We waited for the next book and when it arrived at the book store, we were there in lines to grab it. I spent my early years on Enid Blyton and The Hardy Boys—then graduated to James Hadley Chase and Earl Stanley Gardner. After that the pressures of High School did not ever allow me to read at the same pace—which could never be revived again. As one who grew up no Enid Blyton and her mystery stories reading the reality about the author was not a good day to start a Friday evening. The life and times of Ms. Blyton were surely different than what any of us had imagined.
I may decide to skip the move and live with my own impressions of one of the greatest children’s authors of our time.
Enid Blyton, the creator of Noddy, the Famous Five, the Secret Seven and Malory Towers, and whose books are still popular among children, was in
reality a “cold-hearted mother and vindictive adultress who set out to destroy her former husband”.
A UK television biopic, starring Helena Bonham Carter as the author of 753 books, which sold 600 million copies around the world. Her works still sell eight million copies a year.
Blyton lived at her cottage, Old Thatch, near the Thames at Bourne End, then at Green Hedges, a mock-Tudor house in Beaconsfield. Bonham Carter told a UK tabloid, “Enid’s self-awareness was brilliant and she was incredibly controlling, too. I was attracted to the role because she was bonkers. She was an emotional mess and quite barking mad. What I found extraordinary, bordering on insane, was the way that Enid reinvented her own life. She was allergic to reality — if there was something she didn't like then she either ignored it or re-wrote her life.”
“She didn't like her mother, so let her colleagues assume she was dead. When her mother died, she refused to attend the funeral. Then the first husband didn't work out, so she scrubbed him out. There’s also a scene in the film where her dog dies, but she carries on pretending he’s still alive because she can't bear the truth.”
“It was my job to understand how she became like this in the first place, not to judge her,” says Carter. Emotionally, Blyton remained a little girl. Her father left her mother when Enid was 12. “When Enid consulted a gynaecologist about her failure to conceive, she was diagnosed as having an immature uterus and had to have surgery and hormone treatment before she could have children.”
However, she was unable to relate as a normal mother with her two daughters Gillian and Imogen, with her first husband, Hugh Pollock. She is said to be distant and unkind to her younger daughter Imogen.
Imogen Smallwood, 74, told the tabloid: “My mother was arrogant, insecure and without a trace of maternal instinct. Her approach to life was childlike, and she could be spiteful, like a teenager.”
Bonham Carter says about Imogen, “We had email correspondence before Imogen visited the set. We agreed that I wasn't going to try to impersonate her mother because this is a drama. Imogen is sensitive, but was very supportive and gave me a few tips, such as how her mother did everything at immense speed because she was ruled by the watch. Enid's domestic life was seen as an interruption to her writing, which was her escapism.”
There is a poignant scene in the film where her daughters are banished to the nursery as Enid holds a tea party at home for her fans, or 'friends'. “Enid is one of the kids at the Famous Five tea parties — the jelly and ice-cream are as much for her as they are for her fans,” explains Carter.
Enid’s first marriage lasted 19 years, but as Enid's career took off in the Thirties, a depressed Hugh took to drinking while she managed to fit affairs in between writing. “The marriage deteriorated and Hugh moved out. She mocked him in later adventure stories, such as The Mystery Of The Burnt Cottage, as the clueless cop, PC Theophilus Goon,” says Daily Mail.
She then married surgeon Kenneth Darrell Waters, with whom she had a fulfilling sex life. Enid was also flirtatiousness and entertained servicemen to dinner while her husband was away at war and found them and their attention attractive. Reveals the tabloid, “Directors chose to omit some aspects of Blyton’s apparently sensual side, such as visitors arriving to find her playing tennis naked and suggestions of a lesbian affair with her children's nanny, Dorothy Richards. But the drama, which has been given the thumbs-up by the Enid Blyton Society, does highlight the author's cruel streak. When Hugh remarried, as she had done, Blyton was so furious that she banned her daughters from seeing their father.” TOI.Enid Blyton was an adulterous bully 13 November 2009, 10:53pm IST
Topics: Noddy, Enid Blyton
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