What a great book this is! Chapter-by-chapter analysis reveals how freshly written yet satisfyingly complex it is.
Enid's love of dogs comes over loud and clear. And yet that's also the key to the mystery.
Duncan I'm so enjoying this. I'm half way through reading it. It's very good indeed thank you.
I could be wrong, but I think Tally-Ho was the first book in the series my Mum bought me. Then she bought me Burnt Cottage.
I think I'm right as I was surprised reading Burnt Cottage how Fatty was initially disliked by his chums at first.
I know you cannot enjoy the New Year in the usual way this evening Duncan, but in my undermind I imagine you will still celebrate responsibly in a socially distanced manner!
Happy New Year
Pete
" A kind heart always brings its own reward," said Mrs. Lee.
- The Christmas Tree Aeroplane - Society Member
I feel that is me, Pete, celebrating the coming of 2021 at various sites in Bourne End that play prominent parts in the Mystery books!
But is there a Mystery scene set in a hairdressers? I suspect not. It would be better if I was doing my thing outside Goon's house, outside Fatty's shed, and on the bank of the river at the bottom of the grounds of Tally-Ho House!
Green Hedges wrote:
But is there a Mystery scene set in a hairdressers?
I can only find one scant reference in Invisible Thief Duncan - but is it enough to allow the likes of you and I to do gyrating twirls around Peterswood wearing man size nappies....
When the others came at ten o'clock to meet in Fatty's shed, and see if anything further had happened, they were met by a gloomy Fatty. "Got to go and get my hair cut, he said. 'I'll be back in about half an hour. You can either wait for me here or go and have your first ice-cream of the day while I'm at the hairdresser's."
They said a few polite words to Mrs Trotteville and then escaped. They walked almost to the hairdressers before they met Fatty. He came towards them looking very smooth-headed indeed. Buster trotted as usual at his heels.
Enid Blyton. The mystery of the invisible thief
Wonder if any illustrator showed Fatty 'smooth headed' after his visit to the hairdressers??
Regards
Pete
" A kind heart always brings its own reward," said Mrs. Lee.
- The Christmas Tree Aeroplane - Society Member
Good timing, Pete, as I am about to re-jig my Invisible Thief chapter. I have various illustrated editions to hand, I am stripped to my underpants, and I am GOOD TO GO.
Many thanks for this, Duncan. Most interesting! I've always had a fondness for the Tally-Ho Cottage mystery, as I read the book shortly after we moved from a road leading down to a river (the Lymington River) with big houses with large gardens in it and boathouses so I could imagine the scenes set at the Lorenzos' easily. (My copy of the book was the first Armada edition, with the Mary Gernat cover of Fatty poking about in the bottom of the rowing-boat; this was the one on sale in 1967-8. )The goings-on of actors and other London theatrical folk living in large houses on the river around Maidenhead were well-known as a source of gossip from the 1920s onwards, and nowadays some enterprising commercial boat tour companies have summer trips up and down the river spotting and pointing out the gardens of assorted celebs and looking out for signs of them. Some of the owners must get a bit fed up with this!
The ideas for the location of Tally Ho Cottage and its surroundings are especially interesting, as I once went to Cookham Bridge on a trip to Maidenhead with my parents as a teenager, and was thus looking across the river at the riverside by THC without knowing it! I can remember how well-wooded it was, so you could hardly see the big houses by the river for the trees along the banks.
Thanks as ever, Eddie...It's now January, Lenoir!...Good to read your personal associations, timv. Odd that Mary Gernat was commissioned to design a cover in 1965 then again just 4 years later. They are both evocative but neither features a little white dog, or a tree-house, two crucial ingredients of this Mystery.
Enid Blyton was a one-person tourist board for that part of Buckinghamshire. Which lives on in the minds of readers of this series of books. Oh, the lovely rolling River Thames, and the swans which embellish its course.
Nice write-up, and interesting to see the locations on the map, and the original notes.
‘Midnight bathing in the river and hide-and-seek in the garden afterwards’ always sounded a bit strange, but exciting. I can imagine Fatty doing something like that. Not something Mrs. Hilton would approve of.
I have the Armada paperback version, bought new in the 70s.
I added the old hardback version to my collection as well, some years later, but somehow the paperback is the book with the memories.
I think I must read it again after that.
I might add another 'outro' to this essay. (It's got three already, might as well have a fourth.)
So if any reader who is a dog-owner has anything to say about the essay or about the Tally-Ho book, maybe coming from their perspective as a dog lover, then please send me a photo of you with your dog, plus the quote, and I'll try and include it!
Geograph photo by Philip Halling: square SU8985, photo 2544500: River Thames near Cookham Bridge.
This is a view NE across the river from the W bank at the bend above Cookham Bridge, opposite the site that Duncan suggests for Tally Ho Cottage and the Lorenzos' house; these would be in the trees on the right, with the residential road down which the children walk behind the line of houses along the riverbank. This gives a good idea of just how dense the trees are here. The neo-Elizabethan half-timbered frontage that you can just see in the distance may be that of the presumed site of Tally Ho Cottage and its larger neighbour.
