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

Doesn't one of the EB books have the ice cream being churned in a bucket with salt and ice?

[quote Mrstwiddle]@RuudGullitOnAShed

I think this is the one you mean? I remember being 5 years old and picking it out at a hospital shop when my mum was having my brother. The pictures are what made this story so memorable, I recently found a copy in a charity shop along with “Timothy’s tadpoles”, exciting times![/quote]
Thank you! For some reason the description of the lurid sweets has stayed with me - maybe because I was a greedy child who would have been tempted to eat them myself.

Great thread!

I grew up in the 70s and 80s and EB was very much part of my life. I loved the Wishing Chair books, Mr Pink Whistle and Tales of Fairyland.

My absolute favourite though was Tales of Toyland which was mostly a chapter book about a sailor doll called Jolly setting up home in Toyland with a fairy doll. They had to build their own house with toy wooden bricks.

Then at the end of the book was a few separate stories including one about children who wanted to stay up late, and another one about a very slow girl who was sent to live with a family of tortoises.

Anyone remember this book?

Thank you Mammmamia, for the title of the candle story. Isn’t it strange how certain stories stick in your head for decades? For me it was that one and the children who stayed up all night, yet I don’t really remember Mistletoe Farm for example although I know I enjoyed it.
I remember the boarding school and Faraway Tree series as I reread them fairly recently and I can recall a few bits of the Wishing Chair and Circus series.
Memory is a funny thing!

No it's definitely Five on Finniston Farm,
Novel by Enid Blyton.

I vaguely remember the candle story.

Ooo there must have been a Conniston Farm in another book just not in the title!! Im actually going to drive over to my parents to collect the books today haha i need to know now! I was literally looking at them the other day!

There's Coniston Water in the Lake District...

Ooh I remember Timothys tadpoles as well.

I think the illustrations play a big part in how we remember these stories.

@bendmeoverbackwards I remember Tales of Toyland. Pretty sure my copy had a navy blue cover.

Well i humbly stand corrected, the book i have is indeed Five on Finniston Farm! Its so mad because i could have swore i read Conniston when i looked at it the other day.
The Mandela Effect!!!!
I have a stack of EB books to add to my bookcase now though

Finniston is my favourite one!

@RuudGullitOnAShed well when I said it was the pictures that were memorable, the pictures I remember best were of the sweets, pink, green and yellow! I was also a greedy child and sadly am an equally greedy adult, that and my love of EB books hasn’t changed at all over the past 35 years :)

@Thehorrorthehorror

A lot of stuff in EB's school stories either doesn't add up logistically or is sacrificed to the plots -- Darrell says there are 25 or 30 girls in her form when she starts at MT, and the head girl tells her there are 'about 60' girls in each tower, but as we're told that there are ten first-formers in Darrell's North Tower dormitory, it's not clear why there would be only fifteen or twenty girls from the other three towers combined in her form.

Plus it always annoyed me as a child reader that Darrell comes to MT for the first time in the summer term, and is one of only three new girls in her form - the others, not surprisingly, have all been at the school since the autumn before -- yet she, Sally and (academically weak) Gwen all go up to second form with the others, after only a term at the school.

But when Felicity and June also arrive at MT in the summer term to a form largely composed of girls who've been there two terms already, they stay in the first form for the next academic year, apparently along with the other girls who'd already done a year at the school already, like Susan, Felicity's friend.

Darrell does a year and a term in the first form - at the beginning of the second book she says it'll be her fifth term.

I always thought it was a bit strange that they wouldn't take girls until they were twelve - my pre-prep wouldn't take you until the term you were three, but there's a much bigger difference between a 2 and a 3 year old than 11 and 12! I'd have thought that it would have just been easier to start everybody together.

Most public schools start at 13 don't they?

Just read title of thread again.. its lolly ice not ice lolly!!! Awaits flaming

Very interesting documentary about her life.

She used to churn out books at a rate of knots in a kind of auto-pilot state, without really reading what she had written or editing, so plot holes were inevitable, I guess. Also, she developed early onset dementia from her early 60s, so with the later books, her memory may have been deteriorating a little. I think the MT books were written towards the end of her career, as Darrell Rivers' name is an obvious reference to that of her second husband, Darrell-Waters.

Interesting bonus fact about EB---she became unexpectedly pregnant at 48, then miscarried at 5 mo gestation after an accident. She wasn't a very nice person but I wouldn't wish that kind of tragedy on anyone.

Also, she developed early onset dementia from her early 60s, so with the later books, her memory may have been deteriorating a little

The plots of the last ‘Five’ and the last ‘Find-Outers’ books are near identical - both having impossible thefts from a tower room and the thief being a circus chimpanzee

Plus she demoted Jenks wat back to Inspector 😳

I always wondered too how Julian Dick and Anne got to nearly teenage years before meeting their dad’s niece. It’s not like that’s a really distant relative!

And after all those years of ignoring her husband, Fanny was more than willing to take her brother in laws kids for the summer holiday, due to their parents wanting an adult only jolly

@kierenthecommunity I thought that was odd too! Maybe they’d all had a falling out years before but had somehow made it up?
I’m a bit hazy on FF but I re-read the Find Outers once every 5 years or so

But if Darrell does a year and a term in first form before moving up, then Alicia, Betty, Jean, Mary-Lou, Irene, all of whom are already at the school when she, Sally and Gwen start together as new girls — have done either a year and two terms or two full years in the first form before moving up to the second!

EB wasn't a very nice person and she wasn't a great writer, but my goodness she was a terrific story teller.

My memory is hazy, but didn't Darrell start late because she she was in quarantine after her sister Felicity had chicken pox or measles or similar?

@BitOfFun apparently not, it was just they had to be twelve. Although I think there was some delay in Felicity attending.

Although if the first year girls were 12/13 by the sixth form wouldn’t that make them about 20 when they left? 😂

It did seem to be quite flexible how long you were there for!

I never quite worked out what was going on with the fourth form — in one book they definitely mention having a lower and upper fourth
But then, she only ever mentions one fourth form teacher, and Zerelda is moved from fourth to third, not upper fourth to lower.