Literary Views & Reviews A TELLER OF CHILDREN’S STORIES

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30082, 16 March 1963, Page 3

Literary Views & Reviews A TELLER OF CHILDREN’S STORIES

[By

SIMON KAVANAUGH

Even ta Britain, the borne of understatement m a tee

art. Enid Btyton’s entry in Who’s Who merits special mention. She is. ft says, the author of “numerous books far children.” In tact, she is the wnrtd’s leading writer for chiMren and repeatedly acknowledged to be the highest-paid woman .in Britain—£so,ooo a year it fe said although this figure has never been confirmed by Miss Blyton. Conversely, 1 can find no record of her ever having denied it. Curiously, the description She gives of herself in Who’s Who carries nothing in the way of figures beyond the date (1943) on which she married her surgeon husband Kenneth F. Darrell Waters. It does not even inelude the date of her birth (she is in her fifties). Yet statistics about Miss Blyton ere more than impressive For instance, in the last thirty years she bee written on er 400 books as well as finding tone for articles poems, short stories and plays —uncounted. Her books have been translated into more then twenty languages. And the famous "LHttle Noddy” books for (he very young have sold about 26 million copies. Another significant statistic is that she gets 300 letters a month from child fans. What sort of woman is Enid Blyton to have chalked up this remarkable record? She is a modest, uncomplicated person who lives comfortably with her husband and her cats in a pleasant house at Beaconsfield about 25 miles from London. Her home gives a good clue to her personality. It is the sort of setting beloved by the authors of light comedy about English middle-class life. There is an air of (ran. quMity and good taste worn discreetly. Inevitable income considered, it is a modest menage that does not even bint at being the fountainhead of what is in fact a thriving commercial enterprise with tentacles reaching into publishing, theatre, television, toys and toilet requisites (Little Noddy toothbrushes, Little Noddy nursery soap, etc.). People who haven’t met or do not know Enad Blyton are often inclined to visualise her as a hard-headed businesswoman—a kind of female Walt Disney—an impression that seemed to acquire a certain dimension when some time ego a young artist who had been illustrating the “Little Noddy” publications »ns quoted as saying that he was giving up because he was not being paid enough money. At the other end of the scale •re those who imagine a sort of latter-day Beatrix Potter, fluttering captive of a lifelong childish dream. Enid Blyton in fact, is neither. While she is no cold-eyed exploiter of childish fancy, at the same time she is not naive. She is a good businesswoman in that she knows what her public wants and provides ft for them in good measure. No more is she fey and other-worldly. After all she is the wife of a surgeon and the mother of two grown daughters, the sort of background that fosters a certain cynicism about the existence of fairies at the bottom of the garden. What might excusab'.y lead to such an impres-

«taw«t uncanny childish mind, a faculty lost to more adults y.yetteiid beyond recall In Wytou this faculty has Preserved end encouraged by her gemtine delight m teHmg stones to children ate her Jove of children. The mid-Cweotieth cenltur? .tends to raise an Incredulous eyebrow at such

™eracteri«tecs ate wonder “that’s her gimmick?” This • apparent in the readiness of some people to catch her out fa her attitudes. Very rererttiy she advertised for a gardener, offered accommodation but stipulated “Regret no young children.” Aha! The well-heeled ” child-lover” showing her true colours? Can't be bothered with the little brats about the place, eh? Her explanation was eminently reasonable. The gardener’s cottage was too small ate she was frightened of what might happen if very young children had been exposed to the dangers of the severed deep ponds fa her garden. But even the reasonableness of her reply did not deter one newspaper writer from commenting that she would have been betteradvised to have advertised under her married name. Nor is that the only occasion on. which Enid Blyton has had to defend herself. There was, for instance, the time when a newspaper columnist suggested that ahe was helping to foster racialism by having gollywogs play the

unsympathetic roles in the “Little Noddy” stories. One woman even wrote to a newspaper saying that she was banishing Noddy and his chums from her children’s nursery because of the danger of her brood being affected

with racialism. The whole business merited no more than a terse Anglo-Saxon retort, but Miss Blyton went to the peins of pointing out that she was as much against racialism as tfhe next person, ate that if she made her villains teddy-bears someone would complain that she was being anti-bear. The fact is, of coarse, that there is no gimmick. Enid Mary Blyton really does like telling stories to children. The stories come readily to her. The whole concept of “Little Noddy” sprang to her mind fa a flash when she saw in a publishers office some drawings by a Dutch artist. She knew’ it would dick with children and she was

(She was, incidentally, a well-established ate flourishing author of children’s stories long before that money-spinning elf happened along). She found her delight fa story-telling as a young Sunday-school teacher. She was so bewitched by the spells she could weave that she defied parental ambition that she should become a musician ate instead Started a nursery school in suburban Surrey where she could write ate recount to her heart’s content. Before She established herself ■with the publishers of children’s stories (ate bow many of them must be kicking themselves today) she collected something like 500 rejection slips. The truth about Enid Miary Blyton is that she loves her work. “I am a happy contented person.” she says, “because I have done the one big thing I have always wanted to do—ate I am still doing it.” If money were her only consideration she could happily abandon writing at this moment But when the suggestion is put to her she retorts: “Not while publishers ask me to go on and while children like my books." Even if she did abandon writing her days would be full with her charities which raise funds for abandoned children, spastics, the blind and sick animals. If Enid Miary Blyton has a burden to bear it is the facile incredulity that to the day of the hard-sell, the Hbomfo ate the fast buck, anyone can be as uncomplicatedly well meaning as she is.