Editorial Changes in the Famous Five Series

[pete9012S]

Thank you for finding the change of text Irene.

I thought this part of the original text was quite surprising in my younger days:

Henry slid out of bed, and Timmy looked suddenly hopeful. Was this silly girl going to make up her mind at last?
‘Timmy, there’s no grown-up here tonight except Mrs Johnson, and I really can’t wake her,’ said Henry. ‘She’s had such a very hard, busy day.

Makes Mrs Johnson sound like an inept, tired old codger who couldn't possibly be of any help!

[Anita Bensoussane]

It does at least show that Henry is thoughtful and feels sympathy for Mrs. Johnson. However, I wonder whether Henry would have had the same qualms about waking a hard-working male character of Mrs. Johnson's age!

Thanks for looking up the changes to the text concerning Henry being a "pretend" boy, Irene. Although I can see the reasoning behind the editing, I think it's a shame that young readers are being denied the opportunity of gaining an understanding of how views have altered over time. As a child and teenager I read a wide range of books by authors from different periods and different countries - Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, L. M. Alcott, Carlo Collodi, Laura Ingalls Wilder, L. M. Montgomery, E. Nesbit, Johanna Spyri, Hans Christian Andersen, Enid Blyton, C. S. Lewis, Noel Streatfeild, Malcolm Saville, Antonia Forest, H. E. Todd, Roald Dahl, Nina Bawden, Judy Blume and many others. I actually found it fascinating to learn about different attitudes, approaches, lifestyles and opportunities while at the same time enjoying engaging and imaginative stories. It was a prolonged and profound history lesson, broadening my mind and making me think more deeply about the status quo rather than taking it for granted. And after all, it's not as though a child is only exposed to one author! Even if a child did read only one author, s/he would still experience numerous other influences while growing up - family, friends, neighbours, school, television, music, etc. In my opinion, preserving the past will help us understand the present and shape the future.

[Debbie]

That's a fairly sensitive change considering what they could have made it! It's not one that would scream out at you that it had been altered.
However I think they could have made Mrs Johnson inaccessible (eg going for the vet) or simply had Henry not willing to disturb a grown up for something she's not sure about.

I agree with the understanding of views altering over time. It's also something that causes me a slight bemusement when I hear people my age saying that they won't let their child read EB (or similar) because they don't want their girls to think they can't do things. I want to point out that they read them, and clearly don't think that, so why do they have so little opinion of their own children that they can't work it out for themselves.

For me and my children, I've often found these things good to start discussions. Why does Henry think she has to get a boy to help? But play that off against that George sends Timmy to Henry, not to William, who you would think she would prefer. George obviously thinks that Henry will be the most likely to be able to think things through and do something.

If we hide old attitudes, then it allows for prejudice to go underground and fester.
By showing the mistaken attitudes of the day (and, as I tell my children, in the future they'll be being told by their children that they're saying things that their children will think of as unacceptable-probably the very things that they're correcting others currently as the "right" things to say) it allows for people to understand that there are historical hurts and sweeping them aside and pretending that they didn't happen doesn't allow for healing.

[Anita Bensoussane]

My children and I enjoyed similar conversations, Debbie. We also discussed modern children's books that were being published during their childhoods (e.g. various titles by Michael Morpurgo and Jacqueline Wilson, J. K. Rowling's 'Harry Potter' books, Lemony Snicket's 'A Series of Unfortunate Events', Anthony Horowitz's 'Alex Rider' series and Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials').

[Jack400]

I don't understand why the books need to be censored in order to remove the word "gypsy" in place substituting "travellers" but Channel 5 can have a new series called "Here Come The Gypsies" and seemingly has -warning language alert- "gypsy" in the title (apparently with the blessing of the"gypsy" community) !!!?

[Anita Bensoussane]

Yes, Enid Blyton gets censored unfairly for things that are accepted elsewhere - including in modern children's literature.

Philip Pullman has water-travellers called "Gyptians" in his 'His Dark Materials' series (the word clearly being being derived from "Gypsy"). Gypsies (referred to as "gypsies") also feature in Eva Ibbotson's The Star of Kazan. However, as you say, Jack, Enid Blyton's gypsies have become "travellers".

Enid Blyton has been criticised for having a black character named Jo-Jo in The Island of Adventure yet there's currently a children's TV programme on CBeebies about a girl and her gran who are black, and the girl's name is JoJo (JoJo & Gran Gran, inspired by a picture book by Laura Henry-Allain).

Critics who have only a surface knowledge of the Famous Five books have claimed that Enid's portrayal of the Stick family in Five Run Away Together is an example of middle-class snobbery towards the working-class, yet Roald Dahl's criticism of a vulgar working-class family in Matilda is apparently fine. In fact, I've just started reading a 2015 book, The Door That Led to Where by Sally Gardner (one of my favourite authors), and a description of one of the characters reminds me very much of Enid's Pa Stick:

From the lounge came the voice of Frank.

"Jan," he shouted, "bring us a beer."

Frank and a marshmallow three-piece suite from Sofa World were the flat's latest acquisitions. The suite took up all the space the lounge had to offer, while Frank had taken over the flat. He was a huge, blancmange slug-of-a-man who left a slimy trail of beer cans, bacon sarnies and spittled fag ends behind him."

Would that have been left unedited if it had appeared in an Enid Blyton book, I wonder?!

[Jack400]

I very much doubt it, Anita. It just seems incredible that such blatant double standards can exist.

[dsr]

Enid Blyton has been criticised for having a black character named Jo-Jo in The Island of Adventure yet there's currently a children's TV programme on CBeebies about a girl and her gran who are black, and the girl's name is JoJo (JoJo & Gran Gran, inspired by a picture book by Laura Henry-Allain).

The "problem" of Jo-jo was that he played up to the "Uncle Tom" type of black man, subservient to his white employer. As we all know, he was a highly intelligent man who was running an international (and murderous) counterfeiting ring, but I suspect the editors never got past the first "she didn't say nothing about any friends" before screaming in horror and deciding that black villains have no place in Enid Blyton.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I remember reading an article somewhere which criticised Enid Blyton for calling the character "Jo-Jo". According to the critic, it didn't sound like a real name. However, Jojo is a genuine unisex name of African origin meaning "Monday born". "Day names" of that kind are particularly popular in Ghana.

[Irene Malory Towers]

I bought an old version of edition of Five Have Plenty of Fun and compared that with a modern version. I was almost disappointed that there are not many text changes, mainly removal of Master as in Master Leslie or Master George and one reference to from Elbur the American commenting on their tan - " they look like Red indians" being removed.
There are a few almost quaint references to boys being sportier than girls - Goerge (wrongly) spectulates about Berta not being able to swim says "I bet Berta can't swim". That will be a pity, because most boys swim well" etc etc. In reference to her now being disguised as a boy the word pity from George makes more sense as now the part "because boys swim well" has been removed. To us now that seems ridiculous that boys could swim better than girls but in those days probably that was true. If a family did not have much money to spend on swimming lessons they would have spent it on their sons not their daughters.
Later on the word gramophone has been removed from gramophone record and a slightly odd change, when they had all gone swimming it is mentioned that Anne was the only one with a cup on her head. That has been removed completely and I don't know why. People still wear swimming caps don't they ?
Once George has been kidnapped there is a mention of her being as brave a boy - which now reads brave. Again not wanting to upset people who might read that girls cannot be brave !
And the final omission which is the biggest one when Joe has written a note she has misspelt some words - "beech" for beach and "levven" for eleven o' clock. The transcript of the entire note has been missed out, which is a shame.

[pete9012S]

That was most interesting Irene. Thank you very much for all your research.

My mum wore a swimming cap with colourful flowers on it.
We used to think it was hilarious when we were little.

When did men/boys stop wearing all in one bathing suits? When I was young in the late 1960's early 1970's swimming trunks were very brief indeed ie speedos etc.

I would be interested to see the last pic by Eileen Soper of the Five wearing an all in one swimming costume.


1962 Five have a Mystery To Solve - The last illustration of the Five in all in one swimwear??


1968 Betty Maxey's Hike is the last time she depicted any of the Five in swimwear.
Just six years after the first pic above - but what a change in fashion!

[Debbie]

On swimming hats, I can remember being rather bemused by references to swimming hats in the 80s as no one I knew wore them.
Fast forward to my my children, born in the 2000s, and they usually wear them when they're swimming. Part of that was their infant school had a swimming pool (outside, but unfortunately not naturally formed in the rocks!) and the children were required to wear hats (hair blocked the filter), so I suppose it became a habit.

One thing does occur to me about George, which only occurs to me as an adult. Where did she get her ideas from? She's meant to be antisocial, not mixing with the children except Alf in the village. I can't imagine Aunt Fanny saying things like "boys are braver" and I wouldn't imagine Uncle Quentin either.
So where did she get the idea that "boys were better"? How many boys v girls did she know to compare?

Coming from the tennis point of view, boys are naturally more competitive and far more likely to have a go. Growing up our club fielded 3 boys' teams, and never managed to raise enough girls for one (so I played in the boys' team, which George would have loved!)
And that's still typical-when my son goes down to play for children's club night there are all 5 courts taken, so around 20 children and it's unusual to have more than 2 girls.
So I suspect in the days when swimming would be more done by the children's choice rather than parents signing them up for lessons there might well be a distinction between ability in typical boys and girls swimming, simply because the boys would be far more likely to give it a go (also skinny dipping for boys would be more acceptable!)
The boys ime would be far more likely to throw themselves in the the supreme confidence that they would be able to swim (and then have to learn very fast!) while the girls stayed in their depth despite being able to swim.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I'm always interested in textual changes and comparisons of illustrations. Do Julian and the others still tease Berta about her pronunciation of "wonderful" as "wunnerful", Irene? It's the kind of thing that might get edited even though the teasing was good-natured and friendly as far as I remember.

[Irene Malory Towers]

The boys still did tease Bertha about her pronunciation of wunnerful. I think that most of changes are the removal of the formal ways of addressing children, eg Master Leslie, old fashioned words like gramophone and anything that could be deemed as racist or sexist. So all references to boys being better than girls as the natural way of life has been removed. Shame really as it takes away some of the atmosphere of the books really. And also it makes less sense for George to want to be a boy.

I think I read somewhere that Enid Blyton had loosely based George on herself and I suppose then in the early 20th century boys certainly had far more opportunities than girls so it would be more understandable to want to be a boy.

[dsr]

On swimming hats, I can remember being rather bemused by references to swimming hats in the 80s as no one I knew wore them.
Fast forward to my my children, born in the 2000s, and they usually wear them when they're swimming. Part of that was their infant school had a swimming pool (outside, but unfortunately not naturally formed in the rocks!) and the children were required to wear hats (hair blocked the filter), so I suppose it became a habit.

One thing does occur to me about George, which only occurs to me as an adult. Where did she get her ideas from? She's meant to be antisocial, not mixing with the children except Alf in the village. I can't imagine Aunt Fanny saying things like "boys are braver" and I wouldn't imagine Uncle Quentin either.
So where did she get the idea that "boys were better"? How many boys v girls did she know to compare?

Coming from the tennis point of view, boys are naturally more competitive and far more likely to have a go. Growing up our club fielded 3 boys' teams, and never managed to raise enough girls for one (so I played in the boys' team, which George would have loved!)
And that's still typical-when my son goes down to play for children's club night there are all 5 courts taken, so around 20 children and it's unusual to have more than 2 girls.
So I suspect in the days when swimming would be more done by the children's choice rather than parents signing them up for lessons there might well be a distinction between ability in typical boys and girls swimming, simply because the boys would be far more likely to give it a go (also skinny dipping for boys would be more acceptable!)
The boys ime would be far more likely to throw themselves in the the supreme confidence that they would be able to swim (and then have to learn very fast!) while the girls stayed in their depth despite being able to swim.

George must have gone to school in the village. Unwillingly to school, I dare say, but she couldn't have been a complete ignoramus or she wouldsn't have got into boarding school. That's where she would decide she wanted to be a boy.

I remember reading about an American survey a few years back, re. children's competitiveness. They timed children running; three separate measurements. Once, running alone; once, running in races same-sex; once, running in races mixed-sex.

With the girls, it made no difference to their time whether they were alone, against other girls, or against boys. With the boys, their slowest times were running alone, middling times were running against other boys, fastest times were running against girls. Conclusion - like you say, boys are more competitive, and especially don't want to be beaten by girls.

Of course, there are exceptions. Girls (like George, and plenty of real girls as well) can be ultra competitive; and there are boys who couldn't care less about winning. It's a broad spectrum.