Angel, Devil or Somewhere in the Middle: The Mind of Enid Blyton

As a child, I grew up reading books by Enid Blyton- she was the reason I started reading in the first place. At a younger age, I looked at her books as stories packed with action and interesting people: full of children like me but with more thrilling lives. Her books struck me as intense, adventurous- but they were never repetitive.

As I grew older, though, with my energy focused on different things, her books became the opposite of what they used to be: they became synonymous with peace, relaxation. They were an escape, all the same- just from different things this time. And now, they were more important.

It seems strange, though, to read so many books written by a single person, to explore every corner of their mind- without actually knowing anything concrete about the person themselves. It was only in 2018 that I got curious about the life of my favourite author and began to read about her, starting with a biography by Barbara Stoney, with a foreword from Enid’s daughter, Gillian Baverstock.

The book shattered all my illusions of the perfect, motherly Enid Blyton, and changed my perception of her forever.

Enid Blyton, it turns out, was in a way quite similar to me. She was also constantly looking for an escape from reality- and this was all I could understand of her. For Enid Blyton was, in fact, an enigma. A mystery.

Every person who knew Enid Blyton had contradictory opinions of her. It’s puzzling, to say the least: even her own daughters, Gillian and Imogen, have completely different things to say about her.

While Gillian, her older daughter, claims that Enid Blyton was an excellent mother who always made it a point to spend quality time with her daughters, her sister, Imogen Smallwood has something different to say. In 1989, Imogen Smallwood penned down a book, ‘A Childhood at Green Hedges’, where she shattered the perfect world of Enid Blyton by claiming: ‘The truth is Enid Blyton was arrogant, insecure, pretentious, very skilled at putting difficult and unpleasant things out of her mind and without a trace of maternal instinct.’ She also claimed that most of her mother’s visits to the nursery were hasty, angry ones, rather than benevolent.

This undoubtedly came as a shock to people worldwide, to whom Enid Blyton was more than just an author to look up to: she was practically a parent figure.

When I first started reading Enid Blyton’s biography, I was lost and confused. This was the author who’d written all my favourite stories, the author who my childhood revolved around? It didn’t take time for me to realize that the stories Enid Blyton wrote were not Enid Blyton. Her stories weren’t an outpour of magical ideas, more an escape from anything that was not magical.

To understand Enid Blyton fully would be impossible, I believe: but her own life story does provide an insight into her emotions and actions. It is truer for her than for anyone else- her past shaped her entirely. It moulded her into the person who thousands admired all around the world, but more so: the person who survived solely through her writing.

Enid Mary Blyton was born on 11^th August, 1897 in a two-bedroom flat in the South of London. Shortly after her birth her parents moved to Beckenham in Kent.

She shared a close, loving relationship with her father, Thomas Carey Blyton. They had overlapping interests, and spent most of their time together enjoying nature walks, theatre, art, music and literature. Enid’s relationship with her mother, Theresa, was more turbulent as they did not share any interests. Theresa could not understand her daughter’s artistic inclinations, and considered it a waste of time. She insisted on Enid helping her with household chores, but gave her sons more freedom- something Enid detested.

It's strange for me to admit, but I expected Enid Blyton to be a bad student. It was something I had given a lot of thought, and I had perfectly sensible reasons to believe so.

Firstly, a lot of well-known personalities that went on to shine in later life were known to be absolutely terrible students: Walt Disney, Albert Einstein and Charles Dickens are just a few examples of this. I expected Enid Blyton to be one of these successful people: a dunce when it came to academics, but extremely bright and curious otherwise.

Another reason for my belief was that Enid was more inclined towards arts and creativity- writing just being one of the several creative talents she had. I imagined she would be distracted, careless and lost, constantly making up stories in her head- intelligent and talented, undoubtedly, but lacking interest in anything other than arts.

The protagonists that Enid built in her boarding school series- namely, in Malory Towers and St.Clare’s- were always the perfect students. From academics to sports to emotional maturity- they excelled in everything, and were well-rounded students of the schools they belonged to. They were sensible, self-aware and had very strong ideas of good and bad. They looked down upon students who focused all their energy into doing just one thing: characters who didn’t like sports or didn’t excel at academics were often tutted at and ended up improving for the better: that is, becoming characters who understood the importance of balance. I always believed these characters to be a projection of what Enid wished she could have been. As someone who didn’t exactly enjoy sports and spent most of her time reading, I always felt like these characters would look down upon me- but at the same time, I hoped that Enid would understand. The thought of my favourite author disliking me was more than I could bear- still is.

My presumption that Enid was a bad student, though, was far from the truth. Enid was always a perfect child, with a happy childhood. She was an ideal student at school- something the characters in her books carried forward from her, unlike what I always believed. She was quick minded and excellent at studies, played every sport she could, and loved music and nature walks. She shined brilliantly throughout her school life, and when she was older, she ended up becoming head girl of her school.

In 1910, though, when Enid was only thirteen, Enid’s father left her family to go live with his mistress. This abandonment shook Enid to the core, and had a long-term effect on her physical and emotional development- it was something that came back to haunt her years later as well.

Left with her mother, who she did not get along with, Enid began to lock herself up in her room and write obsessively as an escape from reality, in a pattern that she continued to follow till her death. A pattern that she may have mistaken for productivity, which it was, of course: but more than that, it was a coping mechanism, something that got unhealthy, even, after a point.

Enid did not mention her father’s abandonment to anyone, not even her closest friend. It was something that she was intensely ashamed of, and perhaps she even blamed herself for it.

It seems likely that with the unhesitant and unending blocking out of reality, Enid began to dissociate from the events of her life without even realizing it- and finally reached a point where she was desensitized entirely to reality. Her writing had become her reality.

When Enid was growing up, her parents wanted her to pursue a career in the piano. In the beginning, she enjoyed playing the piano, but after her father left her family, she began to detest all the time that the piano took away time for her writing.

She was still in touch with her father, however, and he was insistent that she become a pianist. She did not know how to tell her parents that she did not want to pursue a career playing the piano.

The answer to this came to her in the form of a friend, who told her about a teaching job in Woodbridge, Suffolk. Enid had a natural affinity for teaching, and adored children. She got the job, left home and cut all ties with her mother. She never mentioned her parents or family at the school where she taught, and her colleagues believed her parents to be dead.

If Enid ever happened to dislike someone in her life, she usually succeeded in cutting them off by pretending they didn’t exist at all. She did the same with details of her life that she did not like, and continued to do so until her death.

Enid remained a teacher for several years, and was excellent at her job. She would write stories and poems to narrate to the children, teach them moral lessons and eventually, ended up creating her own syllabus for the students. Ages later, when a grown-up student wrote to her to reminisce on their days together, she wrote back, describing her years as a teacher as the “best years of her life.”  

Throughout these years, Enid continued to write and send manuscripts to publishers, until the publishing of her first book- a collection of children’s poems called ‘Child Whispers.’ This success only made her write even more- including writing for her own weekly column ‘From my Window’ in Teachers’ World. She eventually quit her job as a teacher.

Enid remained in touch with her father throughout all this time, but when he passed away in 1920, she did not attend his funeral- choosing instead to completely ignore his death and remain in denial.

She met Major Hugh Pollock, an editor at the publishers’ George Newnes, in 1924, and was instantly in love. “I want him for mine,” she wrote in her diary- it seems like a mixture of stubbornness, determination and obsession. She did succeed in having him to herself, though, and they got married soon after, and moved to their first house- the charming little Elfin Cottage, in 1926. In 1929 they moved to Old Thatch, a sixteenth-century thatched cottage with a lovely garden near the River Thames in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire. Enid described it as being "like a house in a fairy tale." 

Enid Blyton, I used to think, was too good for anyone. But that was before I read about Hugh Pollock. Hugh Pollock was, undoubtedly, too good a person for Enid Blyton. He was constantly encouraging and utterly in love with her. I have no doubt that if he had to, he would, without hesitation, lay down his life for her.

It was now that Enid’s father’s abandonment came back to haunt her, in a way she never expected it would. Being so fond of children, Enid wanted to have her own. However, she was having difficulties conceiving a baby. On seeing a doctor, she found out that she had an under-developed uterus, equivalent to that of a girl aged twelve or thirteen- her age when her father abandoned her.

Ironically, when Enid did have her own children, she was unable to connect with them as a mother.

When Enid and Hugh moved to the Old Thatch, they had more of a social life, and attended several dinner parties, tennis games and so on.

They also had several pets- including a fox terrier called Bob, from whose point of view Enid started a column in a magazine called Letters to Bob, a column that she continued long after Bob had actually died: another one of her ways to block out reality. She also did not allow Bob to be buried in the backyard, instead refusing to believe that he had died at all.

Enid was finally able to conceive, and her first daughter, Gillian, was born in 1931. Her second daughter, Imogen followed in 1935.

In 1938, Enid published her first full-length novel, The Secret Island.

She began to spend even more time writing, and increased her domestic staff to take care of the house and the children. She played with her daughters for an hour after tea, and barely got to spend any time with Hugh, who was working with Winston Churchill on a book about the First World War.

Hugh began to fall into depression when he realized that the world was on the brink of another war, and resorted to alcohol. This led to the deterioration of their relationship even more.

Enid was known to be incredibly strict with her domestic staff, once firing a nanny who had been taking care of Gillian for three years just because she dropped her once. She did not grant leaves to anyone working for her, and was known to be rude to them. This was strange, coming from someone who was usually remarkably kind and sweet to everyone- her stories and poems, in fact, were all based on being a good person.

Maybe it was because Enid herself, was relentless with her work, and had unrealistically high standards. She never took a break from work, no matter how sick she was, and probably expected the same from those who worked for her.

Enid’s audience around the world began to grow, along with her work. She began to receive hundreds of letters from children around the world, and made it a point to personally reply to as many as she could. With success, there were also rumours. Rumours that Enid did not write her books herself. How could someone possibly write over twenty-five books in a year? The answer, of course, was known only to Enid: writing was her everything, it was all she ever did.

Enid began to use her platform positively, encouraging people to donate to animal foundations and other such charities. With her influence, she succeeded in collecting high amounts of money, and updated her readers regularly on how the charities were doing.

Meanwhile, Dorothy Richards, a maternity nurse, came to work with Enid for a few weeks, after Imogen was born. Unexpectedly, they became very close, and remained friends for a long, long time. Dorothy became a sort of mentor to Enid, who always turned to her for advice.

In 1938, Hugh fell ill and was admitted to the hospital. During this time, Enid, along with Dorothy, arranged for the family to move to a bigger house, and her readers ended up choosing the name of the house- Green Hedges.

In 1941, Enid met Kenneth Fraser Darrel Waters, the man who was to be her second husband. Hugh, meanwhile, was also in a relationship with novelist Ida Crowe. Hugh and Enid got divorced in 1942.

Enid’s treatment of Hugh after their divorce was terrible. For the sake of Enid Blyton’s public image, an agreement was made. The divorce was blamed on Hugh and his mistress, and in return, Hugh would be free to see the children and meet them often. However, Enid soon went back on her word, and refused to allow Hugh any access to his children at all. This was extremely strange on her part- after having a childhood without her father, one would think she realized the difficulties of it- instead, she deprived her own children of their father as well.

This could be seen as simple pettiness, or it could be an immature, jealous Enid not wanting her children to have the childhood that she never had- whatever it was, Hugh never saw the children again.

Enid blocked him out of her life entirely, like she did with everything else that was less than ideal- and in her autobiography, she gave the impression that Kenneth was the father of her children.

Enid also got Hugh blacklisted from every publishing house that existed, making it impossible for him to find a job and eventually, he ended up going broke.

Gillian found out years later that on the day of her wedding, Hugh stood outside the church to watch her, after seeing her wedding announcement in a newspaper. However, Gillian, who was devoted to her mother, avoided contacting him while Enid was alive, in fear of hurting her feelings. Years later, after the death of her mother, Gillian searched for her father’s whereabouts so she could see him again, but he died a week after she found him- and they never saw each other again.

The condition presented to Hugh so he could see his children, though, made one thing crystal-clear: Enid Blyton’s brand was carefully constructed- right from the signature etched on the cover of her books to what the media said and thought about her. In fact, Enid was said to be insanely controlling, manipulative and secretive- people thought of her what she wanted them to think of her.

Enid had a tendency to completely block out of her life and erase anything she didn’t like. She seemed to constantly be in denial of reality, and this seemed to be her motive for most things she did that were, without her knowledge, not good. Writing, hence, seemed to be something that she needed to stay sane. This also explains how she wrote over 700 books in her lifetime.

During her later years of writing, Enid Blyton was criticized severely for her writing being repetitive and unchallenging for children. She was criticized for being conservative, and painting the picture of a Britain that no longer existed. Her writing was said to lack depth, and her books were removed from hundreds of libraries and stores. She genuinely did not understand criticisms of her writing. Her response to these criticisms was always that she did not care for the opinion of a single person who was above the age of twelve.

While Enid’s daughter, Imogen couldn’t care less about the works of her mother, her granddaughter, Sophie was kinder, and had an explanation for what the critics had to say.

“Her writing is that of an intelligent 12-year-old. In my view that’s why adults find it difficult to relate to her because she doesn’t quite have the depth; it has that childlike quality,” Sophie told The Guardian in 2006.

This, perhaps, is the best explanation of all: Enid Blyton never really grew up. She knew exactly what children loved to read- perhaps because she, herself, was still a child at heart. According to me, she always remained the little girl who was abandoned by her father, and never learnt to live in the real world.

If what Imogen claims is true, then it is hardly surprising: Enid Blyton was a child herself, and that made other children nothing but rivals to her.

In the late 1950s, Enid’s health began to deteriorate.

All her denial finally began to catch up with her, and she was entirely lost- barely able to formulate words and unable to write anything. She became confused, and wanted to return to her childhood home with her parents- where she thought she still lived.

It was at this time that her husband, Kenneth, reconnected her with her brother- after she expressed a desire to talk to him. Her brother took her back to her childhood home to show her that nothing of the past remained.

But she forgot this soon after returning to Green Hedges, and soon enough, she began to beg to go back there again.

Gillian and Imogen were living away from home by then, but did their best to take care of Enid- however, her health continued to deteriorate physically and mentally. She was constantly in a daze- sometimes, she would come out of this state of semi-dreaming for a few minutes, usually with children.

Gillian remembers one particular visit where her mother excitedly told her that she had written another Noddy book. Gillian was hit by a wave of sadness when she read it, and realized that it was a few sentences that made no sense at all.

Enid confessed to Imogen that while previously, she had always kept busy- now, with nothing to do, she could feel her thoughts ‘closing in upon her.’ She was, perhaps, guilty of the way she treated her mother and Hugh- realizing she was in the wrong. She could not live in her fantasy world any longer.

Kenneth, meanwhile, was ill himself. In his last few years, however, he continued to fiercely protect Enid- dealing with her business affairs, covering up her bad memory and never leaving her side. He began to put their affairs in order, and burnt all of Enid’s old diaries. In 1967, on the 15^th of September, there was one clear entry in Enid Blyton’s diary: ‘My darling Kenneth died. I feel lost and unhappy. I loved him so much.’

The news of Kenneth’s death seemed to have shaken Enid and penetrated the daze she was in, cruelly bringing her back to the real world. For the next few days, she returned to her normal state- taking care of Kenneth’s last rites and remaining affairs. After this, she was lost again.

Enid Blyton passed away on 28^th November, 1968 at the age of 71. The year 2018 marks her 50^th death anniversary. But she remains one of the best children’s author, and her books continue to sell- having sold over 600 million copies, and been translated to 90 languages.

Enid Blyton was certainly more complex than the usual person- but there are some things that I now understand better than when I first read her biography.

First, the world of Enid Blyton was never real. It was as much of an escape to her as it was to me. Enid’s world was perfect, idealistic and a happy place. Everyone knows that nothing bad can happen in an Enid Blyton book, including Enid Blyton herself. In reality, there are no children in the world solving adventures, no picnics on magical hills with boiled candy, lemonade and liquorice, no schools like Malory Towers and St.Clare’s. Reality is shit, and Enid did a great job of escaping it and of helping others like her to escape from it.

Secondly, I realized: Enid Blyton, my favourite author, does not have the right to hate me. I am no protagonist from her St.Clare’s or Malory Towers series- I am nowhere near to how perfect, how sensible, how well-rounded they are. But here’s the thing: neither was Enid. For a few years, yes, she succeeded in being the near-perfect girl, but what after that? Enid Blyton never really lived: because she refused to. Enid Blyton thought it was acceptable and normal to escape the real world as much as she could. And yes, she created masterpieces and several other worlds- but Enid Blyton was not an all-rounder. And she can’t look down upon me for being dreamy and lost, if she herself was no different. I guess she still wouldn’t like me, though- I take her for jealous and ambitious and competitive and intimidating. (It’s a relief that she wont judge me for being dreamy, though- that’s all I’m saying.)

Thirdly, I came to the realization that we all have a little bit of Enid Blyton inside us. Maybe she wasn’t so complex, so inexplicably mad after all. Either you have the heart of a child like Enid did, or everything you say is carefully thought-out and conforming to a certain image. Maybe you’re unrealistic, lost and dreamy, or maybe you’re petty and immature.

Not all good traits- but all Enid Blyton traits, nevertheless.  

For several years while I was growing up, Enid Blyton was, to me, simply a beautiful signature on the cover of a book- but now, she is much, much more than that.

It changes everything, of course- in fact, I may even regret reading her biography.

But one thing, I know for sure: when I pick up an Enid Blyton book, everything will be the same again.