The Enid Blyton Society

Just a quick note to say that I really thoroughly enjoyed Journal 53. The Journal is always jam packed with variety and great articles but this one really did have a tremendous amount of things which were right up my street. I dont have it to hand unfoirtunately as I am in the library (still offline at home ) but I particularly enjoyed the articles by Julie, Anita, John Lester, David Chambers and Rob Houghton.

The contributions from Enid were fabulous and well chosen as always and the illustrations from Phyllis Chase were enchanting. Well done again Tony and many thanks for your continued hard work. Truly those who drop away from the Journal must be mad.

Crikey! If I came across that face in the torchlight in the Cave, I think I'd get out PDQ!

Please explain PDQ, Nigel.

PDQ is a three-letter abbreviation for "pretty darn quick(ly)".

Sorry you're still offline at home, John.

George looks as though she's wearing a Hallowe'en mask in that picture!

Her face looks rather like Michael Jackson!

Anita Bensoussane wrote:Anyone got any more comments on Journal 53?!

This was my very first EBS Journal. I enjoyed reading it and admiring at all those gorgeous illustrations.
When will the next journal get sent?
And how do I find future passwords for the Secret Passage?

Chrissie777 wrote: How do I find future passwords for the Secret Passage?

The password always changes several days after a new journal was sent to the society members. Every time you enter the secret passage it will ask for a specific word of the last journal.

The next Journal will be sent out around the second week in July, Chrissie.

As Wolfgang said, when you attempt to enter the Secret Passage you'll see a message telling you where to find the password in the Journal. At the moment it says, "The current password is the first word on page 36 of the current Journal (No. 53)."

Thank you both, Anita and Wolfgang. I made a note of it and taped it to my PC.

It was nice to relax and read a Journal article at the end of the day.
Interesting that there were two articles referring to “The Railway Children”.

When I first saw the Famous Five paperbacks with Betty Maxey illustrations in the seventies they looked strange as I was so used to Soper. It was nice to find out more about her ( Maxey). I think her drawings have grown on me a bit over the years, but the originals are my first choice.

I always enjoy the weekly talks or anything from Enid Blyton and it was also interesting to read about the history of the Noddy illustrations again.

I have renewed my membership too .

In the next Journal,54,why not have a page dedicated to some highlighted selected words of appreciation by the posters here about the previous Journal,Journal 53?

It would raise consciousness of the Journal to those who subscribe but never post here,and they could be also be encouraged to express any appreciation by either writing/emailing in or by joining us here on the forums?

Either way it would raise the profile of the Journal with everyone who receives and reads it,possibly promoting more interest,subscriptions,or at the very least more vocal appreciation for our excellent magazine??

pete9012S wrote:In the next Journal,54,why not have a page dedicated to some highlighted selected words of appreciation by the posters here about the previous Journal,Journal 53?
Either way it would raise the profile of the Journal with everyone who receives and reads it,possibly promoting more interest,subscriptions,or at the very least more vocal appreciation for our excellent magazine??

Pete, here are my words of appreciation.
I didn't join EBS before March 2014, so the Journal # 53 was my very first.
Of course I heard about these famous journals from other forumites, but had no real imagination/idea of what to expect.
Then # 53 arrived here in Massachusetts and I fell in love with it.
All those wonderful articles about the different EB series or stand alone books and the lovely illustrations...Tony puts so much love and effort into creating something very special. I just couldn't stop reading.

Also I'm a very visual person and love movies, photography and good illustrations, especially as they have become so scarce nowadays (or am I just old-fashioned and prefer illustrations from children's books of the 30's, 40's and 50's?) in the new children's books which I check out from time to time at Barnes & Noble only to put them back into the shelves thinking how lucky I was to grow up with beautiful book illustrations.

On the 18th of May at the Spade Oak I met Ilsa at the EB meeting and she surprised me so much when she gave me the most wonderful present imaginable: 11 EBS journals preceding mine.
I already mentioned this in another thread: my flight back home to Boston never seemed as short before, thanks to getting lost in these absolutely adorable journals. Thank you soooooo very much, Ilsa.
And thank you Tony, Anita, Julie, Angela Canning, Robert Houghton and all others who contribute with their fascinating and unique articles to make the EBS journals something to yearn for. I think the next one will be published in July and I am already counting the days...

The one thing that I regret the most now is that I didn't join when # 1 was printed. But at that time I had not even found out that EBS existed. At that time I still kept quiet about the fact that I was still reading EB books at my ripe old age .

So everybody who reads my post, please join EBS as a paying member to get these precious journals. I'm sure you'll fall in love with them like I did.

I wrote an article for the Journal all about the website and forums, with the aim of promoting them for the vast majority of Society members who never look at them. I don't think it had much impact though.

The Society forums are a bit of an oddity inasmuch as most of the membership don't participate. As there is no letters page in the Journal, I would imagine the only feedback that Tony gets is the occasional email from a member.

The recent meet-up at Bourne End excluded non-forum members. Indeed, being a member wasn't mandatory! There would probably have been several people (David Cook springs to mind, he doesn't read the forums) who would have liked to have come along. I appreciate that the numbers had to be kept relatively low though.

The Camra forums are even worse. With over 125,000 members, only about a dozen regularly contribute to them.

Maybe an "advert" in each Journal would help? Mind you, whether or not the die-hard Blyton member would be interested in brands of tea, make-up and webcams of an island would be interested, remains to be seen!

Moonraker wrote:Mind you, whether or not the die-hard Blyton member would be interested in brands of tea, make-up and webcams of an island would be interested, remains to be seen!

Nigel, are you suggesting that those of us who are interested in brands of tea, make-up and webcams of an island aren't die-hard Blyton members??