Life of a legend

SUDESHNA CHAKRABORTI

Did you know that Enid Blyton - the creator of characters like Noddy, Fatty, George - almost made music her career? Enid Blyton's aunt was a gifted musician and her father loved music. Through her childhood, she not only heard classical music played by her father, but also learnt to play the piano. She loved music too - to play as well as to hear, but she was sensible enough to understand that she could never be a composer. She wanted to create something and that was stories.

While Enid Blyton learned music - sonatas and nocturnes and passed one music examination after the other - she wondered how she could tell her parents that she did not want a career in music. A lot of money had been spent on her training. That made her hesitant.

Enid wrote a lot and hoped her writings would get printed. One author read one of her contributions and felt she could write. Her family members were realists and did not feel the need to encourage their daughter's fancy ideas.

So Enid wrote whatever she wanted - in secret, because almost everything she wrote came back with unfailing regularity. A major portion of her meagre pocket money went towards buying postage stamps. This went on for sometime but Enid would not give up. According to her estimate, she must have had "at least 500 things sent back" to her!

At 17, about to leave school, she could not tell her parents that she wanted be a writer. She started to prepare for an important music examination. At that time, she went to spend a part of the summer holiday with a family who had a farm.

Along with a trained kindergarten teacher, she taught a Sunday school. Miss Blyton told Bible stories to the children there - in simple words, drawing and painting pictures on the wall, as well as helping in the handwork the children did.

And then it suddenly hit her! She knew what she really wanted to do. She wanted to write for children and the best way to do so would be to train as a kindergarten teacher. Then she would get the opportunity to spend her days with children which would help her find out their likes and dislikes, how they looked at the world, their dreams, their fears, what they admired, what they liked to read and what they hated - in short, Miss Blyton would get to see the effect of her stories in her own students.

There was still one more hurdle to cross. Could she get her father to agree to her decision to train as a teacher? She thought deeply because she did not want to hurt her parents. Then she called her father because she wanted to know his decision immediately. That her father was astonished is to say the least. But when he heard the note of earnestness in his daughter's voice, he capitulated. Before ending the conversation, he said, "Go your own way. At least it will put the idea of being a writer out of your head and teaching is a fine profession."

(The material for this article has been taken from "The Story Of My Life" by Enid Blyton)

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