Enid Blyton (5 page)
Something of her unhappiness is reflected in this first published poem from Ipswich, which she entitled ‘Have You –?’
Have you heard the night-time silence, just when all the world‘s asleep,
And you’re curled up by your window, all alone?
Have you held your breath in wonder, at the sky so dark and deep?
Have you wanted just one star for all your own?
Have you seen a streak of glory flash across the summer sky,
When a star is tired of staying still so long?
Have you heard the night-wind whisper, as it softly passes by?
Have you caught the lilting murmur of its song?
Have you listened to the stories that the honeysuckle knows,
As it sends its fairy fragrance thro’ the night?
Have you kissed the tiny babies of the clinging rambler-rose?
Have you loved the passion-flowers with all your might?
Have you suddenly felt lonely, have you wondered why you should,
When you watched for shooting stars to flash their light?
Have you wanted some one near you, some one dear, who understood?
Have you never stretched your arms out – to the night?
Enid was overjoyed to find that in the June edition of
Nash’s Magazine
her rather sentimental little poem evoked a reply, written by Maud K.F. Dyrenfurth and entitled ‘I Have’. This spurred her on to further poetic efforts for the magazine and two months later ‘My Summer Prayer’ was published, a happier piece written during a long cycle ride she took with Ida to Felixstowe. After a busy week at school the pair were spending their usual weekend at Seckford Hall and on the Saturday morning decided to take a picnic and cycle the eleven miles or so to the seaside resort. It had been a perfect summer day and on the way back they stopped by some white railings to admire the sunset. Enid took out the pencil and pad she invariably carried with her and started scribbling. ‘Sorry, Cap’n,’ was her explanation to an impatient Ida, ‘I’ve got a poem coming on.’ The resultant ‘Summer Prayer’, a eulogy of what she saw in the countryside around her that evening, was published in the August edition of the magazine.
Enid’s habit of coining nicknames for herself and her close acquaintances and then acting out small fantasies with them was something that exasperated the practical, down-to-earth Ida, now engaged to be married to a young soldier she had known since childhood. But Enid continued to call her friend ‘Cap’n’ and herself ‘cabin-boy’, or ‘Richard’, and on walks together she would often act out the part, whistling noisily, plunging her hands deeply into her pockets and putting on a boyish swagger to keep up the pretence. Ida felt this behaviour extremely childish and not in keeping with a trainee teacher who would soon be responsible for young children herself. Only Mabel, it seemed, understood her young friend’s need for these occasional escapes from reality and would laugh over her nonsense, continuing to handle Enid, in her late teens and early twenties, like an irrepressible, lovable child.
During her final year at Ipswich, Enid had another poem accepted by
Nash’s Magazine.
‘Do You – ?’, published in September 1918, again had sentimental rhyming verses and a wistful air. This time no one took up her question poetically in a later edition of the magazine. Another poem, written about the same time but in a different mood, was in praise of her landlady’s date pudding, over which she had enthused at dinner one evening, but this was not to be published until many years later in one of her children’s magazines.
With a full programme of assistant teaching in the mornings, lectures each afternoon and private study in the evenings, time passed quickly. Enid took Part I of her National Froebel Union Higher Certificate during her first year, gaining first-class passes in geography, botany, handwork (including drawing) and a distinction in zoology. Surprisingly, she only gained a second-class pass in literature, though her other second-class pass – in mathematics – was not so unexpected, for she had never found this subject easy. By December 1918, she had completed her course with first-class passes in the practice of education, child hygiene, history of education and class teaching of children (between the ages of seven and fourteen) and was awarded a distinction for her paper on the principles of education.
She was now twenty-one years of age, a fully-fledged Froebel teacher and free to go her own way without reference to anyone, but she still welcomed the guiding hand of Mabel. Through her she heard of a junior teacher’s post at a new boys’ preparatory school at Bickley in Kent. She applied and was accepted. After making her farewells to the staff at the High School and the Hunts, she left Ipswich and closed a chapter of her life that she rarely mentioned again. Except for occasional references to a Froebel training, in later life she told no one, not even her daughters, anything of the people she met during that period or of Seckford Hall and the Hunts. Yet the testimonial given her on leaving by the Head Mistress, Miss M. Gale, was glowing:
Miss Enid Blyton has been a student in the Kindergarten Department of this school for the last two years. She has very good ability, is both musical and artistic and has shown teaching capacity of a high order. Enthusiasm and energy are marked characteristics. She has a real love of children and handles them well. Discipline is good, and she has an unusual power of interesting children. She has some literary gift herself and dramatic sense.
Miss Blyton has a high sense of duty, is reliable and thorough in all she undertakes, and her influence on children is very good.
As one of the best students we have had for some years, I can recommend her warmly for a responsible post.
M. GALE, Head Mistress
After spending Christmas with Mabel and her parents – ‘Grandpa’ and ‘Grandma’ Attenborough, as she was to call them from then on – she began teaching at Bickley Park School in January 1919.
In those days there were about twenty boys at the school, which was run from a small house in Page Heath Lane, Bickley. The Headmaster, Richard Brandram, had not long left the army and was a tall, good-looking man in his thirties, of whom Enid was always rather in awe. She was allotted a bed-sitting room but took her meals with the Headmaster, his wife Maud, their two young children – Dick and Joyce – and the only other member of staff, a Miss Hutson. Enid was now close enough to Beckenham for her to visit Mabel most weekends and she enjoyed the happy, relaxed atmosphere within the school.
This was her first opportunity to try out her teaching ideas on receptive young minds and her skill in handling the children was soon apparent. She had charge of half a dozen boys, aged between six and eight years of age, to whom she taught most general subjects, in addition to taking English classes with the senior boys, and her pupils have happy memories of their enthusiastic young teacher who made her lessons into games and told them such fascinating stories. To those whose work merited special recognition she awarded ribbons, similar to army decorations but worn on the arms, and different colours were used for the varying degrees of progress. When her pupils had reached the ‘peak of excellence’, as she termed it, they were made ‘knights’. Her lessons were equally inventive and she had no difficulty in holding the attention of her classes. She took the children on nature walks, played games and swam with them in the local baths.
Most of her spare time was spent in writing, but with the exception of a poem in
The Poetry Review,
she had no further success with publication. This poem – ‘The Poet’ – looked at the child who gave his own view of the world through his natural poetry (See Appendix 1). By the end of the year, Richard Brandram was well pleased at the progress his young pupils had made under her care, but by then Enid had told him that she would be leaving as she had been offered another post. Once again she took with her a written testimonial which highlighted the ability and flair she was never to lose:
Miss E. M. Blyton held a post on my staff from January to December 1919. During that period she had charge of my lowest form and took English subjects with the other forms also. She left me at her own desire to manage a small preparatory school elsewhere.
I was exceedingly sorry to lose her valuable assistance. She inspired her pupils with a real interest in whatever work they were engaged and consequently maintained discipline without any effort. Further, she was at great pains to instill into their minds high ideals of behaviour and manners, with eminently satisfactory results. To be able to lead small boys and to understand their ways is a gift given to few, but Miss Blyton has the secret.
R.A. BRANDRAM, M.A.(Cant.), Headmaster.
M
abel Attenborough had spent her summer holiday of 1919 in Cornwall, helping to look after the four young sons of her second cousin, Horace Thompson, whose wife, Gertrude, had been seriously ill. As David, the eldest boy, was recovering from diphtheria and had missed a considerable amount of schooling, Mabel had been helping the eight-year-old with his studies and it occurred to her that Enid would be an ideal tutor to continue with these lessons once he returned home. Her suggestion was enthusiastically taken up by the Thompsons and Enid was subsequently engaged to join the family in January 1920, as nursery governess to all four children.
Horace Thompson was an architect and chartered surveyor and he and his wife had lived at Southernhay – a pleasant, yellow-brick Victorian house in Hook Road, Surbiton – since their marriage. Surbiton in the ’twenties was not the Surrey town of large housing estates and busy roads that it has become today but a quiet, semi-rural suburb, and Hook Road itself was surrounded by fields and country lanes – something that pleased Enid greatly. She was given a small room at the back of the house with a large window overlooking the garden and it was here that she was to spend a great deal of her spare time over the next few years, writing. As she had once done at Elm Road, she took to locking her door, but this time it was to shut herself away for a while from her affectionate pupils, who never seemed to tire of her company.
She took her first classes with David and his seven-year-old brother, Brian, in the old day nursery at the side of the house and, when the summer came, lessons were conducted in the garden or on the verandah. After a while, the boys were joined by their young twin brothers, Peter and John, and Mollie Sayer, the daughter of a neighbour. Enid’s success with her young pupils, and the shortage of schools in the area, soon resulted in several other parents who lived nearby asking if their children could also be included in the classes. Much to her employers’ amusement and Enid’s delight, a small ‘school’ soon developed at Southernhay, with twelve boys and girls being taught at one time or another during the four very happy and eventful years she was to spend with the family.
With ages ranging from four to ten years, lessons had to be conducted with care, but it says much for the skill of her teaching that she was able to handle these so successfully that her pupils progressed remarkably well. She taught every subject herself and meticulously wrote full reports on every child at the end of each term. For the younger members the subjects were Reading, Writing, Numbers, Singing, Painting, Handwork, Games (cricket in the summer, football in the winter) and Acting. Additional subjects for those aged seven and upwards were: Arithmetic, History, Geography, French, English, Music (including piano tuition) and Nature Study. Her General Remarks were always written with care and at length and these old reports show something of the character of her pupils and her own sense of humour. She described one child’s singing voice as ‘a buzzing sound somewhere in his boots’, and wrote of another ‘…Most things come easily to him, and so more difficult things seem sometimes insuperable.’ She was quick to praise and give encouragement during her lessons but did not hesitate to wield her authority or reprimand firmly those who misbehaved.
All the Thompsons have happy memories of their teacher, whose ‘deep, throaty laugh’ could often be heard in and out of the schoolroom. It was her sense of fun which is particularly remembered by them today. One incident which kept the family entertained for many months occurred some two years after her arrival at Southernhay. Horace Thompson was holding a business dinner party and just before the guests were due to arrive, the parlourmaid fell ill. Without hesitation, and to the Thompsons’ amusement, the young nursery governess volunteered to deputise. Donning the maid’s cap and apron, she assumed what she considered to be the correct air of deference and carried off the whole evening superbly, waiting at table and attending to every need, without the subterfuge ever being discovered by the guests.
Although she was always willing to join in the children’s games she was, as Brian Thompson recalls, ‘an essentially practical teacher’ and even leisure hours were instructive. She would write small plays for the children to act, poems for them to recite and songs for them to sing and twice a year these would be incorporated into a concert for parents and friends. With Enid’s help, the children made the costumes, drew up the invitations and programmes, took the pennies at the door and made up the accounts, eventually sending the proceeds to Dr Barnardo’s Homes.
Enid’s method of teaching, which was built upon her Froebel training, her knowledge of the Montessori system imparted by Miss Flear and her own creative flair, constantly prodded the young minds to expand in all directions. David and John Thompson both claim that their interest in plant life, instilled into them by Enid’s enthusiastic ‘nature walks’ around Southernhay, led to their becoming nursery gardeners in adult life, and for the other members of the class these happy rambles through the woods and meadows were as enjoyable as they were instructive. She encouraged the children to catch pond life and read up everything they could about it, to collect butterflies and moths and follow up the full life-cycle of each specimen. Notes would be made on what the caterpillar fed upon, the time of year caterpillar and butterfly were to be found and the part of the country where they were most common. One summer, she gathered the children around her while she made a large, hot air balloon out of paper and, before it lifted skywards, over a methylated spirit pad, she attached a label giving Southernhay’s address. She was as excited as the children when the balloon’s label was subsequently returned from Belgium. This led to an interesting geography lesson in which maps were produced and the children were shown the balloon’s route and told something of the places over which it had passed and where it had finally landed.