start to look younger and by the eighteenth book, 'Five on Finniston Farm' Eileen Soper makes the children and Timmy appear about the age they were in 'Five on a Treasure Island' - the dust-jacket gives it away. Timmy is a mere pup!

For these reasons, in my mind the publication sequence was never necessarily the sequence of events, some of the later books obviously became ‘fill-in’ events. (You have to assume that there are more school holidays, that you can cram 4 or 5 breaks into the year.) Then the entire story, as told, could take place in a 4 -5 year time span, Julian reaching 17 or thereabouts, so still at school. This deals with the timeline reasonably well, as the children had to stop ageing, filling in the timeline with additional adventures became a fictional necessity for the author. We, her readership, demanded more books and she obliged! Eileen Soper was demonstrably aware of the continuity changes.

I also started to think that the early FF books were recounting stories from several years before the first publication date, stretching back to the late 1930’s. It just seems to work better.

[Judith Crabb]

Jomo, that's ingenious. I've never thought of such a possibility and there's no evidence that Enid Blyton did either (correct me if I'm wrong). The convention of 'freezing' the ages of the main characters in popular series was wide spread (think William and Biggles). Few readers expect total synchronization of real and fictional time but if the attempt pleases any one they should go for it.

[Jomo]

As I tell people who are interested in Vedanta ‘Time exists so that everything doesn’t happen at once.’
Even more so for fictional chronologies!
I think that there is some evidence that Enid Blyton did have an idea of a chronological sequence, but the success of the Five series meant that later books had to be squeezed into the time-frame.
Co-incidentally, my original reprint copy of Five Go Down to the Sea arrived today, and Eileen Soper’s illustrations show Julian and Dick as almost fully grown young men. In one illustration poor George, who is still quite insistent on being addressed and treated as boy, showing signs of voluminous chest development - so I think in reality s/he would have been binding or de-emphasising that unfortunate development as much as possible, which seems to be the case in other illustrations in the book. (The dust-jacket artwork shows George with a distinctly masculine appearance compared with Anne, who is rendered as delicately feminine throughout.)
I think we can take the first twelve books as representing the time-frame scheme for the series. Not that Enid expressly intended to stop there, but it pretty much takes the children from 10-11-12 year olds to 14-15-16 at least.
Enid Blyton rigorously avoided any direct reference to current events or conditions, but nevertheless the settings, the manners, the general ‘feeling’ that I get from Five on a Treasure Island and the following titles say pre-WWII to me. As a child of the 50’s it seems more like my mother’s generation than my own. Aunt Fanny is very much in the mode of my grandmother, who was a thoroughly modern woman born in 1897, and who gave much freer rein to her daughters compared with the societal roles and controls she had experienced.