No matter how awful Enid Blyton may have been, I loved her books, and after finally watching the BBC film Enid, I still have no reason to disapprove of her books. Enid herself is another matter, but people don’t have to be nice to be successful or popular.
It was quite enlightening to see what End Blyton may have been like. I suspect the caveat at the beginning that this was a work of fiction, means that rather more than I’d like to think was made up. I can see the point of ‘improving’ facts a little for entertainment, however.
But Enid also had that same fault that we tend to get in ITV’s Agatha Christie adaptations, where the scriptwriters forget to consider whether people really behaved like that at a particular time. We may all be much the same deep inside, but outward behaviour has changed. School children fifty years ago didn’t behave like today’s children do, even if you dress them up to look old-fashioned.
Nor do I believe that the press were quite like that, hounding any famous person stepping out of a car. Did prewar children really write that many fan letters to Enid Blyton? It would never have occurred to me that it was possible to do, and I was a fan while Enid was still alive. Book signings with clamouring children waving books all over the place. Did they happen?
Husband number one referred to the Famous Five before the war, and later on Enid is seen writing the first FF book. The third pregnancy happened at the ‘wrong’ time too, if we’re to judge her age. In fact, did it happen? The more I think about this, the more I feel it was sensational journalism masquerading as a docu-film.
But I am glad I can’t interview Enid Blyton. Or perhaps she would have been perfectly charming?
