Reality on The Secret Island

[Lunalove]

Just where did those kids go to the loo?!! Can't even begin to think of how they would have had to deal with that. No loo paper presumably. And that would be an issue when the island was searched surely? Yes, kids books don't mention things like that, but when you read as an adult, you can't help wondering LOL

[sixret]

Welcome, Lunalove! If I were one of them, I would have dug a hole each time. Use sea water and hand to wash.

[Daisy]

That's about all they could do, I guess, Sixret! I seem to recall early camping days in Scouts and Guides when it wasn't unheard of to be handed a trowel and directed to the woods! No, as children we never thought about that side of things, did we - just enjoyed reading the adventure.

[Courtenay]

Welcome, Lunalove! That's just one of those aspects of reality that Enid Blyton books simply never deal with. I must admit, it's only as an adult that I've also wondered, with some of these cases of characters being locked up somewhere for hours and hours or even all night (like Fatty in The Mystery of the Missing Necklace), how on earth they held on that long — if they did...

[pete9012S]

As Enid said, critics over the age of twelve years of age did not enter her radar!

I suppose she meant she was writing for the younger generation and not analytical adults - although young children can be extremely perceptive and ask very probing questions too!

[Katharine]

A quick Google tells me that toilet paper was first sold in rolls in Europe in 1928, so only 10 years before the book was written. It doesn't say whether that meant just main land Europe, or Great Britain as well. I would suspect it took another couple of years before it made it across the channel. Many houses continued to use cut up pieces of paper - usually newspaper well after the war years.

I believe The Secret Island mentions that the children took some comics with them, so maybe once they'd read them a few times they found an alternate use for them?

I seem to recall early camping days in Scouts and Guides when it wasn't unheard of to be handed a trowel and directed to the woods!

When I went camping during the early 1980s, the males in the group were told to head to the woods if they just needed to 'water the plant's, there were toilets for other 'requirements'.

[John Pickup]

I never wondered about that when I first read the book as a child and it doesn't really bother me now. Perhaps there were plenty of dock leaves on the island.

[Daisy]

Perhaps there were plenty of dock leaves on the island.

[pete9012S]

Personal hygiene was important as a search of the book reveals the children took at least one bar of soap with them.

[Eddie Muir]

Very interesting. Thanks, Pete.

[Rob Houghton]

I didn't really think about going to the toilet when I first read The Secret island - aged about 9 or 10 - but I did wonder, as an adult, what might happen to them if they developed stomach troubles. They were eating a strange diet of mostly fish and berries and potatoes - I'm sure they would have suffered for it!

I thought the same thing about the Adventure children when they were stranded on the islands in The Sea of Adventure.

[Katharine]

I loved this particular book when I read it as a child, and honestly believed it would be perfectly possible for the children to run off and live like they did. It's only as an adult that I sadly saw some pitfalls in the idea, but I wish I could see it with my childhood eyes again, when it was totally believable.

[Courtenay]

I think it's pretty natural for us as kids to imagine it'd be perfectly possible for us to run away and live on an island or out in the bush (as we say where I come from) or somewhere else totally removed from civilisation and survive happily with no worries at all... it's only when we get a bit older that we realise it wouldn't really work. But Enid was a master at getting into how children think and creating the kinds of adventures that most children love to imagine themselves having, without all those silly grown-up concerns to spoil the fun. I haven't actually read The Secret Island, but I'd love to — it may be harder for us to suspend disbelief as adults, but I certainly remember imagining adventures like that as a child and Enid generally makes me able to do it again, so I'll look forward to it when I can get a copy!

[Anita Bensoussane]

I too thought the idea of fending for oneself on a half-forgotten island sounded exciting and perfectly possible. As a girl I assumed my sister and I would manage marvellously in such a situation. After all, we'd read The Secret Island and Robinson Crusoe so we would know exactly what to do to survive!

I hope you do get a copy of The Secret Island, Courtenay. It's an unusual book that entranced me as a child and gives me a wonderful feeling of peace whenever I return to it.

[Courtenay]

I haven't read Robinson Crusoe, but my mum and I read The Swiss Family Robinson together when I was about 11 and had a lot of laughs at how this deserted island conveniently had everything on it that the family could possibly need and a whole lot more. I seem to recall it even had kangaroos!!