Blyton’s sun in wartime
QUESTION Does anyone who grew up during the war remember Enid Blyton’s Sunny Stories?
Enid Blyton was, for many years, Britain’s best-loved children’s author. Perhaps most famous for her Famous Five and Secret Seven stories, she has sold more than 600 million books, which have been translated into 90 languages.
Sunny Stories was a children’s magazine published by George newnes. it began as Sunny Stories For little Folk in 1926 and was edited and written by Enid Blyton.
owing to Blyton’s increasing popularity, the magazine was renamed Enid Blyton’s Sunny Stories in January 1937 and began serving as a vehicle for Blyton’s books, which appeared as serials. Copies were sold for 2d.
Sunny Stories For little Folk ran for 250 issues between July 1926 and november 1936. Enid Blyton’s Sunny Stories ran for 303 issues from 1937 to February 1953. Enid Blyton parted company from newnes and Sunny Stories in 1953 and launched Enid Blyton’s Magazine with Evans Brothers.
Louise Smith, Harrogate, North Yorks.
Sunny Stories were little paperback books. Every Saturday, on the weekly shopping trip to Blackburn Market, my mum would take me and my sister inside the old Market Hall where there was a book-exchange stall.
We would run straight to the pile of Sunny Stories (we called them ‘Enid Blytons’) and browse until we found two that we could swap for our own. i think we paid one penny to borrow them for a week. if we bumped into Granny, she would ‘treat’ us.
those Sunny Stories changed sticky hands so many times they became scruffy and stained and you could hardly read the words. At this point, the lady would sell us a little pile for next to nothing.
Funnily enough, i don’t ever remember having been given a brand new one to swap in the first place.
did we ever feel deprived? did we heck! We couldn’t wait to get home and bury our heads in our Enid Blytons.
Mrs E. Haworth, Blackburn, Lancs. yES, i certainly remember them. i loved them. i still have a copy dated Friday, September 21, 1945. it starts with a letter from Enid Blyton herself — letter heading Green Hedges, which was her home in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire from 1938 until near her death, and where she wrote most of her books.
the headline story in my issue is called ring the Bell And run Away, and there are also two others, Connie in trouble, and Mr Goody’s Spell — Mr Goody being a ‘brownie’, or elf, who got too near the fire and burnt off his beard.
there were also prizes awarded for the best poems, plus puzzles, a letter from tell-tail topsy the dog and, on the back cover, an advert for California syrup of figs featuring a merrily dancing Helen.
the price of the little magazine was 2d fortnightly, and i always looked forward eagerly to its arrival.
Enid Keill, High Wycombe, Bucks.
QUESTION Are there any laws stipulating where human ashes may not be scattered?
There is nothing in the Cremation Act 1930 that (by law) restricts those disposing of ashes. However, on private land, you should seek the landowner’s permission.
Sites with carefully balanced ecosystems, particularly mountains, should be taken into consideration to avoid spoiling the characteristics that inspired your choice. due to the delicate ecological balance in these areas, the phosphate in ashes can affect native plants, so it is recommended that ashes are scattered away from other people, the summit and main tracks.
For example, the nevis landscape Partnership says the volume of cremated remains at the peak of the mountain has changed the pH of the soil, affecting the survival of alpine plants.
it is acceptable to scatter ashes in the sea or in lakes. For rivers, the Environment Agency requests that you choose a day when it is not windy and that you are more than 1km upstream from an abstraction of water or a drinking source.
Louise Westwood, Birmingham.
QUESTION What are the ingredients of a classic fruit salad? A supermarket version contained watermelon.
The concept of fruit salad dates from 18th-century France, where it was called a macedoine, French for Macedonia.
originally, this referred to any disparate collection assembled within the same work. there were literary, musical and culinary macedoines, all named in honour of the plurality of ethnicities, religions and cultures that were incorporated within the Macedonian empire of Alexander the Great, which, in 323 BC, stretched from Pella (Macedonia) to Punjab (india). the cosmopolitan nature of a
macedoine meant that there were no hard and fast rules to a fruit salad, and so no reason why one should not feature watermelon — which have been cultivated in Spain since at least 961 Ad.
Gastronomic Macedonia originally referred to a combination of different vegetables cut into cubes and sauteed in butter, described for the first time in the French recipe book le Cuisinier Gascon, published in 1740 by louis Auguste de Bourbon, Prince of dombes.
the first English mention of fruit salad can be found in Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1861): ‘Fruit salads are made by stripping the fruit from the stalks, piling it on a dish, and sprinkling over it finely pounded sugar. they may be made of strawberries, raspberries, currants, or any of these fruits mixed; peaches also make a very good salad.’
Justine Taylor, St Andrews, Fife.
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