Now where do I begin my appraisal of Journal 45, it is such a difficult choice to have to
make. Robert Houghton’s article on
Smuggler Ben was very enjoyable and informative,
this being a title that I never came across as a child. Maybe I overlooked Mary Pollock
in favour of the more familiar Enid Blyton! If only I had known!
The reference to knives in
Smuggler Ben certainly rang alarm bells, accustomed as we
are nowadays to children and teenagers in the UK using such items against each other,
sometimes with tragic results. There was a time however, when almost all boys would
would carry a knife of some description, usually a penknife or perhaps even a small
bowie knife in a holster as I had back in the 1970’s.
My Childhood in the Spirit of Enid Blyton by William Ferguson reminded me
immediately of tales told to me by my father of his own childhood back in the 1930’s.
Sad to say that some of his actics would have had Enid Blyton reaching for the smelling
salts, Richmal Crompton may have been slightly more approving! What a wonderful
childhood William must have had, with most of the Blytonesque elements being within
easy walking distance.
A Club of Our Own by Anita Bensousanne refers to a childhood just a few short years
after my own childhood era, the 1970’s. I too had access to a shed where many secret
meetings took place with my motley band of friends. We even had to put up with my
younger sister doing a "Susie" to upset proceedings every so often. There is certainly no
other building like a proper garden shed for children to play in, wooden buildings have a
certain warmth about them.
It is indeed testament to the positive influence of Enid Blyton’s writing that
Anita and "The Fantastic Four" chose to model themselves on some of the storylines and
characters of the books. Equally impressive is the degree of mutual cooperation such as
the "Book Lovers Club". I had always assumed that such things only ever happened in the
Secret Seven, real life children would never have had the discipline to club together and
make a joint purchase of a book. How wrong one can be.
In all a very evocative portrait of a wonderful early 1980’s childhood aided
by some wonderful photographs.
How I regard Writing For Children by Enid Blyton offers us a glimpse into her writing
genius. I was surprised to read that at least one of her books
Mystery Island (aka
The
Island of Adventure) had been a success in the U.S.A. It would be interesting to learn if
further attempts were made by Enid and her publishers to crack the American market.
One must assume that it would have been near impossible to do so at that time, such was
the sheer number of already established childrens writers/syndicates backed by very
powerful publishing companies.
It amused me to read that Enid’s books were pirated in Russia of all places. Some things
never change, bootleg copyright material still sometimes originates from Russia, usually in electronic form such as the latest Hollywood films. Enid expressed surprise that the contents of her books should find favour in a such a different environment. Obviously the fundamental decency of her stories won the approval of the
Soviets and were deemed not to be subversive, what an accolade!
Enid explains in great detail the need for a story to be well constructed and to have
characters that children can see with their minds eye. Such a notion sounds so very
simple, very easy, and yet achieving such an ideal is beyond many authors.
Once again, a very enjoyable read.What is it about the E.B.S Journal that each issue is somehow better than the last, how on Earth does Tony achieve such a feat? The Journal is of course a very long life publication, one cannot imagine throwing away an issue once it is read from cover to cover, instead it
is carefully filed away to be repeatedly re-read, along with all those Blyton hardbacks!