The magic of Blyton

Newly released letters from the BBC archives have revealed that Enid Blyton was banned for 30 years by the corporation, which regarded her as a second-rater whose work lacked literary value.

Having been brought up on a diet of her marvellously fascinating adventure stories, I am grateful for her story-telling skills, which gave me hours of reading pleasure and ignited my imagination.

Beginning with her tales of the adorable Noddy, if she had been living and writing in this day and age, she would have made a fortune in merchandising alone. Imagine the deluge of Noddy T-shirts, stationery items, mugs, etc, which would have inundated stores and earned her a handsome fortune. Depending on one's point of view, the Blyton era was blissfully free of the commercialisation so evident today. All one looked for then was the latest title on sale, not all the paraphernalia that went with it. Of course, we had no idea then that such a craze could be exploited and, luckily for our parents, they were spared the expense of catering to our mania for such trivia.

Whether it was the Famous Five series or stories such as The River of Adventure, our appetite for these was never satiated, however many we had read. I clearly recall that this was a staple birthday gift for friends, which one was sure would be happily received. In fact, there was a particular friend who was as ardent a fan of Blyton as I was. As her birthday neared, I was taken to a shop to choose the books as only I knew which ones she had not yet read. As I carried these home, I was practically salivating at the delicious thought of getting my hands on them after she had read them. But I had to wait for her big day. Never was temptation so strong to flip through the pages and be one up on her. But this was almost a sacred trust and I knew my parents would be mortified if I stooped so low.

So, the books sat on a table, inviting one to go through them. But the urge to do so was firmly squashed. As the gift was handed over, the magic words were whispered, "Please let me read them after you. Don't give them to anyone else." There was of course the implied obligation that the donor had first dibs!

Agonising wait

The hours and days until these were handed over for perusal were agonising. There were frequent reminders and queries on how many pages had been read so far until the owner became so exasperated that she refused to divulge her progress and kept one in suspense. That was when dark thoughts of revenge entered one's mind, such as keeping her waiting when it was your turn to get the next lot of books.

The pets kept by the Blyton characters were yearned for, such as Miranda the monkey and Kiki the parrot. But we knew that requests for such exotic creatures were never going to be entertained by the parents. So, we settled for our dogs, hoping they would alert us to some exciting adventure or sniff out some thieves.

However, our canine companions were nothing like their counterparts in the Blyton books, with their sense of smell confined strictly to sniffing out the source of anything edible or looking for invisible traces of trespassers in the compound, an endeavour that involved much flaring of nostrils and wagging of tails until something else caught their attention.

As for accusations aimed at Blyton by her daughters, claiming that she was not the best of mothers, is that any of our business? Do any of us look for character references before buying a book by a beloved author? All I know is that her books transported me to places where life was magical and exciting and where I dared to dream.