The Story of Her Life

1. EARLY FAMILY LIFE

Enid Mary Blyton was born on 11th August 1897 at 354 Lordship Lane, a two-bedroom flat above a shop in East Dulwich, South London. Shortly after her birth her parents moved to Beckenham in Kent and it was there, in a number of different houses over the years, that Enid Blyton spent her childhood. She had two younger brothersHanly, born in 1899, and Carey, born in 1902.

2. ENID AND HER FATHER, THOMAS CAREY BLYTON

Enid's father, Thomas, was a cutlery salesman as a young man. He then joined his uncle's firm selling Yorkshire cloth and, later still, set up his own business as a clothing wholesaler. He and his daughter had a close, loving relationshipboth had dark hair and alert brown eyes, and shared an appetite for knowledge and a zest for life. Together they enjoyed nature rambles, gardening, the theatre, art, music and literature. When Enid had whooping cough as a baby, and was not expected to live till morning, her father refused to accept the doctor's opinion and sat up all night with her, cradling her and willing her to survive. Enid learnt a lot from her father, especially about nature. In her autobiography, The Story of My Life (1952), she wrote: "...my father loved the countryside, loved flowers and birds and wild animals, and knew more about them than anyone I had ever met. And what was more he was willing to take me with him on his expeditions, and share his love and his knowledge with me! That was marvellous to me. It's the very best way of learning about nature if you can go for walks with someone who really knows." Thomas also taught his young daughter lessons that would stand her in good stead in daily life. When she wanted to plant seeds in her own patch of garden he made a bargain with her, saying: "If you want anything badly, you have to work for it. I will give you enough money to buy your own seeds, if you earn it. I want my bicycle cleanedcleaned well, too. And I want the weeds cleared from that bed over there. If the work is done properly, it is worth sixpence to me, and that will buy you six penny packets of seeds." Enid appreciated the seeds, and the flowers which sprang up from them, all the more for having been made to work for them. Part of the pleasure and value lay in the fact that she had earned them for herself.

3. ENID AND HER MOTHER, THERESA MARY BLYTON (NEE HARRISON)

Although she adored her father, Enid's relationship with her mother, Theresa, was more turbulent. Theresa was a tall, raven-haired woman whose life revolved around housework. She was not creative and artistic like Thomas, and did not share his interests. She expected her daughter to help with household chores but gave her sons a lot more freedom, which Enid, who was not very domesticated, resented. Stern and house-proud, Theresa did not

approve of Enid devoting so much time to nature-walks, reading and other hobbies when there was work to be done in the house. Neither did she understand why her husband encouraged their daughter in such activities.

4. FIRST SCHOOL
Enid began her schooldays at a small school run by two sisters in a house called Tresco, almost opposite the Blyton home. As an adult, Enid Blyton said about the school: "I remember everything about itthe room, the garden, the pictures on the wall, the little chairs, the dog there, and the lovely smells that used to creep out from the kitchen into our classroom when we sat doing dictation. I remember how we used to take biscuits for our mid-morning lunch and 'swap' them with one anotherand how we used to dislike one small boy who was clever at swapping a small biscuit for a big one." Enid's days at Tresco were happy. She was a bright girl, blessed with a good memory, and she shone at art and nature study, though she struggled with mathematics.

5. CHILDHOOD GAMES
Games that Enid played as a child included Red Indians, Burglars and Policemen, building dens and playing with tops, hoops and marbles. Indoors she played card games, Snakes and Ladders, Draughts and Chess. Her father thought that all young children should learn to play Chess because "... if they have any brains it will train them to think clearly, quickly and to plan things a long way ahead. And if they haven't any brains it will make the best of those they have!"

6. BOOKS THAT ENID READ AS A GIRL

Enid loved reading. Among the books she read were Anna Sewell's Black Beauty, Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies and Louisa M. Alcott's Little Women. She said of the characters in Little Women: "Those were real children... 'When I grow up I will write books about real children,' I thought. 'That's the kind of book I like best. That's the kind of book I would know how to write.'" Enid Blyton enjoyed myths and legends too, and poetry and annuals, and magazines like Strand Magazineand Punch. She was fascinated by Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopaedia: "It gave me my thirst for knowledge of all kinds, and taught me as much as ever I learnt at school." Grimm's fairy-tales she considered "cruel and frightening" and, although she liked Hans Christian Andersen's stories, some of them were "too sad." Among her favourite books were Lewis Carroll's "Alice" books and R. M. Ballantyne's The Coral Island, but the one she loved best of all, and read at least a dozen times, was The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald. What appealed to her "wasn't so much the story as the strange 'feel' of the tale, the 'atmosphere' as we call it. It hung over me for a very long time, and gave me pleasant shivers."

7. SENIOR SCHOOL
In 1907 Enid Blyton became a pupil at St. Christopher's School for Girls in Beckenham. She was not a boarder, like so many of the characters in her books, but a day-girl. Intelligent, popular and full of fun, she threw herself wholeheartedly into school life. During her time

at St. Christopher's she organised concerts, played practical jokes, became tennis champion and captain of the lacrosse team, and was awarded prizes in various subjects, especially English composition. In her final two years she was appointed Head Girl. Outside school she and two of her friends, Mary Attenborough and Mirabel Davis, created a magazine calledDab, for which Enid wrote short stories. The title of the magazine was formed from the initials of the contributors' surnames. Enid's first holiday abroad in 1913 was to stay with one of her French teachers, Mlle. Louise Bertraine, at her home in Annecy, France.

8. HER PARENTS' SEPARATION

Thomas and Theresa had little in common and grew more and more unhappy and frustrated in their marriage as the years passed. They had frequent violent rows, causing their children great distress. At night-time, Enid, Hanly and Carey would sit at the top of the stairs with their arms around one another for comfort, listening to their parents' heated arguments. One night, when Enid was not quite thirteen, the children heard their father state angrily that he was leaving and would not be coming back. To Enid's shock she learnt that there was another woman in his life, Florence Agnes Delattre, a secretary, and that from now on he would be living with her. Since marital breakdown was regarded as a scandal in suburban Beckenham in 1910, Theresa forced Enid and her brothers to pretend, if asked, that their father was merely "away on a visit." This pretence, which the family kept up for years, appears to have left Enid with a lifelong tendency to cover up anything unpleasant and put on a faade. In 1951 she wove this traumatic experience into a novel, The Six Bad Boys. Her father's leaving was hard for Enid to accept and she seems to have viewed it as a rejection of her personally. Years later, when she was married, she had difficulty conceiving a baby and was found to have an under-developed uterus, equivalent to that of a girl aged twelve or thirteen. It has been suggested that the trauma of her father's departure may have had a long-term effect on her physical as well as her emotional development.

9. EARLY WRITING
Deprived of Thomas's support and inspiration, Enid was now more than ever at the mercy of her mother, with whom she did not see eye to eye. To assuage her unhappiness she took to locking herself in her bedroom and writing compulsively, setting a pattern which was to be repeated in adulthood. She had a vivid imagination and had known for some time that she wanted to be a writer, and now she spent every spare minute honing her talent. Her mother despaired of her, dismissing her work as mere "scribbling." Enid sent off numerous stories and poems to magazines in the hope that they would be published but, except for one poem which was printed by Arthur Mee in his magazine when she was fourteen, she had no luck at this stage, receiving hundreds of rejection slips. Her mother considered her efforts a "waste of time and money" but Enid was encouraged by her schoolfriend Mary's aunt, Mabel Attenborough, who had become a good friend and confidante.

10. MUSIC
Towards the end of 1916 Enid Blyton was due to begin studying at the Guildhall School of Music. She had a gift for music and her family had always assumed that she would become a

professional musician like her father's sister, May Crossland. Throughout her childhood Enid had spent many hours practising the piano but, as she grew older, she begrudged devoting hours to the piano when she would rather be writing. She was aware that her true talent lay in telling stories, but found it impossible to convince her family of that.

11. TEACHER-TRAINING
It was after a spell teaching Sunday School in the summer of 1916, while staying with friends of Mabel Attenborough at Seckford Hall near Woodbridge in Suffolk, that Enid suddenly knew what to do. She made up her mind to turn down her place at the Guildhall School of Music and train as a teacher instead. That would give her close contact with the children for whom she knew she wanted to write, and she would be able to study them and get to know their interests. Enid lost no time in putting her plan into action and, in September 1916, she embarked upon a Froebel-based teacher-training course at Ipswich High School. Things had deteriorated badly between her and Theresa and it was around this time that Enid broke ties completely with her mother, spending holidays from college with the Attenboroughs rather than returning home to her mother and brothers. She kept in touch with her father, visiting him at his office in London, but she could not bring herself to accept Florence, with whom Thomas had had three more children, and she and her father were not as close as they had once been.

12. FIRST RECORDED PUBLICATION OF AN ENID BLYTON WORK

In 1917 one of Enid's poems, "Have You...?" was accepted for publication by Nash's Magazine. Since a couple of earlier published poems (including the one printed in the Arthur Mee magazine) have never been traced, "Have You...?" is the first recorded publication of an Enid Blyton work.

13. TEACHING
Enid Blyton proved to be an inventive, energetic teacher and, after completing her training in December 1918, she taught for a year at a boys' preparatory school, Bickley Park School in Kent. Next she became governess to the four Thompson brothers, relatives of Mabel Attenborough, at a house called Southernhay in Surbiton, Surrey. She remained there for four years and, during that time, a number of children from neighbouring families also came to join her "experimental school," as she called it. The accounts of lessons at "Miss Brown's School" in Enid Blyton's Book of the Year (1941) surely owe something to her years as a teacher at her own little school in Surbiton, which she later said was "one of the happiest times of my life."

14. THE DEATH OF HER FATHER

It may have been a happy period on the whole but it was in 1920, while teaching at Southernhay, that Enid received the news that her father had died suddenly, of a heart attack, while out fishing on the Thames. At least, that is what she was told but the truth was that he had suffered a stroke and died in an armchair at home in Sunbury, where he lived with Florence and his new family. It appears that the true whereabouts of his death was not made public as it would have caused embarrassment owing to Theresa having been so secretive about the breakdown of her marriage.

Enid had continued to visit her father at his London office, despite being estranged from the rest of her family, and the news must have come as a dreadful shock. However, she did not attend his funeral or even mention his death to the Thompsons. It may be that, having cut herself off from the rest of her family, she did not feel up to dealing with such a difficult and emotional occasion and answering awkward questions from either her family or her employers. Or perhaps her way of coping was to shut away her feelings, as she had been taught to do as a child.

15. SUCCESS AS A WRITER

Enid persevered with her writing and, in the early 1920s, began to achieve success. Stories and articles were accepted for publication by various periodicals, including Teacher's World, and she also wrote verses for greetings cards. 1922 saw the publication of her first book, Child Whispers, a slim volume of poetry, and in 1923 a couple more books were published as well as over a hundred and twenty shorter piecesstories, verses, reviews and plays.

16. MARRIAGE TO HUGH ALEXANDER POLLOCK

On 28th August 1924 Enid Blyton married Hugh Alexander Pollock, who was editor of the book department for the publishing firm George Newnes. The two of them had met when Enid was commissioned by Newnes to write a children's book about London ZooThe Zoo Book (1924.) Hugh had been born and brought up in Ayr and had joined the Royal Scots Fusiliers at the beginning of the First World War, being awarded the D.S.O. (Distinguished Service Order) in 1919. His first marriage had ended when his wife had an affair, and he had to obtain a divorce in order to marry Enid. The wedding, at Bromley Register Office, was a quiet occasion, with no member of either Enid's or Hugh's family attending the ceremony. The couple honeymooned in Jersey and Enid was later to base Kirrin in the Famous Five books on an island, castle and village they visited there. After the wedding Enid and Hugh lived first of all in an apartment in Chelsea, moving to their first house, newly-built Elfin Cottage in Beckenham, in 1926.

17. EARLY WORK AND FIRST NOVEL

Enid Blyton worked on a number of educational books in the 1920s-30s, among other things, and in 1926 she began writing and editing a fortnightly magazine, Sunny Stories for Little Folks. It became a weekly publication in 1937 and changed its name to Enid Blyton's Sunny Stories, finally becoming Sunny Stories. What could be said to be Enid Blyton's first fulllength novel, The Enid Blyton Book of Bunnies, was published in 1925 (it was later retitled The Adventures of Binkle and Flip.) However, that book is episodic in nature, reading more like a collection of individual stories about two mischievous rabbits, and The Enid Blyton Book of Brownies, published in 1926, is perhaps more deserving of the title "first novel." In 1927 Hugh persuaded Enid to start using a typewriter. Before that she had written her manuscripts in longhand. Hugh was instrumental in helping his wife establish herself as a writer by publishing her stories at Newnes and, almost certainly, by teaching her about contracts and the business side of her work.

18. LIFE AT ELFIN COTTAGE

Hugh and Enid led a quiet and contented life in the early years of their marriage, their leisure time consisting of gardening, occasional outings to the theatre and cinema, and seaside holidays. Hugh indulged his wife's playful, childlike side and they would build snowmen together, play "catch" and French cricket in the garden, and have games of "conkers."

19. OLD THATCH

In 1929 they moved to Old Thatch, a sixteenth-century thatched cottage with a lovely garden near the River Thames in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire. Enid described it as being "like a house in a fairy tale." It had once been an inn and Dick Turpin was said to have slept there and stabled his horse, Black Bess, in one of the stables. There was also a tale of treasure hidden on the premises, which has never been found. At Old Thatch Hugh and Enid began to have more of a social life, enjoying dinner parties, tennis and bridge. In October 1930 they went on a cruise to Madeira and the Canary Islands aboard the Stella Polaris, the details of which remained vividly in Enid's mind, providing her with material for books written years later such as The Pole Star Family and The Ship of Adventure, both published in 1950.

20. PETS
As children, Enid and her brothers had not been allowed to keep pets. Their mother was not fond of animals and their father was worried that cats and dogs might spoil his garden. Enid had once found a stray kitten which she called Chippy and kept secretly for a fortnight, but when her mother found out about it the kitten was sent away. Enid made up for that by having plenty of pets when she was grown-updogs, cats, goldfish, hedgehogs, tortoises, fantail pigeons, hens, ducks and many others. One of her most famous pets was Bobs, a foxterrier. Enid Blyton wrote letters for her Teacher's World column about family life as seen through the eyes of Bobsin fact, she kept on writing these "Letters from Bobs" long after the dog had died!

21. BIRTH OF GILLIAN AND IMOGEN

Enid and Hugh had trouble starting a family but eventually, on 15th July 1931, their elder daughter Gillian was born. After a miscarriage in 1934 they went on to have another daughter, Imogen, who was born on 27th October 1935. 1938 saw the publication of Enid Blyton's first full-length adventure book, The Secret Island. She had already written another fairly long adventure story, The Wonderful Adventure, in 1927, but that was really a novella rather than a full-length novel. Enid was by now giving more time than ever to her writing, relying increasingly on domestic staff for housework, gardening and childcare, and she did not have a lot of time to spend with her children. She played with the girls for an hour after tea and sometimes took Imogen out with her to meet Gillian from school. Enid and Hugh no longer had as much time together either. Both were very busy with their work and Hugh, who had been working with Churchill on his writings about the First World War, was falling into depression at the realisation that the world was on the brink of another war. He turned to alcohol for consolation, drinking secretly in a cubby-hole beneath the stairs, while Enid sought solace in her writing and in the close companionship of her friend, Dorothy. Dorothy Richards, a maternity nurse, had come to help out for a few weeks after Imogen was born, and she and Enid had quickly become firm friends. Dorothy, who often came to stay at Old Thatch, was a serene figure who gave Enid

a feeling of security at a time when her relationship with Hugh was beginning to disintegrate, and Enid felt that she could rely on her and confide in her.

22. GREEN HEDGES

It was to Dorothy, not Hugh, that Enid turned for help and advice when hunting for a new and larger home, settling on a detached eight-bedroom house, about thirty or so years old, in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. The house was mock-Tudor in style, with beams and lead-paned windows, and was set in two-and-a-half acres of garden "with a great many little lawns surrounded by green yew hedges." Enid organised the move in August 1938, while Hugh was ill in hospital with pneumonia, and her Sunny Stories readers chose a name for the houseGreen Hedges.

23. DIVORCE OF HUGH AND ENID

Enid continued writing during the war years. Hugh rejoined his old regimentthe Royal Scots Fusiliersand was soon posted to Dorking in Surrey to train Home Guard officers. His absence put even more strain on the already fragile marriage and, while on holiday with Dorothy in Devon in the spring of 1941, Enid Blyton met the man who was to become her second husband, surgeon Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters. Hugh had also become romantically involved with novelist Ida Crowe, and he and Enid were divorced in 1942. Kenneth divorced his wife too, with whom he had had no children.

24. MARRIAGE TO KENNETH FRASER DARRELL WATERS

Kenneth and Enid were married at the City of Westminster Register Office on 20th October 1943, six days before Hugh's wedding to Ida. Gillian and Imogen had not seen their father since June 1942, when he had left for America to advise on Civil Defence, and sadly they were never to see him again. Although she had promised that Hugh would be free to see his daughters after the divorce, Enid went back on her word and refused to allow him any access at all. She cut her first husband out of her life just as she had done with her mother, perhaps pretending to herself that neither had ever existed. In doing this she was continuing the pattern of behaviourpretence and denialthat she had learnt in childhood, and making a fiction of her own life. Her autobiography, The Story of My Life (1952), contains photographs of her "happy little family"herself, her second husband Kenneth, Gillian and Imogen. There is no mention of Hugh and, although it is not explicitly stated, readers are given the impression that Kenneth is the girls' father. Kenneth, a surgeon, worked at St. Stephen's Hospital in Chelsea, London. He was an active man who enjoyed gardening, tennis and golf. While he was serving in the Navy in the First World War, his ship had been torpedoed at the Battle of Jutland, permanently damaging his hearing. As a result, Kenneth found social situations awkward. His deafness made communication difficult, causing him to come across as rude or insensitive at times. Immensely proud of one another's achievements, Enid and Kenneth were very happy although they were bitterly disappointed when, after discovering she was pregnant in the spring of 1945, Enid miscarried five months later, following a fall from a ladder. The baby would have been Kenneth's first child and it would also have been the son for which both of them longed. Kenneth and Enid travelled abroad together only once, in 1948, when they joined friends for a three week semi-business holiday in New York, sailing out on the Queen Elizabeth and back on the Queen Mary. Again, Enid Blyton was to use this experience in a bookThe

Queen Elizabeth Family, published in 1951. Otherwise, most of their holidays were spent in Dorset where they purchased a golf course and a farm in the 1950s. The farm in Five on Finniston Farm (1960) was inspired by Enid and Kenneth's own farm, Manor Farm in Stourton Caundle, while Five Have a Mystery to Solve (1962) is set firmly in a part of Dorset which Enid Blyton loved, with Whispering Island being based on Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour.

25. MAJOR SERIES AND OTHER WRITING

Enid Blyton ceased writing her regular column for Teacher's World in 1945, after almost twenty-three years, giving her the opportunity to widen the range of her writing activities. Daughters Gillian and Imogen were both at boarding-school and she had begun most of her major series by then including the Secret series, the Famous Five books, the Find-Outers mysteries, the Adventure series, the St. Clare's books, the Cherry Tree/Willow Farm series and the Faraway Tree and Wishing Chair books. These were later to be joined by the Secret Seven books, the Barney (or "R") mysteries, the Malory Towers series and the Six Cousins books. Noddy made his first appearance in 1949 and by the mid-fifties there was a huge amount of Noddy-themed merchandise in the shops. Altogether, Enid Blyton is believed to have written around 700 books (including collections of short stories) as well as magazines, articles and poems. She wrote an incredible variety of books for children aged about two to fourteenadventure and mystery stories, school stories, circus and farm books, fantasy tales, fairy-tales, family stories, nursery stories, nature books, religious books, animal stories, poetry, plays and songs, as well as re-telling myths, legends and other traditional tales. She earned a fortune from her writing and in 1950 she set up her own limited company, Darrell Waters Ltd., to manage the financial side of things.

26. ENID BLYTON'S MAGAZINE

In 1952 Enid relinquished Sunny Stories after twenty-six years, launching her fortnightly Enid Blyton's Magazine in March 1953. She wrote all the contents herself except for the advertisements, using the magazine to mould her readership through her stories, editorials and news-pages, encouraging her child readers to be kind, helpful and responsible and impressing upon them that, if they used their initiative, they could do their bit and make a difference to society, whatever their age. Through the pages of her magazine she promoted four clubs which children could jointhe Busy Bees (which helped animals), the Famous Five Club (which raised money for a children's home), the Sunbeam Society (which helped blind children) and the Magazine Club (which raised money for children who had spastic cerebral palsy.) Thousands of readers joined and Enid Blyton spoke proudly of the "army of children" who were helping her carry out the work she wanted to do. Enid Blyton's Magazine folded in September 1959 as Enid wished to spend more time with Kenneth, who had retired from his work as a surgeon in 1957. By that time the four clubs had approximately 500,000 members between them and had raised about 35,000 in six yearsan enormous amount of money in those days.

27. FINAL YEARS

It was in the late 1950s that Enid Blyton's health began to deteriorate. She experienced bouts of breathlessness and had a suspected heart attack. By the early 1960s it was apparent that she was suffering from dementia. Her mind was no longer sharp and she

became confused, afflicted by worrying memory lapses and seized by a desire to return to her childhood home in Beckenham with both her parents. Her last two books (excluding reprints of earlier material) were re-tellings of Bible stories, The Man Who Stopped to Help and The Boy Who Came Back, both published in August 1965. Kenneth was ill too, with severe arthritis. The medicine he took for his arthritis damaged his kidneys and he died on 15th September 1967, leaving Enid a lonely and vulnerable woman. Gillian and Imogen were in their thirties by then, living away from home. They visited regularly and did what they could for their mother but she declined physically and mentally over the next few months, cared for by her staff at Green Hedges. In the late summer of 1968 Enid was admitted to a Hampstead nursing home and, three months later, she died peacefully in her sleep on 28th November 1968, at the age of 71. She was cremated at Golders Green in North London and a memorial service was held for her at St. James's Church, Piccadilly, on 3rd January 1969.

28. HER LEGACY

Several decades after her death, Enid Blyton is not forgotten. The best of her lives on in her books, many of which are still in print, and she continues to entertain, educate and inspire children around the globe through the words she wrote. She encourages her readers to look afresh at the world around themto observe, explore, investigate, discover and learn. Long may that continue! To quote a few apt lines from Enid Blyton's "The Poet," published in The Poetry Review in 1919: "Dear heart And soul of a child, Sing on!"

Enid the Writer

HOW DID ENID BLYTON BECOME A WRITER?
In her autobiography, The Story of My Life (1952), Enid Blyton says that, from an early age, she "liked making up stories better than I liked doing anything else." As a child she would go to bed at night and stories would flood into her mind "all mixed-up, rather like dreams are, but yet each story had its own definite threadits beginning and middle and ending." Enid Blyton did not realise at the time that that was unusual, remarking in a letter to psychologist Peter McKellar on 15th February 1953: "I thought all children had the same 'night stories' and was amazed when one day I found they hadn't." She described her "night stories" as "all kinds of imaginings in story form," saying: "Because of this imagining I wanted to writeto put down what I had seen and felt and heard in my imagination." The young Enid was keen to develop her writing and story-telling skills. She told stories to her brothers, made up her own rhymes based on the rhythm and rhyme-scheme of popular nursery-rhymes, kept a diary, wrote letters to real and imaginary recipients, entered literary competitions and paid great attention in English lessons at school. She also read widely. As well as fiction and poetry, she read biographies of famous authors and borrowed books from the library on the Art of Writing. The advice Enid Blyton gives in The Story of My Life to children who want to write is: "Fill your mind with all kinds of interesting thingsthe more you have in it, the more will come out of it. Nothing ever comes out of your mind that hasn't already been put into it in some form or other. It may come out changed, re-arranged, polished, shining, almost unrecognizablebut nevertheless it was you who put it there first of all. Your thoughts, your actions, your reading, your sense of humour, everything gets packed into your mind, and if you have an imagination, what a wonderful assortment it will have to choose from!" Enid began submitting her work to publishers when she was in her teens, but at that stage she received countless rejection slips. However, that only made her all the more determined to persevere with her writing: "It is partly the struggle that helps you so much, that gives you determination, character, self-relianceall things that help in any profession or trade, and most certainly in writing." As we know, Enid Blyton went on to achieve phenomenal success, beginning with the publication of magazine articles and poetry when she was in her twenties.

HOW DID ENID BLYTON WRITE HER BOOKS?

Enid Blyton typed out her stories while sitting in her study or in the garden, her typewriter perched on her knees. She did not learn to touch-type but used her two forefingers, still managing to type with speed and accuracy. Enid explains in The Story of My Life that she did not plan a work of fiction before starting to write it. Often, she had no clear idea where the plot was heading. Instead, she simply allowed the story to unfold in her mind as she typed, relying on her fertile imagination rather than on conscious invention. She compared the process to viewing "a private cinema screen inside my head... and what I see, I write down." In a letter to Peter McKellar on 26th February 1953 she added: "But it's a 3-dimensional screen, complete with sound, smell and tasteand feeling!" When Enid Blyton was beginning a new book, the characters would appear in her head first: "They stand there in my mind's eye and I can see them as clearly as I see you when I look at

you. I can see if they are tall or short, dark or fair, fat or thin. And more than that, in some queer way I can see into their characters too. I know if they are kind or unkind, hottempered, generous, amusing or deceitful!" Then she would see the settinga wood, perhapsand would start to explore the place, feeling excited and curious. Once the characters and setting were established she would begin to type and the story would flow fluently from her fingertips, at an astonishing speed: "It is as if I were watching a story being unfolded on a bright screen. Characters come and go, talk and laugh, things happen to them... the whole story sparkles on my private 'screen' inside my head, and I simply put down what I see and hear. The story comes out complete and whole from beginning to end. I do not have to stop and think for one moment. If I tried to think out or invent the whole book, as some writers do, I could not do it. For one thing it would bore me, and for another it would lack the 'verve' and the extraordinary touches and surprising ideas that flood out from my imagination. People in my books make jokes I could never have thought of myself. I am merely a sightseer, a reporter, an interpreter, whatever you like to call me." Her letter to Peter McKellar on 15th February 1953 makes a similar point about the process of writing: "I don't know what anyone is going to say or do. I don't know what is going to happen. I am in the happy position of being able to write a story and read it for the first time, at one and the same moment... Sometimes a character makes a joke, a really funny one, that makes me laugh as I type it on my paperand I think, 'Well, I couldn't have thought of that myself in a hundred years!' And then I think, 'Well, who did think of it then?'"

SURELY ENID BLYTON MUST HAVE DONE SOME PLANNING BEFORE WRITING A BOOK?
It is worth exploring in a little more detail Enid Blyton's apparent ability to simply open the sluice-gates of her imagination and let a story flood out, without any planning beforehand. Critics have naturally questioned her claim to be able to do that, and the subject deserves closer examination. In Chapter 14 of The Story of My Life (1952) Enid Blyton takes us through the process of writing a book, giving The Enchanted Wood (1939) as an example. This is an odd choice, since several key elements of The Enchanted Wood (which, incidentally, was written thirteen years before The Story of My Life) had been used previously in earlier works. These elements may have suddenly sprung into her mind as she worked on The Enchanted Wood, but they were certainly not new creations. Enid ignores that, presenting some of these things as having popped into her head completely out of the blue as she wrote the book, and declaring that she was as surprised by them as anyone. She tells us that she began with the characters of Jo, Bessie and Fanny. Then she followed a winding path through a wood in her imagination, and suddenly saw "the strange Faraway Tree, a tree that touches the sky, and is the home of little folk. I had never heard of it, or seen it till that momentbut there it is, complete in every detail." In reality, Enid Blyton had already been acquainted with the Faraway Tree for about three years before writing The Enchanted Wood, as she had first written about the tree in The Yellow Fairy Book (1936.)

Enid Blyton goes on to describe climbing the tree in her imagination and seeing a door at the top: "... before I can knock, it is opened, and there stands a round, red-faced, twinkling-eyed little fellow, beaming at me. I know who it is, though I have never in my life seen him before. It is Moonface, of course." Once again, further investigation reveals that Enid Blyton had created Moonface previously. He too had appeared in The Yellow Fairy Book, complete with little round room and slippery-slip. Enid then writes: "I can hear a strange noisea jingling-jangling, clinking-clanking noise. What is it? Ah, yes, you know, because you have read the book. But at that moment the story hasn't even been written yet, so I don't know. I have to look and see what makes the noise." It is the Saucepan Man, hung with clanking pots and pans, but then Enid Blyton ought to have known that since she had dreamt up the character of the Saucepan Man thirteen years earlier, when writing The Enid Blyton Book of Brownies (1926.) She describes following Moonface and the Saucepan Man up the topmost branch of the Faraway Tree to discover that "A little yellow ladder stretches surprisingly from the last branch, up through a purple hole in the cloud that lies on the top of the tree." "Surprisingly" may not be quite the right word, as the ladder and cloud also featured in The Yellow Fairy Book. So, it appears that in The Story of My Life Enid Blyton is giving us a somewhat fictionalised account of the writing of The Enchanted Wood, making things neater and simpler than they really were. Some valuable insights into her creativity may still be gleaned from her account, but it does not portray the whole truth of what was obviously a rather more complex process. That brings me on to a consideration of the notes compiled by Enid Blyton for the Malory Towers school series. These were first made public in an article by Tony Summerfield for Green Hedges Magazine number 17, Christmas 1995. Notes exist for all six books but Tony looked in detail at the ones for Last Term at Malory Towers, published in 1951. When beginning a new title in the series Enid Blyton would start by jotting down a list of characters from the previous book, before summarising the intended contents of the new story in a couple of pages. The notes for Last Term at Malory Towers contain some plotlines which were not included in the final version of the book, such as the death of Gwendoline's father and Gwendoline's friendship with Amanda. Other proposed storylines concerning Belinda, twins Ruth and Connie and a few more characters may have been rejected by Enid Blyton because of their similarity to incidents in her St. Clare's series. A spiteful Spanish girl called Juanita, mentioned in the notes, does not appear at all in the book as we know it. Tony Summerfield comments: "... one is left wondering if Enid actually referred to these [i.e. to the notes] when she wrote the book" and it does indeed seem that she may have dashed off the notes in a matter of minutes and then failed to consult them while writing. Although I have provided some evidence of planning, which contradicts Enid's statement that she did not plan her books before starting to write, I believe that, in general, her description of how her stories came pouring out spontaneously still has a good deal of truth in it. We know from her publishers and agents that she worked extremely fast and could complete a whole book in an incredibly short time. At the height of her powers she produced around 10,000 publishable words per day, writing a whole Famous Five or Adventure book in just five days. We also have some of her typewritten manuscripts, which show that remarkably few alterations were made between first draft and publication. These facts alone indicate phenomenal speed and fluency, allowing little time for planning or research. The greatest evidence, however, lies within the books themselves.

Enid Blyton's vocabulary is repetitive, with the same words and phrases, like "gloomily," "queer" and "at top speed" cropping up again and again. She rarely reaches for a more precise word such as "grotesque," "disturbing" or "bizarre" instead of "queer," for example. The most likely explanation for that is that she did not, as a rule, stop to think about the exact choice of words but was indeed swept along by the force of her imagination, her rapidly typing fingers barely able to keep pace with her thoughts. On the positive side it is perhaps because she spent so little time planning that Enid Blyton's writing displays an appealing freshness and spontaneity, making her books so immensely readable. Enid has a knack of painting apt, imaginative word-pictures without resorting to lengthy descriptions or complicated phrasing which would slow down the narrative. She uses natural-sounding dialogue and lively similes and her work abounds with alliteration and onomatopoeia, enlivening the prose and giving it a lilting quality. Her simplicity of style could actually be regarded as a strength. If she sometimes fails to stretch her readers' vocabulary, she definitely does not fail in stretching their imaginations and making them ponder moral issues. Tough topics like juvenile crime and marital breakdown are tackled in books like The Six Bad Boysand the clarity and fluidity of Enid's writing means that these deeper aspects of her works are all the more accessible.

FROM WHERE DID ENID BLYTON GET HER IDEAS FOR HER STORIES?
Enid Blyton maintained that the gates of her imagination were always ready to swing open at the slightest touch. All the things she had experienced in her life provided her with material for her stories. These life experiences: "... sank down into my 'under-mind' and simmered there, waiting for the time to come when they would be needed again for a bookchanged, transmuted, made perfect, finelywroughtquite different from when they were packed away. And yet the essence of them was exactly the same. Something had been at work, adapting, altering, deleting here and there, polishing brightlybut still the heart, the essence of the original thing was there, and I could almost always recognize it." In a letter to Peter McKellar on 26th February 1953 she elaborated on this, saying that things she had seen on holidays, such as islands, castles and caves, would pop up frequently in her stories as she wrote: "These things come up time and again in my stories, changed, sometimes almostunrecognisableand then I see a detail that makes me sayyesthat's one of the Cheddar Caves, surely! Characters also remind me of people I have metI think my imagination contains all the things I have ever seen or heard, things my conscious mind has long forgottenand they have all been jumbled about till a light penetrates into the mass, and a happening here or an object there is taken out, transmuted, or formed into something that takes a natural and rightful place in the storyor I may recognise itor I may notI don't think that I use anything I have not seen or experiencedI don't think I could. I don't think one can take out of one's mind more than one puts in... Our books are facets of ourselves."

WHY DID ENID BLYTON WRITE SO MANY BOOKS?

Enid Blyton took a great interest in children of all ages, saying: "I want to know you from the very beginning, and go with you all through your childhood till you are old enough to read adult books. I don't want you to be friends with me at one age only, I want to keep in

touch with you all through your childhood days." Therefore she wrote for a wide age-range, from the Noddy stories, which are written for very young children, to the more sophisticated mystery and adventure stories. Having so many interests, Enid Blyton loved the challenge of writing about different subjects too. She is best-known for her mystery and adventure books, and for Noddy, but she also wrote school stories, nature books, religious books, animal stories, tales of farms and circuses, family novels, fantasy stories, fairy-tales and nursery tales, poetry, songs, plays and articles, as well as re-telling traditional myths, legends, fables and folk-tales. The magazines which Enid Blyton wrote and editedfirst Sunny Stories and then Enid Blyton's Magazinekept her in touch with her readers. She wrote in her editorials about her home and family, her garden, her pets and places she had visited. Children felt that they knew her as a friend and would write to her, receiving chatty hand-written letters in reply. Some corresponded with her for years, even into adulthood. This close contact with her readers meant that Enid knew what kinds of stories would appeal to them. Some of the short stories in her magazines were inspired by letters she had received from readers, telling her about interesting or amusing things that had happened to them. Enid Blyton wrote not only to entertain children but to educate and guide them, and her books invariably contain sound morals. In a letter to librarian Mr. S. C. Dedman in September 1949 she confided: "I'm not out only to tell stories, much as I love thisI am out to inculcate decent thinking, loyalty, honesty, kindliness, and all the things that children should be taught." As Enid Blyton says to her readers in The Story of My Life: "Even if you have never met me, you know me very well because you have read so many books of mine... I am sure that you know exactly what I stand for, and the things I believe in, without any doubt at all."

WHICH OF ENID BLYTON'S CHARACTERS WERE REAL?

Bill Smugs Bill Smugs of the Adventure series was inspired by a man Enid Blyton and her husband Kenneth met one year while on holiday in Swanage, Dorset. The man said he would like to have adventures, adding: "I'd like to have been in the Secret Service, or something like that. Couldn't you possibly put me into a book and make me a Secret Service man? I really could have adventures then... Put me in as I am, with no hair on top, and anything else you like. And call melet me seeyescall me Bill Smugs, will you? That is what I used to call myself as a boy." Enid Blyton comments in The Story of My Life: "Well, when I wrote the first Adventure book, The Island of Adventure, lo and behold, up popped Bill Smugs into the story. I was rather astonished. There he was, bald head and alland in the Secret Service too!" George Kirrin George in the Famous Five books was based on a real girl: "The real George was shorthaired, freckled, sturdy, and snub-nosed. She was bold and daring, hot-tempered and loyal. She was sulky, as George is, too, but she isn't now. We grow out of those failingsor we should! Do you like George? I do." It is said that Enid Blyton confessed to literary agent Rosica Colin that George was based on herself.

Inspector Jenks Police Inspector Stephen Jennings was the inspiration for Inspector Jenks in the Find-Outers Mystery books. When Jennings was promoted to Chief Inspector and then Superintendent, Enid gave Jenks promotion too! She wrote that Stephen Jennings was "as broad and burly, and kindly and shrewd and trustable as Inspector Jenks is in the Mysteries." Fatty Fatty, or Frederick, in the Find-Outers Mystery books was based on "a plump, ingenious, very amusing boy" whom Enid Blyton once knew. Claudine Claudine of the St. Clare's series was inspired by a Belgian girl from Enid's schooldays. "She was extremely naughty, very daring, not at all truthful, and hated games. She was, as our form-mistress said, 'as artful as a bagful of monkeys,' and yet everyone liked her. She would go to great extremes to 'pay back' a slight, or to return a kindness." Mam'zelle Plump, amusing, hot-tempered Mam'zelle in the St. Clare's books was modelled on one of the French mistresses who taught Enid Blyton at school: "She did many of the things she does in the books. She flew into rages, she stamped and wailed aloud at our stupidity. She was terrified of bats, mice, beetles, bees and spiders." Enid and her friends played tricks on Mam'zelle and she always fell for them, much to the girls' delight. She was theatrical in her displays of anger but she had a marvellous sense of humour and the girls loved her. Amelia Jane Naughty Amelia Jane was a rag doll belonging to Enid's elder daughter, Gillian. "How we all loved Amelia Jane, with her corkscrew hair, her big loose limbs, and her wicked face." When Gillian's friends came to tea, Enid Blyton would sit Amelia Jane on her knee and make her kick biscuits high into the air or smack the dog on the nose, to the amusement of the children. Kiki Kiki the parrot in the Adventure books was based on a parrot named Kiki owned by Enid's old aunt. Enid says: "She was a wonderful parrot, intelligent, talkative and mischievous." Loony Black cocker spaniel Loony in the Barney Mysteries (also known as the "R" Mysteries) was inspired by Enid Blyton's dog, Laddie: "I had to put Laddie into a book. He is so beautiful, so mad, and sometimes so extraordinarily silly." Bimbo and Topsy The stars of the book Bimbo and Topsy, Bimbo the Siamese cat and Topsy the fox-terrier, were real pets belonging to Enid Blyton.

Chronology

1870
Enid's father, Thomas Carey Blyton, born in Deptford, Kent.

1874
June 18 - Enid's mother, Theresa Mary Harrison, born in Sheffield.

1896
August 11 - Thomas marries Theresa at St Peter's Church, Dulwich.

1897
August 11 - Enid Mary Blyton born at 354 Lordship Lane, East Dulwich, the daughter of Thomas Carey Blyton (a cutlery salesman) and Theresa (nee Harrison). Family move to a semi-detached villa at 95 Chaffinch Road, Beckenham. October 8 - Eelco Martinus ten Harmsen van der Beek born. November - Enid nearly dies from whooping cough, but is cradled all night in her father's arms.

1899
May 11 - Enid's brother Hanly born.

1902
The family move to 35 Clock House Road, Beckenham. Enid's brother Carey born.

1905
March 26 - Eileen Alice Soper born.

1907
Enid starts at St Christopher's School for Girls, Beckenham. About this time the family move a couple of doors down to another house at 31 Clock House Road, Beckenham.

1910
Shortly before her thirteenth birthday Enid's father leaves home for another woman. Enid baptised at Elm Road Baptist Church.

1911
Enters Arthur Mee's children's poetry competition and is thrilled to get a letter from the writer, telling her that he intends to print her verses and would like to see more of her work.

1912
Enid and her family move to 14 Elm Road, Beckenham.

1913
Summer Enid travels to France with Mlle. Louise Bertraine, the French teacher from her school St Christopher's. It is her first trip out of England.

1915
Enid's family move from Elm Road, Beckenham to a smaller semi-detached house nearby at 13 Westfield Road. Enid leaves St Christopher's School. Moves into her friend Mary Attenborough's family home at 34 Oakwood Avenue, Beckenham.

1916
Due to attend the Guildhall School of Music. Stays with George and Emily Hart at Seckford Hall, near Woodbridge, Suffolk. The hall with its 'haunted' bedroom, secret passage and surrounding farmland is a source of great delight and inspiration. Enid decides to become a teacher after helping her friend Ida Hunt at Woodbridge Congregational Sunday School. September - Enrols on a National Froebel Union course at Ipswich. She goes to Ipswich High School to train as a Kindergarten teacher and her contact with her family virtually ceases.

1917
March Nash's Magazine publish the first of three of her poems.

1918
December - Qualifies as a teacher, completing her Froebel course.

1919
January - Begins teaching at Bickley Park School, Bickley. March - Receives Teaching Certificate with Distinctions in Zoology and Principals of Education, 1st Class in Botany, Geography, Practice of Education, History of Education, Child Hygiene, Class Teaching and 2nd class in Literature and Elementary Mathematics.

1920
Moves to Southernhay, Hook Road, Surbiton to work as a nursery governess to the four children (David, Brian, Peter and John) of architect Horace Thompson and his wife Gertrude. Renews acquaintance with her school friend, Phyllis Chase, who has begun to have some success as an illustrator. The two decide to submit work together, and it is to prove a turning point in their careers. Enid's father, Thomas, dies unexpectedly of a heart attack at the age of fifty, while fishing on the Thames at Sunbury. Enid does not attend the Beckenham funeral.

1921
February 19 - Wins a Saturday Westminster Review writing competition with 'On the Popular Fallacy that to the Pure All Things are Pure'. More writing accepted by The Londoner, The Bystander and Home Weekly.

1922
February 15 - Contributes first story 'PeroneI and his Pot of Glue' to Teachers World. They also accept poems and other stories. She contributes to other journals and writes in annuals for both Cassell and Newnes. June - Her first book Child Whispers is published. Two stories published in books by Dean & Son, these are her first stories to appear in a book.

1923
Meets Major Hugh Alexander Pollock, an editor at the publishers George Newnes. Earns more than 300 from her writing - equivalent to the price of a small suburban house. March - Responsive Singing Games published - her second book, and the only book for which she wrote the music. July - Gets her own column 'From My Window' in Teachers World. First article 'Genius and Childhood'.

1924
Enid is commissioned by Hugh Pollock to write a book on the zoo, and falls in love with him. Enid and Hugh spend a happy Easter at Seaford, Sussex with Mabel Attenborough, Mary's aunt. July 3 - Finishes The Zoo Book and joins Mabel for a holiday at Felpham. August 28 - Enid marries Major Hugh Alexander Pollock at Bromley Register Office. None of Enid's relations is invited to the wedding. Earns over 500 from writing. They move into a top floor apartment at 32 Beaufort Mansions, Chelsea. October - The Enid Biyton Book of Fairies published - her first book of collected short stories.

1925
July 21 - Enid's first contribution to the Morning Post. Annual earnings from writing reach 1095.10s.2d (equivalent to an executive's salary).

1926
February 26 - Enid and Hugh move from Chelsea to their first 'real home' - Elfin Cottage, a newly built detached house in Shortlands Road (now number 83), Beckenham. She purchases 'Bobs' a black and white smooth-haired fox-terrier. July - Sunny Stories fir Little Folks first published, edited by Enid Blyton, who also writes everything. October 1 - Teachers World issue a special supplement containing a full- page interview with Enid Blyton. In the same issue Enid interviews A.A. Milne for an article. He presents her with an advance copy of his latest book - Winnie the Pooh. November 10 - First appearance of Bobs for readers of 'From My Window'. Teachers Treasury (3 volumes) published - all written by Enid.

1927
Purchases her first typewriter and reluctantly learns how to use it. Also learns how to drive. The Plays The Thing published. At 25/- it is to be the most expensive book in Enid's whole career. August 31 - First letter to the children in Teachers World. December 17 - Enid's first contribution to The Outline to which she contributed regularly until August 1928

1928
Enid consults a gynaecologist about her apparent infertility.

1929
August 2 - Moves with Hugh to Old Thatch in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire. Starts asking children to collect silver paper and foil to raise money for Great Ormond Street, with great success. August - Nature Lessons published by Evans - the only book to contain her own illustrations. September 4 - Gets her own children's page in Teachers World - First letter from her dog, Bobs.

1930
October - Enid and Hugh go on a cruise to Madeira and the Canary Islands aboard the Stella Polaris. This trip provides her with inspiration for The Pole Star Family, twenty years later.

1931
July 15 - Enid's first daughter, Gillian Mary born - 8lbs 12oz in weight.

1932
February 5 - completes a full-length adult novel, The Caravan Goes On, but fails to find a publisher.

1933
Hugh works with Winston Churchill on the production of The World Crisis. . Gillian and her nurse sent to a residential nursery in London, while Enid and Hugh take a few weeks' holiday on their own in Scotland to help Hugh's health. October - Letters from Bobs published - written by Enid's pet fox-terrier. Within the first week ten thousand copies are sold. December - Enid records in her diary Hugh's late homecomings.

1934
Hugh works with Churchill on editing The Great War. Holiday at a small furnished house, Seaview, on the Isle of Wight. Enid has a miscarriage. April - First four Old Thatch Readers published.

1935
October 27 - Enid gives birth to Imogen Mary, 8lb 6oz. October 28 - Dorothy Gertrude Richards, a nurse, comes to help Enid with Imogen. November - Enid's dog, Bobs, dies. He is buried in the garden, but Enid refuses to allow the gardener to mark his grave. Dorothy leaves to take on another case, but the two remain close friends.

1936
Dorothy Richards accompanies Enid and her family on holiday to the Isle of Wight.

1937
January 15 - Sunny Stories appears in new format, with long serial stories. The first of these is brought out in book form as Adventures of the Wishing Chair at the end of the year.

January 29 - First Amelia Jane story in Sunny Stories.

1938
Spring - Hugh suffers a serious bout of pneumonia. After a month in hospital he is discharged. August 6 - Enid, Hugh and their daughters move to a large house in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. She asks readers to suggest a name - and 'Green Hedges' is chosen from the suggestions. September - The Secret Island published - the first of a series of 5 books. September - Mr Gallianos Circus published - the first of a series of 3 books. December 30 - First appearance of Mr Meddle in Sunny Stories.

1939
Outbreak of War. Printing paper is soon rationed. The initial quota is 50 per cent raised to 60 per cent in October. May - The Enchanted Wood published - the first in a series of 3 FarawayTree books. November - Boys' and Girls' Circus Book published - Enid's first full-length unserialised book.

1940
Hugh rejoins his old regiment, The Royal Scots Fusiliers. Their marriage disintegrates. May 3 - First appearance of Mr Pink-Whistle in Sunny Stories. Enid publishes 12 books including... September - The Naughtiest Girl in the School - the first in a series of 3 books and the first of Enid's school stories. November - First two books under the pseudonym of Mary Pollock published. The Children of Cherry Tree Farm - the first full-length purpose written book that turns into a series. Old Thatch is sold.

1941
Sandy, the fox-terrier, disappears from Green Hedges. A teacher gives her a black and white short-haired terrier called Topsy, as a replacement. Enid meets surgeon, Kenneth Darrell Waters. Publishes 8 books including... May - The Adventurous Four- the first in a series of 2 books. November - The Twins at St Clares - the first in a series of 6 books. Sunny Stories Calendar 1942 - her first calendar.

1942
Publishes 22 books including... August - Enid Biyton's Readers 1-3 - the first use of her now famous logo-signature and the first work with Eileen Soper. September - Five on a Treasure Island - the first of a series of 21 books. December - Divorces Hugh. Gillian sent to board at Godstowe Preparatory School, High Wycombe.

1943
October 20 - Marries Kenneth Darrell Waters at the City of Westminster Register Office. October 26 - Hugh marries Ida at the City of London Register Office. Enid refuses Hugh permission to visit the children. Publishes 23 books including:-

December - The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage, the first of the Find-Outers Mysteries - a series of 15 books and The Children's Life of Christ, her first book re-telling tales from the Bible.

1944
May 21 - Enid's first contribution to the Sunday Graphic to which she contributed regularly until April 1950. Imogen sent to board at Godstowe Preparatory School, High Wycombe. September 24 - Enid's first contribution to the Sunday Mail to which she contributed regularly until December 1945 Publishes 24 books in this year including... November - The Island of Adventure - the first of the Adventure series of 8 books. Dorothy Richard's family bombed out of their home, and they move to Green Hedges. Enid asks them to leave after two days and Dorothy severs her friendship.

1945
Enid becomes pregnant, but miscarries after a fall. End of War. March - Enid's first appearance in Playways - with 'The Caravan Family'. September - Enid's first contribution to Good Housekeeping to which she contributed regularly until August 1948 November 14 - Last 'Letter from Green Hedges' in Teachers World.

1946
July - First Term at Malory Towers published - the first in a series of 6 books. Doris Cox comes to work at Green Hedges as housemaid.

1947
September - Imogen contracts polio.

1948
Travels on a trip to New York sailing out on the Queen Elizabeth and returning on the Queen Mary. Imogen goes to Benenden. October 6 - Enid arrives in New York. November - Publishes Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm - the first of a series of 2 books. Enid Blyton Diary published - her first diary. First four Enid Blyton character jigsaws from Bestime. 'Journey Through Fairyland' by BGL - first Enid Blyton board game.

1949
Publishers printing quotas no longer rationed. Publishes 32 books including... March - The Rockingdown Mystery - the first in a series of 6 Barney Mysteries. June 5 - Noddy makes his first appearance in the Sunday Graphic. May 21 - Enid's first contribution to the Evening Standard to which she contributed regularly until December 1953. November - Noddy Goes to Toyland- his first appearance in book form. November - The Secret Seven - the first 'proper book' in a series of 15 books;

1950
March 31 - Enid forms her own copyright holding company - Darrell Waters limited. Other directors include Eric Rogers, Arnold Thirlby, Enid's solicitor, and John Basden, an accountant whose other clients include Sir Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson. Enid gives over the royalties of Before I Go to Sleep to the Shaftesbury Society Babies' Home in Beaconsfield. It amounts to several thousand pounds. Enid's mother dies. 'Faraway Tree' - first Enid Blyton card game from Pepys.

1951
Publishes 39 titles including... October - The Six Bad Boys - in which she records some of the sadness she experienced when her father left home. Enid and Kenneth purchase their own eighteen hole golf course at Studland Bay, Dorset. Enid is nominated Queen Bee of the PDS's Busy Bees' Club. July 21 - Enid's first appearance in Mickey Mouse Weekly with 'The Secret Seven' .

1952
Publishes 44 titles. April - Enid's first story in The BusyBees' News. September - The Famous Five Club is formed. September - The Story of My Life published - Enid's autobiography for children.

1953
February 19 - Enid withdraws from the magazine Sunny Stories after twenty-six years as editor. March 18 - First edition of Enid Blyton's Magazine. George Greenfield becomes Enid Blyton's agent. July 24 - Harmsen van der Beek dies.

1954
Enid renews her friendship with Dorothy Richards. Enid becomes chairman of the committee for the Shaftesbury Society Babies' Home in Beaconsfield. July 21 - Enid Blyton's Magazine Club is formed. December - The pantomime Noddy in Toyland first performed. It takes Enid two weeks to write. December - Enid resigns her directorship of Darrell Waters Ltd.

1955
Enid Blyton starts legal proceedings to quash rumours that she doesn't write her own books. December - The Famous Five play produced for the Princes Theatre, London. Kellogg's acquire the rights to use Noddy. Noddy puppet films appear on 'Independent Television.'

1956
May - Finishes adult play Summer Storm. July 7 - Enid's first appearance in TV Comic with Noddy and Bom. Buys Manor Farm at Stourton Caundle.

1957
Kenneth Darrell Waters retires as senior surgeon at St. Stephen's Hospital, Fulham . Enid's health deteriorates. Peter McKellar publishes Imagination and Thinking. August - Enid's daughter, Gillian, marries Donald Baverstock, a BBC producer at St James's Church, Piccadilly. Five on a Treasure Island film serialised by the Children's Film Foundation for Saturday matinees.

1958
January - Colin Welch publishes a vitriolic article criticising Noddy in Encounter.

1959
September 9 - Enid Blyton closes down Enid Blyton's Magazine.

1960
January 30 - Enid's first appearance in Princess with 'Five at Finniston Farm'.

1961
October - Hamlyn publish The Big Enid Biyton Book, the only book in which Enid broke her golden rule of never accepting a 'publisher's advance'.

1962
Gordon Landsborough launches Armada books so that children can buy their own paperback books. He sees Enid Blyton as the key to the success of the launch. Noddy book sales reach 26 million copies. Enid sells Manor Farm at Stourton Caundle, Dorset.

1963
May 25 - Enid's first appearance in School Friend - with 'Bravo Secret Seven'. July - Fun for the Secret Seven the last in the series, published. July - Five Are Together Again published - the last in the series.

1964
February - Noddy and the Aeroplane - the last book in the Noddy Library series. Film Five Have A Mystery To Solve released by Rayant Pictures Ltd for the Children's Film Foundation.

1965
May - Mixed Bag published - a song book for which her nephew, Carey Blyton writes the music. August - The Man Who Stopped to Help and The Boy Who Came Back published - the last full-length books to be written by Enid.

1967
Enid calls her brother, Hanly, after seventeen years without contact and begs him to visit. September 15 - Enid's husband, Kenneth, dies. She writes in her diary: 'My darling Kenneth died. I loved him so much. I feel lost and unhappy'.

Imogen marries Duncan Smallwood.

1968
November 28 - Enid Blyton dies peacefully in her sleep in a Hampstead nursing home.

1969
January - Memorial service held for Enid at St James's Church, Piccadilly.

1971
May 26 - Green Hedges sold by auction. November 6 - Hugh Pollock dies.

1972
June 24 - Enid appears in Pixie No.1 with 'The Naughtiest Girl In The School'.

1973
Green Hedges pulled down to make way for a housing development.

1974
March 9 - Noddy and His Friends No.1 published by Hudvale. April 29 - Story Teller Extraordinary broadcast on BBCl as part of 'The Success Story' series. Barbara Stoney's Enid Blyton A Biography first published.

1975
May 10 - Noddy Time No. 1 published by Womans Way.

1976
Enid's brother Carey dies.

1978
July 3 - Famous Five Television series first shown, made by TVS. July 22 - Enid's first appearance in Look In No.30 with 'Five Have A Mystery To Solve'.

1982
In the Government's Survey of 10,000 eleven year olds Enid Blyton is voted the most popular author. Sheila Ray publishes The Blyton Phenomenon. Darrell Waters Ltd forms the Enid Blyton Trust for Children. Film of The Island of Adventure broadcast on television made by Ebefilms Ltd. October 20 - Rupert Weekly first published - containing Noddy. November 2 - Five Go Mad in Dorset broadcast on Channel 4. A parody by the Comic Strip.

1983
Five Go Mad on Mescalin - the second parody made for television by the Comic Strip. November - Enid's brother, Hanly, dies.

1985
National Library for the Handicapped Child founded in memory of Enid Blyton by her daughter, Imogen. September - First issue of Enid Blyton's Adventure Magazine.

1988
April 3 - The Selling of Noddy broadcast on ITV.

1989
Enid's daughter, Imogen, publishes A Childhood at Green Hedges.

1990
March 18 - Eileen Soper dies. May - The Enid Blyton Newsletter started. Film The Castle of Adventure broadcast on television made by TVS.

1991
Animated films based on St. Clare's appear on Japanese Television. The Sunday Times include Enid Blyton in the 1000 Makers of the 20th Century.

1992
January - Michael Rouse publishes Green Hedges Magazine. March - Richard Walker forms Blyton Book Collectors' Society. October 14 - BBC publish first issue of Noddy Magazine. December 26 - Sunny Stories broadcast on BBC 2 made by the Bookmark programmc. Fabbri publish Five on a Treasure Island as No.50 in their Classic Adventure series.

1993
March 6 - First Enid Blyton Day held at Rickmansworth.

1995
February - Trocadero plc acquire Darrell Waters Ltd at 14.6 million and change the name to Enid Blyton Ltd. Enid Blyton Society formed. 'Adventure Series' (8 films) filmed in New Zealand by Cloud 9/CLT. September 10 - New Famous Five Television series first screened on ITV made by Zenith North.

1996
July - Enid Blyton Society's first Journal. October - Centenary celebrations start with a reception at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. An Enid Blyton award, called 'The Enid', is announced which is to be presented annually to the person judged to have contributed outstanding service to children. October - The first Noddy CD-Rom released by the BBC. December - Enid's signature included in the Regent Street illuminations with Noddy leading the parade for the switching-on ceremony. December 16 - Secret Lives - a TV documentary on Enid Blyton broadcast on Channel 4. 'Secret Series' (5 films) filmed in New Zealand by Cloud 9/CLT.

1997
January - The Famous Five Musical opens and tours for six months, produced by King's Head Theatre. March 26 - First issue of Enid Biyton's Mystery and Suspense Magazine. April 6 - Model of Green Hedges unveiled at Bekonscot by Gillian Baverstock. April 12 - Enid Blyton: A Celebration and Reappraisal - a conference held by the National Centre for research in Children's Literature at Roehampton Institute. The papers, edited by Nicholas Tucker and Kimberley Reynolds, are published later in the year. June - Tony Summerfield publishes Enid Blyton A Comprehensive Bibliography. Gillian Baverstock publishes Enid Blyton (Tell Me About Writers Series). June - David Rudd gets a Phd on the subject of Enid Blyton and the Mystery of Children's Literature (Sheffield Hallam University). August 11 - English Heritage plaque on Southernhay unveiled by Gillian Baverstock. September 9 - Royal Mail Centenary stamps issued. Centenary exhibitions held at the London Toy and Model Museum, Hereford and Worcester County Museum and Bromley Library. Tom Adams completes his mixed, media picture 'The Enid Blyton Lifescape'. October 29 - Noddy sale of original artwork held at Sotheby's, London. Harmsen van der Beek's illustrated letter to Enid fetches a hammer price of 35,000. November 17 - Blue Peter special on Enid Blyton.

1998
March 26 - Enid Blyton's Enchanted Lands No.1 published by Redan. May - George Greenfield publishes his biography Enid Biyton. August 30 - The new 40 part series of Noddy makes its debut on American TV: The series also features real children and new puppet stars like Sherman the Tank Turtle and Gator Gerty. November 21 - The Secret Seven Save the World first performed at the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff November 24 - Noddy 2 sale held at Sotheby's, London. December - Johnny and Betty Hopton get a Guinness Book of Records Certificate for the largest Noddy collection in the world.

1999
Noddy's 50th. anniversary year. June - The Enid Blyton Dossier published