Timmy will be played by a border collie. Wrong. Just so wrong.

[PretzelKnot]

According to Wikipedia, Timmy will be played by a border collie in the new BBC Famous Five adaptation.

This is outrageous. I know some of the 80s editions of the books had Timmy on their cover as a border collie but he’s not. He’s a huge, fearsome, loyal protective mongrel who can hold back a bunch of bad guys in a tunnel allowing the kids to escape. Border collies are lovely and highly intelligent but no border collie could hold back a tunnel full of armed bad guys.

Here is the original description of Timmy-

“They sat up and looked to see what Timothy was like. They saw no
fisher-boy—but instead a big brown mongrel dog with an absurdly long
tail and a big wide mouth that really seemed to grin! He was bounding
all round George, mad with delight. She came running down to them.

‘This is Timothy,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think he is simply perfect?’

As a dog, Timothy was far from perfect. He was the wrong shape, his head
was too big, his ears were too pricked, his tail was too long and it was
quite impossible to say what kind of a dog he was supposed to be. But he
was such a mad, friendly, clumsy, laughable creature that every one of
the children adored him at once.”

Border collies already get a lot of glory in movies and TV shows. Now they are stealing a mongrel’s chance to shine.

I bet the film will.be about 3 minutes long once they have edited out anything that would be deemed offensive nowadays 😉

Labs are lovely but they aren’t a patch on a border collie, nothing like as clever and handsome

The bags of macaroons wouldn't have stood a chance if Timmy had been a lab.

Of course he did. He was Mr Rottweiler for good reason!

Of course he did. He was Mr Rottweiler for good reason!

True, that - I think he actually scared me even more as Mr Rottweiler (watching Bottom as an adult) than he did as Tiger Dan (watching FF as a child)!

IMHO, this is exactly why George presented the way that she did: she never rejected actually being female (never asked to be called 'he' etc.), but she outright refused to be burdened with the inferiority baggage that was routinely assigned to girls of her time. She was a pioneer.

she was always pleased when people mistook her for a boy though.

poor old Anne always being relegated to housekeeping g and making the cave/tent/hut homely.

Plus his farts would have been a nuisance when they were sleeping in a cave/tent etc.

Dick was great. Julian would no doubt have grownup into a Tory MP.

There was one book where she had a massive strop and said something like ‘I won’t be a girl, I’m a boy!’ I wonder if she changed as an adult?

Here's Timmy - https://worldofblyton.com/2013/08/18/everyones-favourite-dog/

There is some very fab fic around where Julian is married to Sally Hope from Malory Towers and they have a threesome with Felicity Rivers

Not one for your eight year old to read

He was a border collie in the 80s tv show so that’s how I picture him.

*fan fic

I thought he was a border collie

@kierenthecommunity ...oh god I have that image in my head now and I feel 🤢

There is some very fab fic around where Julian is married to Sally Hope from Malory Towers and they have a threesome with Felicity Rivers

That's funny. When a pp saw him as a Tory MP I imagined him as a Neil Hamilton type Tory who then goes all UKIPy. And of course attends swinging parties with his delightful wife.

In one of the early ff books they have a conversation about "when I grow up" - Julian says "something worthwhile, like a scientist", Dick says "I will be a doctor", George "live on Kirrin island with Timmy" and Anne wasn't asked or didn't volunteer any info (upper middle-class housewife no doubt!)

As an aside Doctors/Surgeons are often idolised in many EB books (Malory towers, House on the corner especially) - this was a nod to EB's second husband who was a surgeon.

I always thought he was a border collie too. Possibly from book illustrations
I don't think I read all lf the books so must have missed the description of him.

Famous Five Julian did indeed become a politician. He died in suspicious circumstances in the 1980s but lived on in ghost form. There were a few series about him.

The Eileen Soper illustrations are right. But they are just line drawings mostly.

I reread FF (and most of the other EB series) over lockdown, and I'm definitely cured of mu childhood crush on Julian.

That makes so much sense!! I love that!

You beat me to it.

she was always pleased when people mistook her for a boy though.

There was one book where she had a massive strop and said something like ‘I won’t be a girl, I’m a boy!’ I wonder if she changed as an adult?

I still maintain that she never wanted to BE a male, or thought of as one for the sake of it - but that, in the times she lived, 'boy' was shorthand for 'allowed to do fun and exciting things'; and 'girl' meant 'made to stay at home, be quiet and pretty and help mummy with the washing up'.

If somebody offered you your choice: either a blue box containing a gooey creamy chocolate fudge cake or a green box containing half a dozen sticks of celery, almost everybody would choose the blue box - but it would have nothing to do with them having an overall preference for blue things or green things in any way.

In her time, George probably saw the only two available options for children as being a blue-box-boy or a green-box-girl and, unsurprisingly, saw no reason why she shouldn't have a right to the much better one, regardless of how the box was described.

You may reignite it if you read that fan fic. He’s a very considerate lover 😂

Fliss finds Sally very delightful indeed. They have a little dress rehearsal between themselves first 😉