Little facts about The Famous Five

[pete9012S]

What little facts do the books reveal about The Famous Five that we may easy miss/overlook in our desire to read about the culmination of their adventures?

Let's list the ones we uncover here:


1. Five On A Hike Together - George collects threepenny bits in a special wooden box:

They all looked at it. ‘Jolly clever, Ju,’ said Dick, ‘But once we slide away from this spot, and it would be an easy thing to do, we’d find it jolly difficult to find that cork again! Hadn’t we better tie something else to it?’
‘I haven’t got anything else that will float,’ said Julian, ‘Have you?’
'I have,’ said George, and she handed him a little wooden box. ‘I keep the threepenny bits I collect in that,’ she said, putting the money into her pocket. ‘You can have the box. It will be much easier to see than the cork.’
Julian tied the box to the cork. It was certainly a good deal easier to see! ‘Fine!’ he said.

[pete9012S]

Again from Hike:

Julian is into carving corks:

Julian knew that the knife and torch had reached the bed of the lake.
He felt in his pockets again. He knew he had a cork somewhere that he had carved into a horse’s head.

[Anita Bensoussane]

A nice idea for a thread, Pete. I hadn't taken in the detail about George keeping threepenny bits in a special wooden box.


Anne likes second-hand shops and collects horse-brasses, as we find out in Five on Finniston Farm:

"Look - here's a queer shop - it sells antiques. Look at those old horse-brasses - I'd like to get one or two of those. And just see those lovely old prints!"

"Oh, no - not now, Anne," said Julian, with a groan. "This awful sudden craze of yours for second-hand shops has been going on too long! Horse-brasses! You've got stacks of them already! If you think we're going to go into that dark, smelly little shop and..."

Anne's hobby may have been inspired by Enid Blyton's younger daughter, Imogen. Enid writes in The Story of My Life:

...She [Imogen] also has some fine hunting-prints of which she is very proud.

She collects horse-brasses too, just as many of you do. I think these are lovely. I sometimes go into antique shops and hunt round for a horse-brass I think Imogen hasn't got. I think I must have seen about a hundred different designs. Some of them are very old.

[Bertie]

That's interesting, Pete. I'd forgotten about both of those. Five on a Hike Together is one of my least favourite of the series and I don't re-read it as much as most, so that's probably why.
I remember about Anne and her horse brasses - my mum collected them too and we always had plenty on the wall, so that bit always seemed relevant. And as an adult I love going into antique / second hand shops looking for the things that I collect so I always like that scene in Finniston Farm.
Interesting to read about Imogen collecting them. Though a shame about the 'fine' hunting prints - and her being 'proud' of such cruelty. Very sad to think that, even in 2022, that kind of thing would still be something deemed to be 'proud' about by some.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Of course, it might not have been the hunting theme that made them so appealing. It might have been any number of things such as the style of the artwork, the calibre of the artist, the magnificence of the horses, the age of the prints, the beauty of the frames, etc.

I'm very fond of Enid Blyton's circus stories and I even have a plastic circus set containing figures which I've put together to represent Lotta with Black Beauty, and Jimmy with Lucky. I enjoy the romantic look of a traditional circus, full of colour and life, and love the idyllic presentation that we find in Enid Blyton's books, with the animals loved and cared for. In reality, however, I wouldn't like to see the return of circuses with animals such as elephants, tigers and bears as I don't think a travelling life with confined living quarters is right for them at all - and even if the majority of trainers have the animals' best interests at heart, there will always be some who don't.

[Bertie]

I take your general point, Anita, that you can appreciate aspects of a work while still not approving of the overall theme / subject matter.

I'd say a big difference between the two examples is that a circus is meant to be a happy, positive thing - and animal cruelty an unseen by product of that in the case of poor owners, which can apply in any situation of animal ownership not just circuses. Whereas the very purpose of a hunt is quite open and boastful animal cruelty / killing. So a better comparison to hunting would be 'appreciating' aspects of a picture of an abattoir or dog fight or something like that. Which I'm sure some people can do - it might be a 'magnificent' dog killing the other, or the light might catch the blood in the abattoir scene just right - but I think it's still more than right to comment on the overall distateful and cruel subject matter.

[pete9012S]

Little Facts About The Famous Five:

Dick - Five Go Off In A Caravan.

Wishes he could catch flies like Timmy!

There was a silence, and everyone thought lazily about holidays. Timmy snapped at a fly, and his teeth came together with a loud click.
'Wish I could catch flies like that,' said Dick, flapping away a blue-bottle. 'Come and catch this one, Timmy, old thing.'

[Anita Bensoussane]

Bertie, I've just flicked through Imogen Smallwood's book, A Childhood at Green Hedges, and she mentions going hunting as a teenager (she had a horse of her own). From reading horse and pony books as a child, I gather that fox-hunting was very popular with the upper and middle classes in rural areas at that time (and the working class too in some regions), and wasn't widely questioned - though I believe drag-hunting existed as well, so "hunting" could refer to either. I certainly recall the main child characters going fox-hunting in the pony books by Josephine, Christine and Diana Pullein-Thompson (and other authors) which I read as a girl. Even in Clive King's Stig of the Dump, Barney's sister Lou joins a fox-hunt and Stig seems to be the only person who disapproves, since he only hunts animals for food. However, in one of Enid Blyton's own books we see a main character (Tammylan) protecting a fox which is being hunted by huntsmen and hounds - The Children of Cherry Tree Farm, published in 1940.

Getting back to the Famous Five, I was surprised to read in Five Go Down to the Sea that the children and Timmy have packed everything they need for their Tremannon holiday into "one small trunk" between them (not that Timmy probably did any of the packing!) I hadn't realised they travelled so light. Well, I suppose the days of Anne wanting to take "all her fifteen dolls" on holiday with her are long gone by then!

[Hannah]

I noticed on that journey that they were very thirsty because they had not taken enough orangeade - they ask for water for Timmy when changing trains but as it seems it wasn't an option to ask for some water for themselves.

[pete9012S]

Staying with Five Go Down To The Sea:

Julian says to the porter:

"We mean to bathe, and hire a boat, and fish, and bike all round about. That’s our kind of holiday!"

I find this interesting as I can't think of any account were the Five actually go fishing??
Did they have fishing rods? Did they intend to hire them? Fishy!!

[Wolfgang]

In "Five fall into adventure" George cousins think George has gone fishing at first when they couldn't find her. They also thought they could see her on the sea, if I remember correctly.

[Anita Bensoussane]

In Five on a Treasure Island, George's mother says she must take her cousins to the bay and show them the best places to bathe but George says, "I'm going fishing." Of course, she doesn't actually go fishing on that occasion. Like Pete, I don't remember the Five all going fishing together.

[pete9012S]

Many thanks Wolfgang and Anita.

It seems the Five like the idea of doing a bit of fishing, but never seem to get round to actually doing any!

Five Have Plenty Of Fun:

As usual the first day or two passed in a kind of dream, and then the children began to plan exciting things to do.
‘We’ll go to Kirrin Island again,’ said Dick. ‘We’ve not been there for ages.’
‘We’ll go fishing in Lobster Cove,’ said Julian.
‘We’ll go and explore some of the caves in the cliffs,’ said George.

They all tried valiantly to have as good a time as possible, and went out in George’s boat for a long row to Lobster Cove. They didn’t do any fishing there, but bathed from the boat instead, in water as green and clear as in an open-air bath.

[pete9012S]

Five On A Secret Trail:

Still making plans to fish that never materialise:

There was no answer. Anne was asleep. George sighed. She would have liked to plan what they were going to do when the boys came. Timmy’s ear would surely be all right in a day or two - and the boys could carry everything back from this little camp to Kirrin Cottage - and then long days of swimming and boating and fishing and all kinds of fun could begin - begin - begin - be...
And now George was asleep too!

[pete9012S]

Five Have A Mystery To Solve:

The Five rent a boat with the chance to do some night fishing - of course they don't!

'Choose which boat you like. They’re all the same. If you want to take it out at night too, and do some fishing, you can - but tie it up safe, won’t you?’
‘Of course,’ said Julian, going to look at the boats.