Motoring1 min ago
Enid Blyton
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If this thing I'm watching is anything to go by, what a horrid, lieing and totally unpleasent woman she was.
Does any one know if what they are putting on on BBC4 is true or just conjecture. If it's true I now realise why I never liked her books.
Am I the only former child that didn't?
Does any one know if what they are putting on on BBC4 is true or just conjecture. If it's true I now realise why I never liked her books.
Am I the only former child that didn't?
Answers
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apparently it's all true. However, her two daughters have both written memoirs about her, and they disagree; the older daughter is much fonder of her than the younger. (There was quite a few years' difference in their ages, which may explain this.) So it's possible that the TV prog could have used the same facts and yet made her out to be a nicer person.
I liked her books myself, though I didn't read the fluffier fairy stories, more the Secret Seven and books like that.
I liked her books myself, though I didn't read the fluffier fairy stories, more the Secret Seven and books like that.
Well she certainly didn't keep men at much of an arms length. She discarded one husband for another and had a what least 2 children of her own. According to this BBC4 drama she lied to her lovers wife and blamed her friend for the affair the wife knew her husband was having. She conned her husband in to taking the blame for the divorce on the promise he would be involved in his children's lives and then lied to him and his children so that they didn't see each other again.
She seemed to blame her mother for her father leaving her and completely cut her brother and sister out of her life.
At the end she was reading to children from one of her books and as she finished she talked about it like it was the greatest literature work of all time. She really rated herself.
It gave the impression she might just have been selfish enough to have caused her own miscarriage.
I don't know enough about her and looking on the net isn't proving much help.
I went ot the obvious Wkipedia but I have problems believing what they put in. I have found them to be very wrong on other subjects.
But I still have to say I found her books as exciting as watching paint dry. Very upper class.
She seemed to blame her mother for her father leaving her and completely cut her brother and sister out of her life.
At the end she was reading to children from one of her books and as she finished she talked about it like it was the greatest literature work of all time. She really rated herself.
It gave the impression she might just have been selfish enough to have caused her own miscarriage.
I don't know enough about her and looking on the net isn't proving much help.
I went ot the obvious Wkipedia but I have problems believing what they put in. I have found them to be very wrong on other subjects.
But I still have to say I found her books as exciting as watching paint dry. Very upper class.
Yes, they were all very jolly hockey sticks weren't they? I'm sure they appeal to some sections of society, but I could never relate. I never saw the programme but I remember hearing what an awful person she was - I'm sure my dad told me a story about her daughter being really ill and her refusing to go to her because she was too busy writing (although it might have been E.Nesbit that was about - I'll need to ask him).
karen,
I think the person you are referring to WAS Enid Blyton.
EE (Edith) Nesbit was a remarkable woma.
She married a Mr Bland,and had 3 children by him.
He was (before and after their marriage) carrying on with another woman,by whom he had 2 children.
She died when the children were quite young.
Edith took them in, and raised them as her own,with her own children!
Bearing in mind that this all took place before 1900,given the morality then makes this even more amazing!
I think the person you are referring to WAS Enid Blyton.
EE (Edith) Nesbit was a remarkable woma.
She married a Mr Bland,and had 3 children by him.
He was (before and after their marriage) carrying on with another woman,by whom he had 2 children.
She died when the children were quite young.
Edith took them in, and raised them as her own,with her own children!
Bearing in mind that this all took place before 1900,given the morality then makes this even more amazing!
I'm pretty sure that Enid Blyton was banned in libraries and schools and was blacklisted by the BBC primarily for literary reasons which makes her book sales even more remarkable. I always found Noddy rather strange as a kid in much the way I find the likes of The Mighty Boosh, League of Gentlemen and Psychoville rather strange as an adult. Maybe she was way ahead of her time. I enjoyed the Famous Five and Secret Seven books, great escapist adventures if not literary classics. She was certainly very prolific but I don't know anything about her private life. Sounds like an interesting programme I'll try and watch it on the iplayer.
I think Nesbit didn't see all that much of her kids either - often too busy writing, to keep them in comfort.
Kenneth Grahame wrote Wind in the Willows for his son, who later committed suicide. Christopher Robin Milne hated till his dying day being the character in a kids' book. Lewis Carroll may have been some sort of repressed paedophile. Lots of children's writers have unconfortable relationships with their own children. It's odd; but Blyton's not alone on that score.
Even Alison Uttley seems to have been a right toad in real life.
http://www.guardian.c...le-grey-rabbit-uttley
tigerlily, what I was getting at wan't so much that she avoided men, just that she would always put her own interests and her own gratification first because she didn't trust anyone else. She sounds like a pretty horrible person, but there may have been reasons for this.
Kenneth Grahame wrote Wind in the Willows for his son, who later committed suicide. Christopher Robin Milne hated till his dying day being the character in a kids' book. Lewis Carroll may have been some sort of repressed paedophile. Lots of children's writers have unconfortable relationships with their own children. It's odd; but Blyton's not alone on that score.
Even Alison Uttley seems to have been a right toad in real life.
http://www.guardian.c...le-grey-rabbit-uttley
tigerlily, what I was getting at wan't so much that she avoided men, just that she would always put her own interests and her own gratification first because she didn't trust anyone else. She sounds like a pretty horrible person, but there may have been reasons for this.
There was a caveat at the beginning of the programme explaining that events had been 'conflated' and that some scenes had been invented for dramatic purposes.
Having said that, she didn't appear to be the sort of mother I would have wanted, however, if you really want to hate her, I suggest you base it on more than a dramatised version of her life...............
Having said that, she didn't appear to be the sort of mother I would have wanted, however, if you really want to hate her, I suggest you base it on more than a dramatised version of her life...............
I vividly remember reading Noddy books under the bedclothes with a torch as a child, and the Golliwogs were always the 'baddies' - all totally non-PC hence the banning of her books in their original formats.
I think this is an interesting example of the artist as opposed to their art.
Here is EB who has probably enhanced the reading of an entire generation of children, painted as a vile and terrible person.
The same applies to Wagner who was such a raving anti-Semite that even today, his works are banned in iIsrael. The last time someone put on a Wagner performance, a Holocaust survivor disrupted it by jumping on the stage and pulling up his shirt sleeve to display his concentration camp number tattoo.
Closer to home we have Gary Glitter, an idol to glam rockers in the sevnties, a paedophole parriah today.
But to answer your question tiger, I adored her books, and still do. They are of their time and social class, but then most art is.
I think this is an interesting example of the artist as opposed to their art.
Here is EB who has probably enhanced the reading of an entire generation of children, painted as a vile and terrible person.
The same applies to Wagner who was such a raving anti-Semite that even today, his works are banned in iIsrael. The last time someone put on a Wagner performance, a Holocaust survivor disrupted it by jumping on the stage and pulling up his shirt sleeve to display his concentration camp number tattoo.
Closer to home we have Gary Glitter, an idol to glam rockers in the sevnties, a paedophole parriah today.
But to answer your question tiger, I adored her books, and still do. They are of their time and social class, but then most art is.
I was really shattered and amazed when I saw this prog. during my childhood she was so important and understood children so well. Jno don0t forget that the eldest daughter was sent away to Boarding school sooner than the younger so mayube she doesn,t have the horrid memories that the younger one has, ie the new husband et.
irrelevance and middle classness, apparently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmal_Crompton
Rationally speaking, I suppose libraries have limited funds and may choose to spend them on books that members are less likely to have read already.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmal_Crompton
Rationally speaking, I suppose libraries have limited funds and may choose to spend them on books that members are less likely to have read already.
I only have praise for Enid Blyton. I was a very sickly child & consequently missed alot of schooling. I was backward with my reading & most of my schoolwork as a result. That was until someone gave me 'Five on a Treasure Island' (the first in the Famous Five series) when I was about eight.
My mother read it to me, a chapter each night before I went to bed. I was absolutely enthralled and couldn't wait for the next chapter. When that book was finished, I wanted the next one in the series, and I wan't to read them all for myself so that I didn't have to wait for my mother. Enid Blyton's books gave me the WILL TO READ and I will always be grateful for that.
Later, I joined several of her clubs and wrote to her on many occasions. She always wrote back to me by return and I still have those letters. I also corresponded later with Enid's younger daughter, Imogen, who was a keen on horses. Pat Smythe, the well-known international horsewoman at that time, lived near me and was more than willing to provide autographs for Imogen and her boarding school friends.
Now, as a retired chief librarian, I sit back at home with a library of my own books and thank Enid Blyton every day for my wonderful career and my passion for reading. The complete set of 'Famous Five' is sitting on a shelf and I can see them as I write this posting. They have been read over and over again by me, my children, and grandchildren.
My mother read it to me, a chapter each night before I went to bed. I was absolutely enthralled and couldn't wait for the next chapter. When that book was finished, I wanted the next one in the series, and I wan't to read them all for myself so that I didn't have to wait for my mother. Enid Blyton's books gave me the WILL TO READ and I will always be grateful for that.
Later, I joined several of her clubs and wrote to her on many occasions. She always wrote back to me by return and I still have those letters. I also corresponded later with Enid's younger daughter, Imogen, who was a keen on horses. Pat Smythe, the well-known international horsewoman at that time, lived near me and was more than willing to provide autographs for Imogen and her boarding school friends.
Now, as a retired chief librarian, I sit back at home with a library of my own books and thank Enid Blyton every day for my wonderful career and my passion for reading. The complete set of 'Famous Five' is sitting on a shelf and I can see them as I write this posting. They have been read over and over again by me, my children, and grandchildren.
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