To think that actually, Enid Blyton was a cold hearted bitch..

[Sparklyblue]

I have just been watching the film Enid, about her life. The treatment of her own children was absolutely shocking.

Abso bloody lutely Sparks.But did you see Helena Bonham thingy as Nigel Slaters step-mum in Toast the other night ?

I haven't seen it or read any Bios about her so I don't know enough to comment but I loved her books when I was little and hope my little one will read them when she's big enough.

Lots of artists behave questionably in their personal lives but are still loved for their talent.

I saw a bit of the Helena Bonham one on Enid, a while back, if that is factually correct, then UANBU!

Toast was great Maras.

I find it quite hard to be enthusiastic about EB as a writer writing for the pleasure of children when she was so vile to her own. The way she treated them is well documented - by them - doesn't make me enthuse about her.

Yes Northern, that is what shocked me so much. I read her books as a child. To be in touch so much with children through her books and be so utterly vile to her own was appaling.

Yes it's very upsetting - kind of makes the books false imo

Exactly how i'm thinking, the books seem very false to me now.

I remember seeing Imogen interviewed and saying that Enid used to write an article about "Gillian and Imogen" and how she would read them and think her mother must be referring to a different Imogen.

She wasn't a fantastically talented writer either and her references to people of other nations or people deemed to be lower-class were shocking.

What did she say about other nations/people Chipmonkey?

I would imagine she is a typical narcacist from the bits I have gathered about her.

Have not seen the film, so can not comment. But the life of Enid Blyton is well documented so yanbu.

It is true that she wasn't the best writer in the world but I do love her stories.

I caught the tail end of the film about her life, but not the title so I'm guessing it was Enid. I felt very unsettled after watching it as I devoured all of her books as a child and have been encouraging my reading age DC to do so too.

Feel very sad for her children, I was in tears when the children came round for a tea party and were eating jelly while Enid's own girls sat on the stairs and then were shooed away by a nanny.

That said, I'll still read her books to my own DC and let them read them on their own.

It's always the way isn't it? If a man is ruthless in business, claws his way to success but isn't a model father in the process he's a 'strict authoritarian'. A woman doing the same thing is automatically a bitch.... :) Motherhood in the middle-class 1920's/1930's with the prevalence of nannies, boarding schools and 'children should be seen but not heard' ideas was often a distant experience. Attitudes to class and nationality were also extremely different. Don't think it always applies to judge historical figures by modern standards.

To be fair, one of her daughters says she was a wonderful and very loving mother. That voice isn't heard anything like as much as the daughter who says the reverse.

I saw a biographical doc about her in which someone who knew her said they thought she had sort of ground to a halt in terms of emotional development and ability to relate or empathise with others, at the time her father died. Which was when she was a child, nine or so.

It seemed clear that very many people found her, in life, to be a fairly nasty individual.

Never seen the film. Always loved the famous five type books though, and I hope my DCs will too. I always separate famous people from their work - Eg am utterly convinced that Michael Jackson was evil but I still love his music.

Her daughter Gillian is lovely anyway. I met her when she did a talk about Enid, who lived locally.

I was about 12, and was utterly obsessed with mystery type books. I'd written my own one. Gillian offered to read it, so I sent it to her and she sent a two page letter back about it :)

I loved the magic faraway tree books and started to read them to my own DS who enjoys them too. I don't really know anything about her personal life though.

perhaps it is sour grapes from her children?
i dunno.
i saw enid a while ago and it was pretty upsetting

I haven't seen the program but I agree that we can't judge older books by modern standards. Well... we can judge them but I don't think they are "bad" books or badly written for holding the attitudes of the day.

Read any of the Bond books? Flashman (modern but written as if they weren't)? No less brilliant for being written in the language of the time.

I agree Jung - I try to separate famous people from their work and that's a lovely story re Gillian!

She certaintly seems to have been a very disturbed woman and one of her daughters didn't have a good word to say about her when she grew up. The other daughter seemed to be less angry about their upbringing, but that often happens in families I suppose.

sounds ;ike a working woman in a time and class where working women were often castigated to me

Apparently her elder daughter accepted the stepfather, while the younger never forgave her mother for blocking contact with their father. I can understand that, but he was an alcoholic apparently so you have to wonder what her reasoning was.

Her elder daughter's obituary gives a good precis.

I don't think there's any way to know the reality. But it's a TV drama, so not exactly documentary levels of fairness - the Hansel and Gretel would make for better telly than bog-standard screwed up family.

haven't seen it but I have picked up the same impression sparklyblue.

I enjoyed her books as adc but nowadays I find them a bit rambling. My dd used to enjoy reading them when she was smaller too.

I think it's a valid point about the middle class culture of the time, of which she was a part. (Being a member of the chav underclass I totally unrelate to the whole nanny/boarding school thing and the ability to give one's child an island for a birthday present).

I quite often get disturbed by books that show racism, written in a time when attitudes like that were dominant and acceptable. Thank G-d times have changed now.

That said, I still think Enid Blyton was a nasty individual but I think it's perfectly easy to enjoy her works. Someone's work isn't the total definition of a person. Loved the Faraway Tree and those boarding school stories....she also wrote some pretty decent nature notes as well.

Mummiehunnie if you were Irish, you had red hair and a bad temper, French, you were dishonest and had no sense of honour, American, basically a vain idiot. She'd never have gotten away with it now!

I think she was a terrible writer who was old-fashioned and quite offensive even by the standards of the day. I do take issue in the way that she is described as a "cold-hearted bitch" when a male author of her time would never be labelled as such. She was a working mother and one of ehr daughters had ishoos with her.