Fórum Mistério Juvenil Forum Index Fórum Mistério Juvenil
Grupo dos amigos do Mistério Juvenil
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 

Artigo de Jornal

 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Fórum Mistério Juvenil Forum Index -> ENID BLYTON - a escritora
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
bonecadeporcelana



Joined: 21 Mar 2010
Posts: 1176
Location: Lisboa

PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 6:19 am    Post subject: Artigo de Jornal Reply with quote

Fui dar com isto na Net :

Naked tennis, a lesbian affair with the nanny: New TV drama reveals Enid Blyton as a barking-mad adulterous bully
By Lisa Sewards

On paper, the world of Enid Blyton was one populated by happy, carefree children whose idea of bliss at the end of an adventure-filled day was a slice of plum cake washed down by lashings of ginger beer.
The setting was an idyllic Britain, one of thatched cottages and lych gates, a fairytale time, in an age of innocence.
But the creator of Noddy, the Famous Five, the Secret Seven and Malory Towers was in truth a cold-hearted mother and a vindictive adultress who set out to destroy her former husband.
'Enid's self-awareness was brilliant and she was incredibly controlling, too,' explains Bonham Carter. 'I was attracted to the role because she was bonkers. She was an emotional mess and quite barking mad.
'What I found extraordinary, bordering on insane, was the way that Enid reinvented her own life. She was allergic to reality - if there was something she didn't like then she either ignored it or re-wrote her life.
'She didn't like her mother, so let her colleagues assume she was dead. When her mother died, she refused to attend the funeral. Then the first husband didn't work out, so she scrubbed him out.
'There's also a scene in the film where her dog dies, but she carries on pretending he's still alive because she can't bear the truth.'
Emotionally, Blyton remained a little girl, stuck in a world of picnics, secret-society codes and midnight feasts. It acted as a huge comfort blanket.

Many of Blyton's obsessions can be traced to her father, who left her mother when Enid was 12. She then seized up emotionally and physically.

'It was my job to understand how she became like this in the first place, not to judge her,' explains Bonham Carter.

'When Enid consulted a gynaecologist about her failure to conceive, she was diagnosed as having an immature uterus and had to have surgery and hormone treatment before she could have children.'

The irony was that when she finally did have two daughters, Gillian and Imogen, with her first husband, Hugh Pollock, she was unable to relate to them as a normal mother.

She loved signing thousands of letters to her 'friends' the fans, encouraging them to collect milk bottle tops for Great Ormond Street Hospital to help the war effort, and even ran a competition to name her house, Green Hedges.
But her neighbours said Blyton used to complain about the fearful racket made by children playing.
She was distant and unkind to her younger daughter Imogen and there was clear favouritism in the way she privileged her elder daughter Gillian, who died two years ago aged 75.
The first husband: Hugh Pollock was prevented from seeing his daughters
Imogen Smallwood, 74, says: 'My mother was arrogant, insecure and without a trace of maternal instinct. Her approach to life was childlike, and she could be spiteful, like a teenager.'
Although Imogen prefers to remain private, she did visit the set to advise Bonham Carter. 'We had email correspondence before Imogen visited the set. We agreed that I wasn't going to try to impersonate her mother because this is a drama,' says Helena.
'Imogen is sensitive, but was very supportive and gave me a few tips, such as how her mother did everything at immense speed because she was ruled by the watch. Enid's domestic life was seen as an interruption to her writing, which was her escapism.'
There is a poignant scene in the film where Blyton holds a tea party at home for her fans, or 'friends' as she preferred to call them. But her daughters are banished to the nursery.
'Enid is one of the kids at the Famous Five tea parties - the jelly and ice-cream are as much for her as they are for her fans,' explains Helena.
'It's also significant that when her daughters go to school, a large mannequin of Noddy - her new child - arrives in the hall to take the place of the children.'
Blyton's first husband, Hugh, called her 'Little Bunny' and adored her. He helped launch her career after they met when he was her editor at Newnes, the publisher.

Blyton's first book, Child Whispers, a collection of poems, was published in 1922. She wrote in her diary soon after meeting him: 'I want him for mine.'
They were married for 19 years, but as Enid's career took off in the Thirties, Hugh grew depressed and took to nightly drinking sessions in the cellar while Enid managed to fit affairs in between writing.

The marriage deteriorated and Hugh moved out. She mocked him in later adventure stories, such as The Mystery Of The Burnt Cottage, as the clueless cop, PC Theophilus Goon.
After a bitter divorce, she married surgeon Kenneth Darrell Waters, with whom she had a fulfilling sex life.

Fulfilled: The author and her second husband Kenneth Darrell-Waters relax during a game of tennis in 1949
Although the drama shows Blyton's flirtatiousness - she entertained servicemen to dinner at the house while her husband was away at war and found them and their attention attractive - directors chose to omit some aspects of Blyton's apparently sensual side, such as visitors arriving to find her playing tennis naked and suggestions of a lesbian affair with her children's nanny, Dorothy Richards.
But the drama, which has been given the thumbs-up by the Enid Blyton Society, does highlight the author's cruel streak. When Hugh remarried, as she had done, Blyton was so furious that she banned her daughters from seeing their father.
According to Ida Crowe, who later married Hugh, Blyton's revenge was to stop him from seeing Gillian and Imogen, and to prevent him from finding work in publishing. He went bankrupt and sank into depression and drinking.
Ms Crowe, 101, is using her memoir, Starlight, published this month, to break her silence on her feelings towards Blyton, whom she portrays as cold, distant and malevolent. Ms Crowe confirms that during her first marriage, Blyton embarked on a string of affairs, including a suspected relationship with nanny Richards.
Yet Blyton could never forgive Hugh for finding happiness of his own when their marriage ended.
Rosemary Pollock, 66, daughter of Ida and Hugh, says: 'My father. was an honourable man - not the flawed, inconsequential one which was the deliberate misconception perpetuated by Enid.'
Ida and Hugh met when she was 21 and he was 50. In her memoirs, she describes him as 'shatteringly handsome' - tall and slim with golden hair and blue eyes.
After Ida narrowly escaped death in an air raid, she says, Hugh asked for a divorce and Enid agreed. The memoirs claim, however, that Hugh agreed to be identified as the 'guilty' party in the divorce in return for an amicable separation and access to their daughters.
But Rosemary says: 'This agreement was a sham because Enid had no intention of allowing him any kind of contact with either of the girls. She even told Benenden, the girls' boarding school, that on no account was their father, who was paying the bills, to be allowed near them.'
Ida and Hugh married within days of the divorce being granted in October 1943. Gillian and Imogen were 12 and eight. Rosemary got in touch with her half-sisters after Enid's death in 1968, at the age of 71.

Rosemary says: 'Gillian said the last time she saw her father was when they were walking to Beaconsfield station and she had this awful feeling she was not going to see him again.
'She said that on her wedding day, she looked around the church and hoped her father would turn up. My father said he was devastated not to have been invited to Gillian's wedding.'

Rosemary has also accused Enid of wrecking Hugh's literary career. 'Enid was capable of many vindictive things and she didn't want her former husband occupying a prominent position in London publishing, a world she dominated.
'My father had to file for bankruptcy in 1950 because he couldn't find work. She also put out a story that he was a drunk and an adulterer, and that he had made her life a misery.
'Incredibly, Enid even wrote to my mother three years after they had both remarried, saying: "I hope he doesn't ruin your life as he did mine."
'My father did drink, but it was in order to numb the pain. I never heard him criticise Enid. He would praise her remarkable talents.'
Certainly, Blyton is enjoying a renaissance. Disney UK is planning a new, animated feature called Famous 5: On The Case, in which the children of the original Five, and a dog, enjoy some new adventures.
She was also named Britain's best-loved author in a poll last month.
Imogen attributes her mother's success to the fact she 'wrote as a child with an adult's writing skills'.
Despite her private life, no amount of detraction will diminish Blyton as one of Britain's great writers who shaped millions of childhood imaginations. Although it may be harder for the adults they grew into to imagine what the creator of Noddy got up to in real life.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
bonecadeporcelana



Joined: 21 Mar 2010
Posts: 1176
Location: Lisboa

PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 11:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gillian Baverstock

Inspirational teacher and daughter of Enid Blyton who safeguarded and expanded her legacyGillian Baverstock – an admired teacher and a woman of old-fashioned good manners, charm and elegance – was also a sought-after authority on children’s literature, in particular that of her mother, Enid Blyton. She safeguarded not only Blyton’s estate but also her memory.

While Baverstock and her younger sister, Imogen (later Imogen Smallwood), were united in their admiration of Blyton’s gifts as a writer, they had always differed in their opinion of her as a mother. Gillian remembered her as warm and affectionate; Imogen as “without a trace of maternal instinct”. The details were eventually recorded in two books, one authorised by Baverstock and published by Barbara Stoney in 1974, and the other published by Smallwood 25 years later. Not least because Blyton had always been regarded as something of an enigma, the differences between them were the subject of considerable interest and discussion.

Gillian Mary Pollock was born in 1931. Her father, Major Hugh Pollock, to whom she was close, was a book editor and former soldier, and later a confidant of Winston Churchill at Chart-well. Her mother, who had trained as a teacher, had been a published writer for six years. The family lived in what Gillian called a “fairytale cottage” called Old Thatch in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire, where they had a beautiful garden and kept various birds and animals including fantail pigeons, doves, Siamese cats and a tortoise.

Gillian was looked after, like many children of that era, by nannies, “but my mother always seemed to have time for me. We would go to glorious buttercup meadows. We would go blackberrying. I would come and garden with her. I was always doing things with her.” Imogen was born four years later, by which time the family had moved to a larger house, Green Hedges, in Beaconsfield. Partly (Gillian thought) because her father had hoped his second child would be a boy, and partly because her mother’s career was taking off, Imogen got less attention. Indeed, in her autobiography she recalls realising for the first time “that this woman with dark curly hair and brown eyes, the absolute ruler of our household who paid me just as she paid the staff, was also my mother”.

When she was not busy Blyton could be good fun, bringing the children downstairs to play games, but during her working hours screams or laughter from the nursery – directly above her study – could lead to stern tellings-off or even the occasional physical punishment. When other children dropped by to ask for an autograph, Blyton would welcome them with an evident delight that contrasted, Imogen felt, with her attitude to her own children.

By 1940 Blyton’s marriage was in trouble – both she and Pollock had had affairs, and he was also drinking heavily – and they were eventually divorced. Shortly before her tenth birthday Gillian went with him to the station, never to see him again. Blyton then married Kenneth Darrell Waters, a surgeon, in 1943.

In Gillian’s memory he was “very nice to me. He tried to make me feel good about myself. He would dance with me. He made me feel I looked fine, which was a kindness.” In Imogen’s he was “foul-tempered, lousy socially . . . He was so possessive, he was like a clamp on my mother”. Some commentators attributed such differences of opinion to a failure on Baverstock’s part to confront difficult truths; others to a fundamental difference in personality, an idea supported to some degree by Imogen, who described herself as suspicious and defensive and Gillian as generous and outgoing.

Gillian was educated at Benenden School and St Andrews, where she read history. Her first job was as editor of a children’s encyclopaedia, and she was also editor of Enid Blyton’s Magazine for some years in the early 1950s. Her career in publishing was put on hold, however, when she married Donald Baverstock in 1957 (she later discovered that her father had observed the wedding from across the road). Baverstock was rising rapidly through the ranks of the BBC – he was editor of Tonight, producer of That Was the Week that Was and eventually controller of BBC 1 – and Gillian saw it as her duty to support him in every way. She shouldered most of the burden of raising their family while teaching part-time at a primary school. She was also a delightful hostess to friends and her husband’s colleagues.

When in 1967 Donald became director of programmes with the newly formed Yorkshire Television the family moved to Yorkshire, and from the mid1970s Baverstock was a teacher at Moorfields School in Ilkley. (She was later a governor.) She had a deep understanding of children and their thought processes, and whenever she was faced with a poor reader she brought in one of her mother’s books: “Within a couple of terms, I could get them up to standard. They were excellent for remedial reading, because the children wanted to continue reading.”

After her mother’s death in 1968, Gillian took on the responsibility for promoting her work. This became difficult for a time as Blyton was accused by critics of racism, sexism and snobbishness. Libraries and many schools banned her work (she is still frowned upon in some quarters, though she remains a bestseller and one of the most translated of British authors). Baverstock fought off political correctness and said of the golliwog in the Noddy books: “There was nothing racist about it. It was once a toy in an English nursery, just like a teddy bear,” while conceding that the character was inappropriate for a multicultural society.

Baverstock was delighted when the Famous Five stories were adapted for television in 1994, and as a musical in 1996. That year Darrell Waters, the family company which owned the Blyton copyrights, was sold for £13 million to Trocadero, co-owners of the Trocadero entertainment centre in Central London. Baverstock was instrumental in the sale and saw it as an opportunity to further disseminate her mother’s work. It did not end her involvement: the family retained editorial control and Baverstock was a director of the (now subsidiary) Enid Blyton Ltd for a while, and thereafter a consultant. She also advised the BBC on its Noddy magazine launched around the same time.

In 1997, to celebrate the centenary of Blyton’s birth, Baverstock published Enid Blyton, and unveiled a plaque at the house in Surbiton where she had written her first book, Child Whispers (1922) .In 1999 she and Tim Quinn, the comics editor, set up and published their own magazine, Blue Moon, which contained beautiful illustrations and took well-known fairy tales beyond their conventional endings. Sadly the magazine ran to only 12 issues.

Baverstock was president of the Enid Blyton Literary Society and, having a very broad knowledge of children’s literature and literacy, was in constant demand to speak at schools. She was also a supporter of the performing arts, particularly in Yorkshire. She sat as a trustee on the Michael Peacock foundation and worked tirelessly for the Wharfedale Music Festival. She saw drama and music as good ways of gaining confidence and self-assurance, and no opportunity was missed to encourage young people in their endeavours.

Baverstock was active in her church at Bolton Abbey, and enjoyed the traditional worship there.

Baverstock’s elder son died in 1983 after a car accident two years earlier. Her husband died in 1995 and her elder daughter of a heart attack in 2006. She is survived by a daughter and a son.

Gillian Baverstock, teacher and authority on children’s literature, was born on July 15, 1931. She died of cancer on June 24, 2007, aged 75
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Fórum Mistério Juvenil Forum Index -> ENID BLYTON - a escritora All times are GMT
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group