Enid Blyton

[wizard69]

Ive heard that the childrens author Enid Blyton hated kids.Anyone heard this before?

[Lonnie]

I'd heard that, but don't believe it, I know that she opened a school for children in her younger days, also she couldn't have children.

[fat rascal]

i thought she had a daughter?.. and it was from things her daughter wrote in a biography?.. but might be wrong?

[shaneystar2]

She had two daughters .One ,Imogen,said that her mother was a cold distant woman and their step father a mean bad tempered man ..yet her other daughter ,Gillian, says the opposite.Enid Blyton was not close to her own mother and her father left them when she was a child to live with another woman with whom he had a family .She herself was married twice.She was a teacher before she become a well known writer and opened her own school.
They do say she didn't like children and also played tennis in the buff ! Whether or not this is true is hard to say.An excellent biography of her by Barbara Stoney is well worth reading.In fact I think her daughters are still living.

[*ALFIE*]

Enid Blyton hated your father aswell

[luckyeight]

Yeah I think the reputation comes from her daughter's statements that she was cold and un-loving... I think her first love really was writing! And bearing in mind her phenomenal output, there was probably no time left to spend with her kids let alone any others.
She seems to have been one of these emotionally brittle women who seeks to present a perfect, almost saccharine life, but had the steel and determination to contrive this. She also had a lesbian affair. This is completely irrelevant, but never recognised.

[jump79]

Yes, actually she was not alone, another children's author, Beatrix Potter, was fairly grouchy and miserable and disliked children aswell.

[enidblyton]

what utter rubbish i adore children :)