Daily Mail, Wednesday, August 28, 2019 Page 17
M
y mother
didn’t much
like me reading
enid Blyton
when I was a
child. I suspect it was for the
same sort of reason she
wouldn’t let me have a
Barbie doll: aspects of it
made her uncomfortable.
I had no such qualms. the
Famous Five were too jolly hockey
sticks even for me, but I loved the
demented fantasia of Blyton’s
Faraway tree series, with its
strange, dream-like characters —
moon-Face, Silky the Fairy, the
Saucepan man, Dame Washalot...
Noddy I wasn’t so keen on: he
felt like just a more priggish
version of Pinocchio. But he, and
many of Blyton’s other creations,
remain favourites in the pantheon
of children’s characters today.
that is why the decision by the
royal mint to reject a proposal for
a coin commemorating the 50th
anniversary (in 2018) of the life
and work of this quintessential
children’s author is so misguided.
minutes from a meeting held in
2016 and published at the week-
end reveal a proposal to celebrate
Blyton was scotched because
some unnamed person claimed
she ‘is known to have been a racist,
sexist, homophobe and not a very
well-regarded writer’.O
N What basis this
knowledge was
obtained is not clear,
but I strongly suspect
mr Google may have had some-
thing to do with it, since that
analysis is almost word-for-word
what Blyton’s Wikipedia entry
says (I checked!).
If the unnamed person had
bothered to investigate the source
material, they would know that
there is so much more to Blyton
than a simple rap sheet of a few
troublesome characters.
Because for all her flaws, you
cannot deny that she shaped the
world of children’s literature. her
compelling narratives inspired
millions of youngsters to learn to
love books.
Which is why enid Blyton
deserves to be acknowledged in
the traditional fashion as a signifi-
cant 20th-century figure.
Besides, if you banned the work
on the basis of the artist, you
would erase half of most major
works of literature at a stroke.
Creative people are often deeplytroubled individuals, and Blyton
was no exception. She was also a
product of her era, born in 1897.
But this is about more than just
one author, one woman. It’s about
the cultural revisionism that is
sweeping our nation, from univer-
sities to public institutions, the
BBC to the civil service, that seeks
to eradicate the works of all but
the most socially unimpeachable.
yes, some of what Blyton wrote
makes the modern reader wince.
So do works by Joseph Conrad,
Graham Greene and ernest hem-
ingway. But, like them, she was
also a damn good storyteller who
sold more than 600 million copies
of 700 titles worldwide.
Whatever else she was, she is
part of our cultural history. and it
is wrong to try to rewrite history,
however much you may despise
certain aspects of it.
Good storytelling is not afraid to
shine a light into the murkier
corners of the human psyche. the
attitudes and ideas Blyton
explores throughout her books —
prejudice, punishment, redemp-
tion — are, like it or not, universal
to the human condition.
We should talk about them
openly, not force them back into
the shadows.
the fact that she managed to
translate them into a style of
language understood and loved by
children is not an indication of
wickedness; it is, in fact, a mark of
her genius.SarahVine
Diana’s own principal dancer
As A child, I had an
imaginary friend who
lived on the moon and used
to visit whenever it was
full. Now we learn that
today’s children are too
distracted by screens for
such old-fashioned
reveries. Thus the
imaginary friend has
become another casualty of
the digital age, replaced by
an altogether more sinister
concept: the virtual friend.Imaginary friends can be a
sign of eccentricity, but
they are generally benign
and don’t hang around if
they’re not wanted; the
same cannot be said of
virtual friends, who could
be anyone from a middle-
aged pervert posing as a
16-year-old girl to the
school bully.
I know which I would
rather my children were
hanging out with.Failing
to deliver
humanity
[email protected]Columnist
of the year
OPTIMISTS live longer,
according to a new
survey. This may indeed be
the case, but let’s not
overlook the benefits of
pessimism. Not least, of
course, the fact that an early
death will spare you from the
mindless optimism of others.AND so we ‘look
forward’ to another
series of Strictly. Is it
just me or does this
annual tinsel-fest, like
Christmas, seem to start
earlier each year? It’s
still August, yet you
can’t escape Anton’s
swivel hips and Shirley’s
doesn’t-quite-reach-
the-eyes smile.
I wouldn’t mind wereit not all so predictable:
the spats, the snogs, the
manufactured contro-
versies, the terrible
fashion choices. To wit,
can someone explain
La Ballas’s red-carpet
dress to me? Is it an
apron? A bodice? Or did
she give her minders
the slip before they
could remove the rest
of her straitjacket?Shirley’s bodice-ripper
WArNINgs
from germany
that in the event of
a No-Deal Brexit,
exports to the UK of
sauerkraut,
schweinshaxe
(pig’s knuckle) and
other Teutonic
delicacies will
be halted.
With respect to
our german
neighbours, I’m not
sure that’s quite the
dire threat they
imagine it to be.RADIO 4’s Woman’s Hour has for years
sounded like a parody of itself; but this
weekend’s episode, presented by Tina
Daheley, was like a spoof within a spoof.
The subject: women in construction.
‘Why don’t more women work in this
traditionally male-dominated sector?’
Daheley demanded. Next week: Jenni
Murray asks why there are so few female
sperm-donors.THE American TV host Lara
Spencer has had to apolo-
gise for supposedly mocking
Prince George for taking
ballet classes. It prompted
thousands of aggrieved male
dancers to take to social
media to protest under the
hashtag ‘BoysDanceToo’. Cue
outrage. Or is it?
Actually, what Spencer saidwas: ‘We’ll see how long that
lasts’ — obviously not an
insult, more a reference to
the fact it can be hard to get
boys to stick to things like
ballet once they get older.
And she’s right. I know this
because when he was small,
my son was very keen on
dance — until some little tyke
at nursery told him it was‘for girls’. Which, having
once interviewed the Cuban
ballet dancer Carlos Acosta, I
can assure you it very defi-
nitely is not.
Either way, I’m sure Prin-
cess Diana — an avowed bal-
let lover — would be
delighted to know that her
elder grandson is following
in her footsteps.Time to tune out
the appearance of a harried
delivery driver at my front door
usually heralds the arrival of
some much-anticipated new
purchase. But how many of us
stop to think about the true cost
of our next-day service?
It’s not just the moribund high
Street, but also those caught up
in the race to deliver. a tragic
case in point is driver, Don Lane,
who worked for delivery firm
DPD. mr Lane died last year after
missing hospital check-ups
because he was too scared to
take time off. With good reason:
DPD fined him £150 for absence
over an earlier appointment.
In 2017 DPD made £121 million
profit and paid its highest earn-
ing director a salary of £987,000;
by contrast ‘self-employed’ mr
Lane got no holiday or sick pay.
Now his widow faces eviction
after falling behind on her rent.
of course, companies cannot be
held responsible for the financial
situations of their employee’s
relatives. however, while the firm
claims it monitored mr Lane’s
situation, this does seem like a
case of corporate inhumanity.
I, for one, would prefer to wait a
day or two longer for my internet
loot rather than be complicit in
Picture: KARWAI TANG/WIREIMAGE such savagery.Blyton’s
coin critics
have lost
the plot