The Enid Blyton Society

I often wonder if the Mystery Series wouldn't have been better without Barney and the annoying Miranda.

The ever controversial Moonraker.

Moonraker wrote:I often wonder if the Mystery Series wouldn't have been better without Barney and the annoying Miranda.

The ever controversial Moonraker.

In my opinion Miranda adds nothing to the series. In fact she is rather silly. The silliest of all Blyton's animal creations to be honest. But Barney is indispensible to the series, especially in the first four books. He was a unique "hook" which made the children in these books different from the gangs of children in other series'. I remember as a child being fascinated by him. Roger and Diana were not very interesting at all and though I always like Snubby I dont think he really could have carried the series by himself. Barney is the equivalent of Fatty from the FFO or Jack from the Secret series. The natural leader type.

Lucky Star wrote: I do think that the Lyntons should have adopted him at the end of the series or something. It would have rounded everything out nicely.

Richard Lynton would likely have a heart attack if he heard this suggestion! I always like to think that once Snubby attains his majority, he would rid himself of his family and never see them again. I would in his place.

Lucky Star wrote: In my opinion Miranda adds nothing to the series. In fact she is rather silly. The silliest of all Blyton's animal creations to be honest. But Barney is indispensible to the series, especially in the first four books.

Yes, I am sure you're right. I think it is the annoying Miranda that puts me off the story when Barney appears!

If Barney was about 14, didn't some children start work at 14 sometimes??

I think Barney could easily slip through the net! That's what makes the stories so interesting. There wouldn't be a story if Barney was in Care. I wish someone had put that annoying monkey in care though!! Why couldn't Barney have had a dog!!

I always liked the idea of a monkey as a pet for a change and never found Miranda silly or annoying, though I don't consider the portrayal of the monkey to be as convincing as Blyton's portrayal of dogs. Enid seems keen to present Miranda as a helpful and devoted companion to Barney but I think she overdoes it at times and the monkey comes across as rather too "human", such as when she nurses Barney during his illness. It's touching, but far-fetched.

     I kind of liked Miranda too, and am scratching my head wondering what she did that was so annoying to some.
     But I did a bit of research on the Internet about monkeys as pets a year or two ago, because I was (this may shock some) contemplating having a monkey character in a story myself - and I then learned how profoundly unrealistic Blyton's depiction of Miranda is.
     Basically, pet monkeys, no matter how well trained from however early, no matter how well-bred from good monkey stock, are apt to show sudden and extreme violence to humans at little or no (known) provocation, can scarcely be toilet-trained, and are prone to using their urine and faeces to smear around as territory markers. They essentially destroy your house and your belongings pretty thoroughly, unless caged most of the time, or your house is especially adapted to accommodate them - and you have to change your whole lifestyle to accommodate having a monkey, and will have immense difficulty ever having a holiday, because it will not be possible to take the monkey with you anywhere, and it will also be very difficult to arrange for it to be cared for while you are away. As if all this were not enough, a monkey will just about destroy your social life, too.
     The sites I read on how to keep pet monkeys frankly advised most people to not even think about it unless they are totally devoted to monkeys, and willing to put up with all this. And that was from the sites most in favour of pet monkeys - others I read just totally advised against it with no reservations. (I think I discussed all this in more detail in a topic I started at the time about this - or it might have been about Blyton pets in general.)
     I'm sure Enid Blyton never thought about any of that - and if she was aware of it, she probably just ignored it and basically created her own type of animal that just happened to look and behave like a monkey in some way. Maybe, next time I read a story with Miranda in it, I can invoke a willing suspension of disbelief and involve myself in the story and somehow not worry about the things I now know about monkeys. But, upon learning all this, I abandoned my idea of having a character who owned a monkey in a story of my own.
     It seems that I have less suspension of disbelief when it comes to writing my own stories, and am more of a stickler than Blyton sometimes was for not flouting reality. In fact, I probably am a bit purist on such things - maybe too much so.

     As for the characters: I had no problem about Barney escaping the clutches of the law on homeless youths, etc. - that is far easier to swallow than Blyton's depiction of monkey behaviour. And I always found Barney a very appealing, likeable character, and his background does give him a kind of romance.
     I find Snubby very funny and quite amusing, and he makes me laugh a lot; but, for all that, I've never felt him really likeable - funny to read about, but probably thoroughly irritating if you knew him in real life - as the other characters often found him. I guess he fills the role of a court jester or something like that.
     Roger and Diana seemed somehow a bit nondescript, although I can't really say why. I never thought Mr. Lynton really cared for any of his two-and-a-half children, and wonder whether their births were accidental rather than intended at all. Must admit, Mr. Lynton never struck me as a very likeable person himself.
     Barney is definitely the star of that series, for me at least.

Regards, Michael.

MJE wrote:They essentially destroy your house and your belongings pretty thoroughly, unless caged most of the time, or your house is especially adapted to accommodate them -

Perhaps it's just as well Barney didn't live in a house then!

Monkeys were popular with organ-grinders at one time, as well as with aristocratic families and circus folk, and it may be that certain breeds are easier to train than others.

A while ago I came across the Ladybird book Oliver Cromwell, written by L. Du Garde Peach and first published in 1963. It's in the 'An Adventure from History' series and tells the story of Cromwell's life (it's unusually pro-Cromwell). Page 1 gives an account of what happened to Cromwell as a baby in 1599 while he was staying at the house of his grandfather, Sir Henry Cromwell, who owned a monkey:

"Sir Henry had a pet monkey which was allowed to climb all over the house, and one day it seized hold of Oliver, who was only a few months old, and carried him up on to the roof. We can imagine the horror with which his grandfather must have seen the monkey climbing about the roof with the baby in its arms. But it is impossible to imagine what England might have been like to-day if the monkey had dropped him."

There's an illustration by John Kenney of the monkey up on the roof holding the baby, while people down below look on in shock and horror. One man is carrying a long ladder, so perhaps that's how the baby was rescued. I wonder what happened to the monkey?!

Monkeys as pets today??? .......... 'Monkids'

http://natgeotv.com/uk/my-child-is-a-mo ... os/monkids" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I had no idea adopting monkeys as children was a growing phenomenon in the US! I have certainly never seen anyone with a monkey here. Sounds more like journalistic license.

Daisy wrote:Perhaps it's just as well Barney didn't live in a house then!

     Well, he did in the last two books of the series. I seem to recall it being described as working all right.

Regards, Michael.

pete9012S wrote:Monkeys as pets today??? :D :D.......... 'Monkids' :shock: :shock:

http://natgeotv.com/uk/my-child-is-a-mo ... os/monkids" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

     Tantalizingly, it says how a family discovered just how dangerous monkeys can be, and mentioned the price they were only just starting to pay - but completely fails to explain that any further.

Regards, Michael.

Anita Bensoussane wrote:"... But it is impossible to imagine what England might have been like to-day if the monkey had dropped [Oliver Cromwell]."

     Ah - well, I hated History at school, and got 4 percent once in a History exam, and I was doing British history at the time - so what *might* England have been like today if Oliver had been dropped?

Anita Bensoussane wrote:I wonder what happened to the monkey?!

     Put to death, I don't doubt. Nowadays we might have Animal Liberation or PETA or someone jumping up and down about the animal's rights.

Regards, Michael.

MJE wrote:

pete9012S wrote:Monkeys as pets today??? .......... 'Monkids'

http://natgeotv.com/uk/my-child-is-a-mo ... os/monkids" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

     Tantalizingly, it says how a family discovered just how dangerous monkeys can be, and mentioned the price they were only just starting to pay - but completely fails to explain that any further.

Yes, it's only a short snippet of a programme and I couldn't find a link to the whole thing.

MJE wrote:I hated History at school, and got 4 percent once in a History exam, and I was doing British history at the time - so what *might* England have been like today if Oliver had been dropped?

Don't ask me! The monkey may not have dropped Oliver Cromwell but I dropped History at the age of 14 and therefore didn't study it for 'O' Level. You probably know that Cromwell ruled as Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1653 to 1658. A strict Puritan, he clamped down on leisure activites as he felt that a lot of them were a waste of time and could lead to immoral behaviour. Theatres were shut during his rule, and many festivals and sports were banned. He terrorised the Irish Catholics and has gone down in history as being harsh and dictatorial, so I was surprised to read in the Ladybird book that "England was well governed while Cromwell was Lord Protector" and that "Oliver Cromwell is one of the most important figures in English history. In the time in which he lived, a great man was needed to lead the people of England in their fight for freedom, and to-day we still enjoy the freedoms which he won for us." I don't know anywhere near enough about it all to guess how different the course of history might have been if the monkey had dropped baby Oliver!

Going back to Barney fending for himself at the age of 14, back in the 1980s I had a summer job at a hotel and there was another girl working there who was 15 but had already left school. She had grown up in a children's home and still lived there when she was working at the hotel. It wasn't anything like the children's home shown in the Tracy Beaker television programme, by the way (the home in that programme is bright, airy and well-maintained and the children seem to sleep one or two to a room). The girl I knew slept in a dormitory and didn't like the home or the staff who worked there. Anyway, at 15 she was already pregnant (she hadn't yet told her carers or the owner of the hotel) but she and her boyfriend were planning to set up home together once she turned 16 and she was saving up her wages to buy things like furniture and bed linen. Although I was a year older, she seemed much more grown-up and talked with confidence about rent and bills and colour schemes, and about her plans for her child. Maybe Barney gave off the same air of confidence and independence, despite being young? And maybe being in care wasn't all it was cracked up to be anyway (I got the impression that the only person who really "cared" for the girl I knew was her boyfriend, whom I met a few times, and that she would be better off with him than in the home). Miss Pepper and the others might well have felt that Barney was coping better by himself, doing casual jobs to earn a living, than he would have done if he'd been handed over to an institution which may have been "care" in name only - not in practice.