when the posh children in Enid Blyton have an "ice", I always thought it meant "ice lolly"...

[sadpapercourtesan]

...but I was reading "Five Go To Billycock Hill" last night, and they talked about having an "ice" in a tub with a little wooden spoon...surely that's an ice cream?!

Yes, I have too much time on my hands. I should be doing stuff

Surely upper middle class kids can't have been that insufferable in real life. Perhaps she didn't know how they'd really behave, until her own daughters came he from Benendon and by then too late, she'd characatured her protagonists. I don't know enough about how snobbish BBC Children's television was in those days, and whether storylines had to be tweaked to show entitlement. All pretty revolting though, even when enjoying the stories.

@OxenoftheSun

It was the default summer jacket when it wasn't warm enough for just a summer dress and cardigan

Yes, I think that's definitely the way in which they are worn in the FF books. (Though I personally think Julian would have looked lovely in a summer dress and cardigan. )

Clothes have been 'updated' a bit in some of the Faded Page editions from the ones I remember as a child -- they wear jeans instead of shorts and I think some of the blazers references have been changed to windcheaters.

Even reading the books in the 80s, only 20 years after some of them had been written, the outdated clothes etc were part of the charm for me. Those details helped to conjure up a bygone world where kids could have a huge amount of independence and adventure.

I'm all for changing words like the N word in children's books - BME children shouldn't have to come across them - but changing details like money and clothing is daft and pointless.

One of the books I loved as a child had a character with cavalry twill trousers. I hadn’t a clue what they were but I wanted them!

Oh, I agree, @MrsNoah2020 -- I was also reading in the 70s and 80s.

Though my eight year old, who is of an analytical turn of mind, keeps asking how much the money was 'worth' when there's some reference to a shilling, and I have to stop and look it up.

But I love the blazers and ponies and traps, and Anne's tease-worthy ponytail, and the fact that tomatoes clearly constitute a massive treat.

On the other hand, I can't regret the lazily racist depiction of JoJo the black manservant in The Island of Adventure (essentially Big, Threatening Though Stupid Black Man racist stereotype), though the re-edited version I came across recently is quite odd, as it removes any reference to his race ('the black man' becomes 'the big man' or 'the tall man' throughout), but leaves him with his original speech (what looks like a crude attempt to convey Caribbean speech patterns/accent), which reads very oddly from a now implicitly white character.

@summerredroses, you've just reminded me that, on a recent reread of Good Wives, I finally looked up what 'twilled silesia' was. (It's the scene where Jo, in love with Professor Bhaer, is distracted while shopping with him because she thinks he's leaving for good, and gets all of Marmee's orders wrong and 'forgot the silesia was to be twilled until it was cut off'.)

Turns out it's a type of fabric used for garment linings, and 'twilled' refers to the type of weave.

Not wildly exciting, but I had no idea whether 'twilled silesia' was cheese, animal fodder or some form of chemical!

@summerredroses

One of the books I loved as a child had a character with cavalry twill trousers. I hadn’t a clue what they were but I wanted them!

I used to want an angora jumper because of a character in The Bobbsey Twins but didn't know what angora was!

I also loved a book called The Dog Star (poor family has to scrimp to look after film-star dog after its glamorous airman owner is lost at sea - spoiler, he reappears and marries the oldest daughter) and the middle daughter is given what I thought of as the most gorgeous dress "thick silk, candy-striped in pink, green, blue, yellow, with wider stripes of cream and thinner of black, it was quite grown-up in its make and buttoned from throat to hem. Those buttons alone - for no two were alike in colour and all the different colours were charming - a real harlequin set."

I enjoy reading the books again with young readers decades after I first came across them. Imagine being that child who's encountering a story for the first time and genuinely not knowing how it is all going to end!
Can you ever learn that kind of storytelling skill? In the FF adventure where Dick gets kidnapped, mistaken for a nouveau riche 'Richard' ( probably the book the Comic Strip masterpiece was based on), the plotting, little bits of freedom Julian accrues, plans and strategies, thoughts and hopes, it's the way EB doles them out and manages just the right level of tension and keeps us living and thinking the tale as they do. It's just a neglected house with pigs outside, at the end of the day, but she crafts it into a world of experience.

She has a sensitivity. Maybe if someone sat her down in heaven and said, 'Now rewrite this awful elitist tosh and give the characters empathy for each other", she'd do it . The FF do like Jo and admire things about her. EB seems to feel something and have charity. Can't quite reconcile this with being cruel to her own kids - unless there is exaggeration in that claim.

I loved the chapter in Little Women where meg goes to vanity fair and all the dresses and accessories of the girls are described!

"My dd1's favourite Blyton was Those Dreadful Children, about the rough Taggerty family moving in next door, We suspect they were an Irish family. So are we!"

That story could have been written to illustrate the concept of the dogwhistle. The word Irish was never used, but it was SO obviously intended! (Patrick, Maureen and Biddie, forsooth....!)

Can anyone confirm that one of the Six Cousins was called Melisande?
I had never heard such an exotic name!

Yes! Melisande, Cyril and Roderick and then the other three were Jane, Jack and Susan!

Oh god that went over my head user but SO obvious when you say it now! I can’t remember what the other (non dreadful!) children were called - Annette?

Thanks summer.
Easy to distinguish the ‘posh’ lot...

My kids sided with the terrible Taggerty family. We used to have a bucket at the back door for my filth magnets to put their filthy clothes in until I I dealt with them.
It is actually a brilliant dog whistle example, I was trying to explain that concept to someone, so thanks Enid!
I'd love to have time to do a compare and contrast with jk Rowling.

John, Margery (Margerie?) and Annette. If I remember rightly.

In fairness, the book also suggested that they were indeed supposed to be a bit insufferable. They lightened up towards the end of the story. The Taggertys were "civilized".

Possiblywickedandlazy, I remember thinking exactly the same about "Pat" and "Isabel"! I know it's not good to give twins mitchy-matchy names, but it also seems a bit dicey to give names that are so different in feel. "Isabel" is a name for a fairy princess--"Pat" sounds like a short and stocky farmer's wife who wears a padded green jacket and wellies (and probably forces warm milk and homemade scones down the throats of random teenagers who are camping in her lower field).

Nobody was called Isabel in the 80s, but I always thought it was the most beautiful name. Now ironically it's a bit "done to death" and every other girl seems to be called a variation of Isabel. Still pretty though.

mr galliano’s circus! i had forgotten all about that.

i used to love Jennings books as a child but was very confused by all the U speech and boarding school ways. lots of cricket and tuck boxes and postal orders...

Pat was short for Patricia though. I don't know if that makes it better or worse . What a lot of names Enid had to come up with for all her books, there are some reusings (like Dick and Fanny!) but not as many as you would think.

@fucknuckle

mr galliano’s circus! i had forgotten all about that.

i used to love Jennings books as a child but was very confused by all the U speech and boarding school ways. lots of cricket and tuck boxes and postal orders...

What I liked about the Jennings books is that there was no moralising or spite or real bullying, the boys seemed to all basically get on and they were just really funny.

Pat is a VERY stodgy sort of name somehow but I wonder if that’s because I connect it with women in their 60s? I mean, there must have been a time when little girls were called Brenda and Nellie and Shirley

'Brenda, Nellie, Shirley' - five years the probably, due for a revival.

Patricia and Penelope definitely...and so many ways to shorten these.

I can’t cope with someone holding a beautiful newborn baby girl and calling her Pat!

@user1477391263

John, Margery (Margerie?) and Annette. If I remember rightly.

In fairness, the book also suggested that they were indeed supposed to be a bit insufferable. They lightened up towards the end of the story. The Taggertys were "civilized".

Possiblywickedandlazy, I remember thinking exactly the same about "Pat" and "Isabel"! I know it's not good to give twins mitchy-matchy names, but it also seems a bit dicey to give names that are so different in feel. "Isabel" is a name for a fairy princess--"Pat" sounds like a short and stocky farmer's wife who wears a padded green jacket and wellies (and probably forces warm milk and homemade scones down the throats of random teenagers who are camping in her lower field).

Nobody was called Isabel in the 80s, but I always thought it was the most beautiful name. Now ironically it's a bit "done to death" and every other girl seems to be called a variation of Isabel. Still pretty though.

Poor Pat. You are right - it is a body warmer, sensible shoes and ruddy cheeks name. Super sensible.

My favourite Blyton names were Dinah and Lucy Ann.

Oh, and Daphne from Malory Towers. Tres exotique

Well going back a bit, the weather has been perfect for my ‘iced cream’ experiment.
Total fail. I just suggested some to my dp. I enunciated clearly but didn’t overdo it. Casual-like. Answer - a simple ‘not now, maybe later’.
Hmmm

I’ve always loved the name Lucy since one of the nicer girls from St Clares was called Lucy Oriel, I think. It doesn’t go with my surname at all unfortunately or I would have used it.