Colm O'Regan: Enid Blyton may be outdated, but my kids are into the adventure

Irish Examiner

20-06-2025

Enid Blyton – or Gnid Blitten as I used to pronounce it when I couldn't make out the cursive.
The famous signature that's on the front of about 600 different books is back on a couple of charity shop Famous Five books that are in the house.
The signature of a woman who has been given a fair bit of fairly fair criticism over the last 60 years.
Time has not been kind to attitudes toward the Famous Five.
For decades, they have got a lot of criticism for sexism, racism, classism, outdated stereotypes, and repetitive plots.
Just like the Simpsons or Bosco or Rugrats or Glenroe's Dick Moran, none of the Famous Five seem to age.
Ian Mander, a contributor to an Enid Blyton fansite, has worked out that by last book 'Five Are Together Again', Julian should be 23, Dick and George 22 and Anne 21. Yet still Anne seems nervous about life in general.
But with all that, I'm still reading them to the children. Maybe it's nostalgia, recapturing how I felt. But also, they're still great for an escape.
To a land of cycleable rural roads, cream buns and nothing resembling responsibilities.
The first rule of many books for children is Kill the Parents so that the children can do some adventuring. But the Famous Five is not just escapism for children. It's also for parents.
Aunt Fanny and Uncle Quentin's approach to childcare is refreshing in that they don't seem to do much of it at all.
They, along with the childrens' parents, send the children off to boarding school, and then during the holidays, don't mind them at all.
Often, the plot hinges on Aunt Fanny and Uncle Quentin allowing four preteen children to head off into the countryside by themselves.
Gráinne Seoige digs into a Famous Five book in 2005. Pic: Fennells
In Five Get Into Trouble, Uncle Quentin mixes up the date of Easter and attends a conference during the holidays despite all the children coming to visit.
The solution? The children will just go cycling and camping for a week.
Aunt Fanny is worried, but Quentin just says, 'Oh, Fanny, if Julian can't look after the others, he must be a pretty feeble specimen.' A reminder: Julian is 12.
Dick gets kidnapped in this book. I'm not judging Quentin and Fanny, but you'd have to say the two facts are linked.
The Famous Five are not exactly strong on DEI programmes.
Anyone who is different: Roma, circus folk, foreigners, the working class, are all given short shrift and are really only welcomed into the circle of trust when they've saved their lives.
And that's with some of the worst stuff edited out over the years.
There is a lack of garda vetting. Both Jo, an orphan with a jailed thief for a father, and Nobby, an orphan with a thief for an uncle, are handed over to other families after the aforementioned blood relatives are jailed without a single bit of paperwork.
And yet despite all this, my children like the books.
They know the Famous Five, apart from Timmy (who has the best radar of any of them), are sometimes unpleasant children. And the attitudes were different then. But that's fine.
Enid Blyton mightn't have noticed that her heroes can sometimes be little shitebags but sometimes very generous with doling out sandwiches. That level of nuance is good for children now.
They can appreciate a flawed main character and how the past was a cold place if you were different.
Their favourite bits are not always the characters anyway.
It's the idyllic countryside, barrelling out the door to go adventuring, the wearing of ragged old shorts and patched up jumpers, placid horses, secret passageways in wood panelling, and swimming in clean rivers.
That, at least, is timeless.