It is always a pleasure to receive feedback about my
weblog. This morning came an e-mail from
a gentleman called Cliff Watkins who brought my attention to the fact that the
dates on my earlier post speculating as to whether Enid Blyton wrote any poetry
during the First World War, are slightly incorrect. Many thanks Indeed Cliff.
Although the 1901 Census lists Enid Blyton as ‘born in 1898’,
she was in fact born in Dulwich on 11th August 1897. It seems that Enid did write poetry during
the First World War. If you scroll down
the excellent website of the Heritage Group in Beckenham (Kent, UK), you will find a school photograph taken in around 1914 showing what Enid looked like at that time. You will also
see that the trio of poems written by Enid and first published in ‘Nash’s Magazine’
during the First World War has been set to music by Gordon Carr. These were performed on 9th March
2013 in St. George’s Church, Beckenham.
Nash’s Magazine was a British Literary Magazine, which
merged in 1914 to form ‘Nash’s Pall Mall Magazine’ https://library.mcmaster.ca/archives/findaids/fonds/n/nashs.htm
Enid completed her secondary schooling in 1915 and enrolled the
following year on a teacher’s training course, which she completed in December
1918.
Enid Blyton’s work is still in copyright so I am
unfortunately unable to give you examples of the poems she wrote at the time of WW1.
