Enid Blyton: Mallory Towers, The Famous Five and Noddy...

[00:00:00] This show is nominated for a 2026 Golden Lobes Podcast Award. Get in! Hi, I'm Hugh. And I'm Will. And this is Legitimate Likes, the podcast where we take a look at some of humanity's most popular fascinations. And we try to work out, are they really worthy of the hype? They may be likes, but are they Legitimate Likes? This week, we're talking about Enid Blyton with Ornya. Ornya, I meant to ask you, are you still doing French classes?

[00:00:27] Benno, no. I'm still doing some self-directed learning. There wasn't enough people in the class who wanted to do the next grade, so there was not enough to fill the class. That's very French, to be fair. They've learned too well. I do not want to do this, what's the point? And I keep having interactions with people and discovering that they speak French or they are French, and I get too scared to try my French. I know, that's terrible, isn't it? Yeah.

[00:00:53] But now, the real problem with this is now, you're not, you know, we were hoping that you and my dad would eventually end up in the same class because you were studying in the same location. Yeah, then I discovered he was in a far more advanced class next door. Yeah, but you were reading The Count of Monte Cristo in French, which I know he's very impressed by. Very slowly. And also, it's very old French, so you'd have to wonder how useful it is. But it's a good mental exercise, like doing the Sudoku, you know? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[00:01:22] I have to keep checking the plot with Hugh that I'm understanding what's going on. And I don't know how to pronounce any of the... Dangler? Dangler? I don't know. Dangler. Is that French for Willy? Oui. Although actually, there's an S on the end, so it's Willy's. Oh, very nice. I'm still... I'm getting through it so slowly that I'm still... I'm not at the prison bit. I'm at the things look pretty okay bit, so... Okay. Look, it's a big book. It probably goes to prison pretty early. It is a big book.

[00:01:49] I'm reading it in French. Come on, you know? No, that's true. No, that's true. That's true. And you know what? The listeners should really have to go through the same thing. So, bienvenue. Les aimes le jatamite. Legitimate likes. No, they would call it, I think, legitimate likes. Like, bon weekend. Super fun time. Legitimate likes. Bienvenue. But I get too scared to say anything else. Even though I'm probably amazing at it. What do you think the most scary thing about French people is on you?

[00:02:18] Mmm, ils sont un peu... I think they're very keen to correct you. And what I would say is, I think the pronunciation is so subtle, and they get so offended if you are a syllable off. Mmm. And nothing is ever pronounced the way you think it's gonna be. They are the kings and queens of the silent letters. A French person I know... They are the Republic of the silent letters, Hugh. Les rois de les lettres. That's true. It's probably not lettre, is it? That's letter. A French person recently said to me,

[00:02:47] But you know, I mean, French people, they're, as a ruler, I think you would agree, very polite. I was like, you're the son of the rulers in the world. They are very polite because they have very formal etiquette. So, like, they'll always say bonjour madame, bonjour madame, when you go into a shop. Like, they're, you know, they're, I think they're more old school polite. Now, I don't think that's polite. I think that's, ooh, it's interesting. Because that, you can still be rude saying good morning to someone. I didn't say it was kind or nice. Mmm.

[00:03:16] But it is polite. In kind of a, in kind of a Lady Bird, 1950s book sort of way, you know? Do you know what I found interesting? I was, well, I was in Italy a while ago. And obviously in the evening, do you know, the Buona sera. Buona sera is the best one of all. You know, obviously you say buongiorno in the morning. But Buona sera, it's just, oh, it's romantic. It's just lovely. I was in Tenerife then. And so in the afternoon evening, you said when it's tardé.

[00:03:43] Tardé is the, but I tell you, if you meet someone and it's 12.01, a minute past midday, the tardé is coming out. But we're like that as well. They don't mess around. Oh, good morning. I mean, good afternoon. We can't help ourselves either. Do you know what I mean? That's more like a parent saying it to a teenager who's got off at 11 a.m. on a Saturday. Yeah. Well, good afternoon. Buona sera just speaks to you've an evening ahead. There's going to be pasta.

[00:04:12] There's going to be perhaps a little cocktail on a piazza, you know? Yeah. Is Buenos Aires just good night? Is that, is that just that place? It's all just a misunderstanding. It's just called good night. It's like what isn't, isn't what's, what do they say kangaroo means? What? So there was a story that Captain James Cook, when he landed in Australia, he met with the local indigenous people. Remember them?

[00:04:39] And asked them, I say, what the bloody hell is that bouncing thing pointing at a kangaroo? And the answer he was given was said to be kangaroo, which apparently meant, I don't know, or I don't understand what you're saying. But then they were like, I see it's a kangaroo. And obviously you could have asked anything, but it turns out that maybe that's not true. Wow. That's a fun story that takes the edge off the old ethnic cleansing, doesn't it? Do you know what though?

[00:05:06] So I mean, sometimes stories from the past have elements that you might not be comfortable with today. And I suppose the question is whether we can still enjoy those stories. Well, on that note, I think Hugh and I are very excited about this episode. I don't think Will is as excited. Yeah. When we were in preparation for this episode, you said brush up on something called Mallory Towers. And I was like, is that a place? Do I have to go rub myself on a place? What do you mean?

[00:05:34] Whereas I love that Hugh just understood that to be like, yeah, just, you know, just get just obviously we have huge knowledge here. Let's just get a just make sure we get a quick pass over to make sure we're we're on form. So we're going to talk about Enid Blyton. I think the woman and the works. And it's a it's a it's a complicated one. But I'm excited. Hugh, you're you're a big fan. I'm a big fan. I've always been a big fan. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a there's a range of books there that it's obviously the very famous ones. And then there's probably some some lesser known ones. Some lesser known ones. Yeah.

[00:06:04] Well, we kick off with the three question quiz and will we can just get I mean, really, you know the way actually when you start a language class, they do a quick assessment just to see where you're at. And there's no right or wrong answers. It's just to help you, you know, as lovely. Thank you. The first one is not really any question, but the famous five exist in what's known as a floating timeline. Do you know what that is? Like the Simpsons where Lisa Simpson is or they're all the same age now in 2026 as they were in 1980.

[00:06:29] Oh, no, it's probably that they can jump through periods of time, but they're still the same age. I think we'll know. I think it's that I think you were more right the first time. I think they have endless adventures, which usually usually happen during school holidays. But they're always the same age. Julian is always 12. Dick and George are always 11 and Ann is always 10 during all these adventures. Would that be true? Yeah, you're right.

[00:06:54] So it's a it's a narrative technique basically where characters don't age, you know, showing off there where even though, as you say here, there couldn't possibly that many school holidays. And the Simpsons is the other well done. Well, is the other classic example of characters where even though I mean, the Simpsons have obviously existed in our timeline somehow while they've remained the same age. Great knowledge of the ages of the kids. Really bad knowledge of knowing what showing off is because that wasn't showing off. No one's impressed. Didn't even look it up either.

[00:07:24] That doesn't make it more cool. So second question, more specific, you know, we're going up a level here. So the five find outers, who was their larger than life leader? And there's a little clue there for you, Will.

[00:07:38] So what I want you to think of, Will, is if you've a character who's who's larger than life, but also slightly larger in life, what would be in the 1930s an affectionate term for such a child? Oh, but maybe we wouldn't call him that now. I think what we're demonstrating here is how I was in school.

[00:08:05] And when I when you said this is a bit of a tough one, I just stopped listening. So I didn't really listen to the question. So who's the leader of the famous five? No, the five find outers. Different franchise. Wait, what? The find find outers. I thought you'd said that as like a secret seven. Secret seven makes sense. The five find outers. I'll agree with you there. I thought she was lazy in that one. Jesus. I mean, I know that her work ethic was good, but she phoned some of it in.

[00:08:33] And that's amazing because I think she existed before she had a landline. Will, let's just let's just put it bluntly. The leader was a boy who was a little bit larger. Now, what I'll also tell you is that his name. Okay. Well, what were you going to say? God was already fatty Hitler. Yeah. Well, so yes, that's the correct answer. His nickname is fatty. And Hugh, can you tell us what his name is? His name is actually fatty. Yeah.

[00:09:02] But, but, but, but will it may be a coincidence that he's a slightly pudgier boy and he's called fatty because his name was Frederick Algernon Trottaville. And so the initials lend itself to them. It's just, you know, a very piggy last name. Fat by name. Fat by nature. Yeah. But, but Hugh, he was, I loved, I loved fatty. Fatty was good. All right. Yeah. No, I, I didn't read many of those ones, but I don't know how many were there of that series. I was a huge, I loved them.

[00:09:31] I think they were fatty. You'd Daisy. You'd. Yeah. Uh, Larry. Larry. Was there Mike? No, there was Pip. Pip. It was Betts. And then they had a little dog Buster. Yeah. And do you remember who the kind of enemy was in, in those books and the, who referred to fatty as that toad of a boy. And this is another person where I would say she was a little bit lazy with the, with the names. Evilly. Baddy. Was a local policeman.

[00:10:01] Copper. Oh, it was a, constable. PC Goon. The constable. Goon. PC Goon. The constable of Monte Cristo. But I know I was a huge fan of those. I think they were like a slightly more grown up, a bit more urbane version of the famous five. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. And, uh, Fatty was kind of rich, I think, wasn't he? And had like, he was kind of a just William-y type character. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think so. I mean, just William is a, is a whole other topic. Another fantastic series.

[00:10:31] Do you remember when just William got to mind the sweet shop? Yes. When the sweet shop were in her fleet. Yes. I do. Like, I, yeah. Fantastic. So, Enid Blyton had, had enormous range. So there was like, even I was going through the books, there was so many franchises, if you will, that I had completely forgotten about. But there was lots of, um, other, uh, standalone books. So I'm going to give you three of her works. I want you to tell me which of them I have made up. Okay. Okay.

[00:10:58] Now the fun thing is here, I prepared for this two weeks ago and I'm not even sure I remember which one I made up. Oh! Okay. So you can play too. The Six Bad Boys. Mr. Pink Whistle interferes. Disgusting. And the adventures. That is absolutely hard. That's the Michael Jackson movie. The Adventures of the Slippity Slop. That's also the Michael Jackson movie.

[00:11:23] Oh, I was hoping you were going to bring up the standalone, a standalone novel, um, The Mystery That Never Was. Did you ever read that? I did and I don't remember, I don't remember what The Mystery That Never Was was. That was a cracker. We'll come back to that later. So, Mr. Pink Whistle interferes. Yeah. The Six Bad Boys. I hope those two don't go together. Yeah. And then, uh, The Adventures of the Slippity Slop. The Slippity Slop one sounds like I made it up.

[00:11:51] Yeah, but then it sounds a bit Faraway Tree-ish as well. Now that's the Slippery Slip. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe that's where Anya made it from. Of course, the Faraway Tree in the news now, very topical. It is, yeah. Yeah, great time for us to do the episode. I mean, do we think Anya's come up with the magnificent Mr. Pink Whistle interferes? Yeah. Interferes. It's very good. She's really stumped us here. Stumped myself? In a way that's a bit like a PG Woodhouse title, to be honest.

[00:12:20] So if you have done it, I'm very impressed, Anya. Yeah. I think that's what we're going for. Pink Whistle. No, it was The Adventures of the Slippity Slop, which, yeah. Of course it was. Which I, Slippity Slop to me is like pure in a blight. Now I have to say, I don't know about you, I was not a big fan of the book. I would have seen Thea as more the babyish side of Ena Blyton. Well, did you read The Secret series? The Secret Island? The Secret Mountain? The Secret... They were my favourite ones. Incredible.

[00:12:49] I think The Secret Island is the best book she ever wrote. I think it's unbelievable. Oh. And then the sequels, the sequels were good. There were four sequels. The Secret of Spiggy Holes, which will, I think, might have been your autobiography. I mean, that feels like two slurs. And I don't know who they're aimed at. I think Spiggy Holes, while it does sound like it could have been a rap musician, was actually... Or no, a jazz musician or a blues musician. I'm going to go and listen to Spiggy Holes. Spiggy Holes was a place.

[00:13:19] Then there was... On the Cornish coast. The Secret Mountain, the Secret of Killamoon. Yep. And the Secret of Moon Castle. What I loved about The Secret Island was, I actually thought it was pretty realistic. You know? It was pretty realistic for the story. Whereas the rest of them, then they ended up in these crazy adventures. But that was so... The Secret Island was amazing. Because they seemed like kind of ordinary kids. Well, basically a lot of it revolved around their parents being taught to be dead in a plane crash. And then they would have to go and... Did the kids...

[00:13:48] On the first one, was it that they were living on an island to try escape social services, basically? Yes. Exactly. So you had Mike, Peggy and Nora, who were siblings. And then you had Jack, who was their friend, who lived with an uncle who I'm pretty sure seemed to just drink the day away. But Jack had a boat and they were near a lake. And he's like, if you really want to get away, I've got an island. And then they went over to the island and basically moved there.

[00:14:15] And every now and then they'd come back to the mainland to like get some things. Like they managed to get Jack's cow. The cow swam behind the boat. They got some hens over. And it was great. But one thing I remember from that, Anya, was that they talked about trippers. So they were like, oh my goodness, someone's coming to the island. We might be found. It's trippers. I didn't know what trippers meant. Now, trippers just meant people like us who got a boat. And we're like, oh, let's go to that lovely island.

[00:14:41] But you would have thought they were ivory poachers from like the way the kids were afraid of them, you know. But they built a house. They disguised. Oh, it was amazing. But I think you're capturing, you know, maybe what we would have found so magical about them, which was it was they were like kind of to the to the to the 10 year old or the eight year old or whatever. It was kind of grounded in semi realism. And then the fantasy of playing house as a child. Yeah. But it was also quite safe.

[00:15:10] So it was fantasy, but it was also quite safe because they weren't very far from home. And like they weren't, you know, they were just on a little island in the countryside. You know, the secret mountain was when they went to Africa and I think they chartered a jet with some African prince. Remember? Well, so in Spiggy Holes, they make friends with Prince Paul, who's a prince of an unknown country. So I think they rescue him. He was kidnapped. OK, very good.

[00:15:36] And so then I think the king is able to give some give some favors to them. Also, the parents are alive. Turns out at the end of the secret island, they're alive. So they all flew to Africa. Now, they did trick the gullible African locals into the idea that they were magicians who were able to make the sun disappear during a fortunately timed eclipse. But, you know, that was.

[00:16:03] Did Enid describe them as gullible African locals or did she use another word? I mean, you heard what she called Frederick Algernon Trottaville. So probably at least said soon as men will. To be fair, to be fair, she never used words that we would now think of as slurs, I don't think, in any of the books. Oh, did she? I think there might have been. And actually, a lot of the books, because this occurred to me, I often as a child noticed I'd read a version that would be different to another version because you get one, you know, and some of the books were used.

[00:16:32] Some of them were edited and reprinted to be more sensitive. And in fact, in the Five Find Outers, they've tried to focus less on Fatty's fatness and more on his other traits. So that's nice. Maybe this is a good time to talk about Enid Blyton. So, Hugh, I don't know about you, but, you know, people used to, well, I discovered maybe the other side of Enid Blyton, it was very disappointing as a child. Will, I don't know if you're familiar with the, kind of the, a little bit of the woman behind the books.

[00:17:01] Lots of affairs, cut a mother out of her life, just like, it was, her daughter, I think, described her as lacking any maternal instincts ever at all. Yeah, yeah. Lots of affairs with women, though, I think, wasn't it? Yeah, alleged affairs with women, like, difficult. Oh, that's fun. Difficult to, oh yeah, I'm not having a go about the affair with the women. Like, the, her, the main thing is, like, one of her daughters described her as arrogant, insecure and pretentious.

[00:17:31] And, you know, she was kind of described, I think, as a children's author who basically hated children. Will, how did you survive childhood in Britain without any exposure to any of this? I, well, I watched Noddy. Okay. That's something that I did, I hadn't realised that she had read. Yeah. But I, I just don't think, and I might be completely wrong, because I'm sure we have some of the books knocking around our family home. But I just can't remember ever getting into them.

[00:18:01] Hmm. I don't recall what, what we were reading instead. Well, that's what I was going to ask. What did you read? Or were you, is this where we find out that you were, lived a childhood of neglect where there were no books in the house? No, there were loads of books in the house. Loads of them. Were they all, were they all about poo, though? Yeah, Bristol stool charts. It's so sad that we were told this was a book. Endless copies. A brief introduction to clinical oncology. Colon. Colon. Yeah. Fair enough.

[00:18:30] Yeah, because I, like there was, I think it was the first book I, I can't, was it the Rabbit Barber or something? I think that's the first book I ever remember reading on my own. I was a big Roald Dahl boy, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My mom, so the naughtiest girl, which you'll remember, Anya, the naughtiest girl at school. My mom was sick home from school for a number of weeks. This would have been in the early 60s.

[00:18:58] And I'm sure all the naughtiest girl books were already published, but she had read the first one or maybe the first two, didn't know there was another one coming. And then tried, or didn't know there was another one out there and then decided she was going to write it instead. So she wrote this, started writing this while she was sick and bit. And of course, then she was very disappointed when she turned, when it turned out there was a book there. But she was like, sure, I had it all. I had all the different things. Going back to school, there's the French teacher, there's whatever else, you know. That is amazing.

[00:19:28] But what I would say for Ena Blyton was there was, there was kind of something for everybody in a way. So there was Noddy, there was the standalone books, which are kind of the more nursery rhymey stuff, which I would have seen very much as for like little kids. And then there was, you maybe graduated to the famous five. The Secret Seven were kind of a junior, the S Club juniors. The Secret Seven, Secret Seven weren't great. Let's be honest. Boring. The mystery of the missing whistle, that sort of thing. Yeah, exactly. Whereas the famous five were like taking down international conspiracies. You know?

[00:19:55] And then there was also, which I would think is nearly another bucket of the books, which was all the school stuff. And Hugh, you were a big fan, right? Absolutely loved the school stuff. Now, what's interesting is, and I don't know, did the naughtiest girl come first? So she wrote, that's a sentence we've all said so many times. Oh, God.

[00:20:23] See, sometimes I think, why is there a reason? Why am I on this podcast? Because I don't know anything. Well, someone needs to keep an eye, you know? Someone needs to keep an eye on the tone. Like when they send somebody to like supervise an election in a fragile state, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Do you know, I'd love if they sent Will out on those missions. They're like, oh, do you know, I actually ran into Will in Budapest. Yeah, he was just monitoring the election there.

[00:20:48] Will wouldn't be good at that because if you did see anything wrong, they, you would, you'd be too nice about it and they take advantage of you. And yeah, I don't think you'd have the, you'd be too pleasant. And then we'd have like a, who's the guy who got chopped up in the embassy? Khashoggi. Yeah. Yeah. That took a turn. I think to return to the school stories. So Mallory Towers.

[00:21:18] I mean, Mallory Towers might be her peak. Mallory Towers are incredible. Now there's six books. Someone else then ended up writing more Mallory Towers books. You know, Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers by whoever. Not interested. I saw it's crazy when they do that. Just, it's done. I know. And there's so many of them now, you know? Mallory Towers is amazing. Then there was the twins at St. Clair's. I always felt the others just didn't make it up to the heights of Mallory Towers. I never read the St. Clair's books. Loved Mallory Towers. Do you, I loved it.

[00:21:48] Well, Mallory Towers was this beautiful school, boarding school, but it was somewhere in Devon or Cornwall. And it was pristine and beautiful. And they had a swimming pool. A natural swimming pool. A seawater swimming pool. But do you remember this? This seemed to be a feature of any book from the time that a plot point was often that ballerinas weren't allowed to swim. Do you remember this? What? I don't remember that. I don't know if it's in Mallory Towers.

[00:22:17] Ballerinas weren't allowed to swim. Definitely. So like any book where, you know the way that would have been another trope maybe of a lot of books that year would be, you know, ballerinas at ballet school or whatever. And I always remember they would get in trouble if they swam because they thought it made their muscles develop differently. So I think that may have been a plot line when I'm in the Mallory Towers. There was a girl in last term in Mallory Towers because there was always a new girl or a couple of new girls every year. Yeah. And there'd be something going on with them.

[00:22:44] So like Daphne was a thief, you know, Clarissa was a plain little thing until she ended up getting her glasses and her horrible teeth braces off. And then it turned out she was beautiful. But in the last one, there was a girl who was very arrogant and was a great sports person and swimmer and was going to be in the Olympics. And she went out swimming in the sea and she wasn't allowed, but she wanted a proper swim and ended up suffering a terrible injury on the rocks.

[00:23:10] But luckily that cured her of her pride and she then decided she was going to try and coach the younger girls in swimming instead. Yeah, they were gentle tales of comeuppance, weren't they, Hugh? Yeah, well, there was Gwendolyn, Gwendolyn Mary Lacey, who was kind of the main antagonist in that, who was very spoiled and would usually try and make friends with the most popular girl or the most interesting girl, would then dump her if it didn't work out or she might be dumped.

[00:23:37] But again, Gwendolyn got her comeuppance because in the last book she was meant to be going off to a finishing school in Switzerland. And then her dad got very ill and the family lost all the money. And so she had to go home and look after him. Do you know where, so the main character was Daryl Rivers. Do you know where Ina Blighton got the name for Daryl Rivers from? That's a great question. And I think I always used to rather foolishly call her Daryl Rivers. But you're right, it was that unknown word, Rivers. No.

[00:24:07] So are you asking about the first name or the second name or both? So Ina Blighton had an affair when she was married to her first husband with a man who she later married, Kenneth Daryl Waters. So Daryl Rivers was kind of a play on his name. So it was a funny way to be immortalized by your wife, isn't it? And Daryl was great because she was a great girl, but she had a temper. And so occasionally she'd just haul off and slap someone in the face. And then she'd get sacked as head girl of the form or whatever.

[00:24:35] But she was good where it counted. But it was a gentle world, you know? It was a gentle world. They'd play pranks on Mamsel. Yeah. There was Mamsel Dupont and Mamsel Rougier. And one of them was mean. Yeah, Mamsel Rougier was tall and thin and mean and Mamsel Dupont was plump and nice. Yeah. Everybody was either plump or skinny. The classic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Plumpness tended to go with jolliness as well. Yeah.

[00:25:01] And thinness often with meanness and plainness. And there was a time they decided to play a prank on Mamsel Dupont, who was the one they always played pranks on. And then it turned, and the prank was all set up. I can't remember what it was. But then it turned out Mamsel Rougier walked into the room instead. And she took the glass and she ended up finding out about the prank. And oh my goodness. Oh, no. Hugh, did you? Yeah, the Bristol stool chart hit the fan that day. Hugh, were you aware at the time of reading them that they would have been considered

[00:25:31] girls' books? Yeah. And did you, like, were you walking into school telling everyone about the adventures of Mallory Towers? Or was this a... No, I was very comfortable reading them at home, but I don't think I was telling the lads, you know. Peter, Peter, have you read Second Form of Mallory Towers? Lads. Because, like, I'm just, I'm just like, I'm a bit before the end, but there's, like, I don't know what's going to go on because she's cheated. Daphne's cheated coming up to the exams.

[00:26:01] And, like, Taryl knows. Yeah, my God. No cap. No homo, but, like, I'm reading a lot of Mallory Towers. No, I wasn't. I wasn't telling the boys I was reading that, all right. Yeah. I remember in desperation on, like, holidays, if you ran out of, like, your books that I'd have to read, like, my brother would have, like, a book of, like, football stories. I'd be like, well, I guess I'm reading this collection of 12 stories about football for boys, you know.

[00:26:28] And, but there's also a good chance you probably read it five or six times, you know. Like, I read and reread books so many times. Oh, yeah. There's books I've read hundreds of times. Definitely. Will, did you ever, or Anya, but just because it would have been an English, oh, no, it was Irish. It was Irish. It was. Did you ever read, or did your brother ever read the Peter Regan football stories? The first one was Urban Heroes. The second one was Teen Glory.

[00:26:57] And the third one was Young Champions. And they were about these Dublin lads, Dublin guys who played football. And then they ended up getting to play in the Premier League. And, oh, they were great. These sound very familiar. I'm looking at them now, and I may well have read them on a family holiday when there was nothing left. Yeah. And what I remember in particular was, so Gavin and Hammer, who were the two main boys, and then there was a girl called Elaine.

[00:27:22] But Gavin and Hammer played for, I can't remember who it was, but some Dublin team, possibly a made-up one. And then, but there was their rival team. But the coach of the rival team, of course, back in the good old days, would just pile seven or eight kids into his car to bring them to matches. And they'd all be getting, you know, their gear on and everything. But I remember in one of the books it said, and he just bought a brand new bottle green Toyota Corolla.

[00:27:50] And so then a number of years later, probably in sixth class or something, I was writing a story in school. And I was trying to convey the idea that this character had untold wealth. Right? Like, and so like the mansion, he arrives at the mansion and standing outside the mansion with the swimming pool and the peacocks and all this was a brand new bottle green Toyota Corolla. It's the innocence really, isn't it? That's very sweet.

[00:28:20] But like, do you remember, sorry, I know this is not the topic of Vina Blyton. Do you remember Hugh, there was a trend, I'd say in the late nineties, early noughties in Ireland in kind of young adult books around ghosts and mythology. Was it Michael, what was his name? Michael Scott, maybe? Michael Scott. Oh, Windlord, Earthlord, Firelord. And did you read Railway Street by him? No. And there was another good one where a girl went to stay in her creepy. No, he wasn't creepy. Not the creepy uncle. Her uncle's creepy house. Big distinction.

[00:28:46] And, but they, they were always quite, well, I don't know if young adult is as big a genre now as it was then. I think, I think now there's kids book and there's adults books, but I think, I feel like there used to be more, like there were more adult themes in these books. Like they were scary. There's a, a, a, a big part of young adult at the moment is romance, a mixture of romance, fantasy and LGBT in young adults at the moment. What, what would that be like? Is that Bridgerton? Is that, what is?

[00:29:17] No, like Heartstopper. Do you know Heartstopper would be one? That's, and that turned into a series. Then I guess you've also got, oh, what's her name? Similar to Twilight stuff, I guess, you know, maybe that's, but. But you see the thing about Enid Blyton, the great thing about an Enid Blyton book, and it comes back to my mom trying to write that book. Like if we wanted to right now, we could sit down and write another famous five story.

[00:29:43] You know, we could write a Mallory Tower story because they did just, it was, it was hitting all the tropes after tropes after tropes. Okay. Well, I think we have to write one. Would you prefer to write a Mallory Tower story or a famous five? I mean, I guess the problem here is that the improv artist among us doesn't know anything about Enid Blyton. But I am really enjoying helping. Yeah. Okay. Onya, what do you think? What's our setting? Well, we do, are we doing it one word at a time?

[00:30:10] Are we doing it, you know? I think we're probably pitching it. We're writing a treatment for it, are we? Although, no, that's not what I said. I did say we could write the whole book. Yeah. Yeah. We'll just bash through the book. Nice and quick. Mallory or famous. So Mallory Towers. Okay. There's a new girl in school. Yeah. Talk to us about the new girl, Anya. Her name is Fenella. Okay.

[00:30:36] And she is always scuttling off to matron's office before dinner and nobody knows why. And she looks very pale and a little bit weedy. Oh, God. Does she have an eating disorder? It's diabetes. But that'll only become clear at the very end of the book when they've all bullied her relentlessly. Diabetes. Interesting. So. I've stolen that because that's a plot of the Babysitter's Club when Stacey turns out to have diabetes. And for some reason, it's a big shame. Full secret.

[00:31:04] But do you know what I'm going to say would happen there? Is that the word will have got out that she's very wealthy. Yeah. And so Gwendolyn will try to make friends with her because of that. Okay. Okay. And then it's going to turn out she's poor. Yeah. No, I didn't say she was very wealthy. I said she's very unhealthy. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And Will, would you like to come up with a plucky little protagonist? Yeah. Sheila has just come to the school.

[00:31:34] Yeah. She had this whirlwind summer with this guy called Danny. And then she's come to the school. And she bumps into Danny at the school. I imagine it's a girl's school. Now, what I would say, Will, is I don't want to be a blocker in the creative process. Yes. Mallory Towers is a strictly sexless society. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa. Why are you talking about sex? She met a friend called Danny. Danny's a girl.

[00:32:03] Summer friending, having some fun. Okay. You know? Yeah. So Sheila, being an outsider and an Australian, is like, oh, I think this girl's all right. Why don't we just ask her what's going on? And she's trying to not let anyone get bullied. I don't think I know enough about Enid Blyton to join in on this. No. Certainly adding in an Australian is a big call. Well, Will, Hugh, I'll throw it to you. Would you like to give us maybe a second tier protagonist in the story? Just give me a name and a blurb. How about we add a new teacher?

[00:32:33] Okay, go on. So there's a new teacher. Were all the teachers women? No, they weren't. There was a man. So we've a new teacher called Miss Robertson. Miss Robertson, okay. And Miss Robertson is very nervous. Oh, wait, our new girl was very nervous as well, wasn't she? No, so they're all playing pranks relentlessly on Miss Robertson. Okay.

[00:33:01] Even though Sally, Daryl's friend, who's quite sensible, is saying, I think we need to give her a break. And Alicia, who was a bad girl, you know, like she was great fun. Daryl wanted to be her best friend, but it turned out she could just be very hard. Yeah. You know? Alicia's like, no, we're going the whole hog and we're going to keep playing these pranks. And we're going to have a midnight feast and we're going to get Miss Robertson in trouble for it. Midnight feasts were a big thing as well. Oh, was it a boarding school? Oh, yeah.

[00:33:31] Oh, this guy. Oh, well, you can't have any fun at a day school. This goes all the way to the top. Just ask all the lads. So my guy, like, you can't have a laugh if you're going home at like five o'clock. Yeah. No? Like, I'm not going to use my own. I'm not going to use my family Hoover, you know? Oh, God. I don't really know what they do with it, but. Yeah. I gather it's probably not great. No, no. Like, at home, we've only got the Dyson and I tell you, most of the little appliances on that.

[00:34:01] Not appliances. What's the word I'm looking for? Orifices. Are you thinking of orifices, my guy? Attachments. Are you thinking of attachments? How are we meant to go down and have, like, if I'm not staying here, if I'm not boarding this year, like, I'm not going to be able to go down and have, like, a picnic down at the natural bathing pool with the ballerinas. You know what I mean? I just convinced my parents I'm going to be able to study better. And, like, it's okay because I can walk home at weekends because it's only down the road. Your face really changed there, Hugh. Yeah.

[00:34:31] Maybe it turns out it's harder to write a Mallory's Tower story. Mallory's Tower. Mallory's Tower. Mallory's Tower. That's the name of the new teacher. Hello, my name's Mallory's Tower. Do you know what her method was? You know, like, she was churning out enormous amounts of stuff. Like, do you know what her method was? I don't. Do you? She's just sitting and writing. She said she didn't know at the start of the story how it was going to go. Like, I'd say it was just like me being, like, Fenella.

[00:34:59] Fenella is weedy and small and has diabetes and, you know, has to go to the matron's office. Like, she was, I think she would just, she would just write and write. And I think that, you know, she obviously had a very, like, free imagination because, I mean, stuff like the faraway tree. I mean, that is such a fantastic concept. But to produce the sheer volume of stuff she was putting out is absolutely remarkable. Yeah. And, of course, Will, are you aware of the faraway tree? Lads, that tree's so far away.

[00:35:29] God, it's going to take forever to get there. This is the story of how we got there. Day one of walking to the faraway tree. No, I don't know what the faraway tree is. Will, what kind of childhood do you have at all? It's a movie now, yeah. Yeah. I feel like Hugh and I... I don't know how to call your parents and have a word with them. Yeah, I feel like Hugh and I... See, I think in our brains, the faraway tree is probably 33% of my brain or my formative experience. That's true. Will, you'd love the faraway tree. Basically, the kids find a tree.

[00:35:58] They climb up the tree. It turns out various people live in the tree. But then at the top, you can go through a trap door at the top of the tree, effectively. And you end up in a land. That changes. A magical land. But the land moves on every hour or... It's every day, maybe. Every day. And so there's a different land. And so you want to get to the land of whatever you choose or whatever you please because you get all this.

[00:36:26] But then you could end up in the land of Dame Slap, who was a teacher. A very mean teacher, as you can imagine, her name being Dame Slap. She doesn't sound nice. Yeah. And didn't they nearly get stuck there? Because, of course, it wasn't that... Did they get stuck there once? Because didn't the land move on? Yeah, if you didn't get back down the tree. And how did they get back that time? I don't remember. Did they have to go on a flying something or a flying carpet or something, maybe? Oh, someone flew them back. You're right. Yeah. You're right.

[00:36:54] Well, you had to get back down the tree then. You used to go down the slippery slip, which was a big slide. And a squirrel who used to be darning a little red jumper manned the slippery slip and he would give you a cushion to sit on. Well, I'm sorry. He squirreled it. Exactly. He did. Sorry. He squirreled the slide. But then I... So as I remember, there were three books in the Magic Faraway Tree series. And in the last one, the Faraway Tree was dying.

[00:37:20] And that was the whole concept of the book was they had to try and save the Faraway Tree because there were evil creatures... Had taken it over. ...sawing into the roots or something like that, was it? Oh, yeah. That was great. Yeah. My mum told me that one holiday in France. I thought she had made it up. I thought she had invented the story. And I was just amazed. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I read a lot. I read most of the Roald Dahl books. I read Artemis Fowl a lot. That came out...

[00:37:50] Oh, yeah. ...just at the right age. And I absolutely loved that. And a series of unfortunate events as well. See, I never read them. They're amazing. Oh, I feel I really... I feel I should go back and read them now. Oh, they're so good. I absolutely loved them. Yeah. Such a weird series of books. So bleak. But they would have been... Well, obviously, I'm older than you, but they would have come afterwards. I was probably reading them still in secondary school. So I can't remember when I started reading them. When did they first come out? I'd say they came out early noughties.

[00:38:20] Yeah. Like 2001, maybe? Because I remember... 2000? 2000? I'm pretty sure, actually, guys. It's another Newstead mention. Okay. I'm pretty sure Chas Newstead went to America, like, when the third book had come out. And it had come out in America sooner. And he brought back a couple of books for us. It was amazing. 1999. Yeah. So I would have been... I would have been eight then. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think we definitely have Enid Blyton books in the house.

[00:38:49] I just don't really remember ever, like, getting into them. I'd be too much of a lad, I'd say. I'd say that's probably true. I was too busy. Your sister's probably read them, but... I was looks-maxing the whole time. Yeah. Books ain't gonna get you chicks, is what I used to say as a nine-year-old. Who was book-maxing, of course. Yeah. But again, a series of unfortunate events, I think, also had that great thing of the 90s and the noughties, where there was... They were quite dark and... Not adult, but, like... Yeah.

[00:39:18] There was a bit of, like... I was really, like... Sorry, titillate. It's the wrong word. I was really, like, intrigued by them. You know what I mean? There was, like, something weird about a series of unfortunate events. Well, yeah. Yeah, I would agree. But... And also... But they're not afraid to... I mean, those books definitely weren't afraid to have things go terribly wrong. You know? So, like, my favourite series of all time is the Redwall series. Now, in the Redwall series, each book is kind of an epic story, and they're amazing.

[00:39:47] And they do end up with good defeating evil. But firstly, you know, you generally lose a main character. There's generally a bit of tough stuff to take in it. But even if you look at Harry Potter, if you look at the first two books there, which are, you know, good books, but simple enough, straightforward. If you look at the next few, like, the third book, the fourth book, one of the reasons they're so good is that they kind of fail. You know, they don't succeed at the end of the book. Like, okay, at the end of the third, like, they get serious away.

[00:40:16] But Wormtail ends up going back and getting Voldemort. And in the fourth book, Voldemort comes back, you know? So, like, you have all these... It doesn't have to just be the Hollywood ending, you know? Whereas there's a lot of awful children's literature out now, which is mainly about Pooh. And if it's not about Pooh, it's just a boring paint-by-numbers plot. And I appreciate that Enid Blyton could be accused of having paint-by-numbers plots as well.

[00:40:43] Except she came up with the numbers and the paint in the first place. Also, there was often genuine peril and things went wrong. Like, the kids on the island and the, you know, there was... You know, certainly with the stuff that was aimed at the older kids, you know, there was a bit of peril, you know? Have you read Murder Most Unladylike? No, who... What is that? Robin Stevens, written in the last 10 or 12 years. But it's kind of a cross between Mallory Towers and Agatha Christie. Oh. And it's great. They're really good.

[00:41:13] I mean, very openly as well. Like, in the story... So, there's two girls in a boarding school in England in the 30s. Mm-hmm. And so everyone's very posh. And one of the girls, Daisy... There's Daisy and there's Hazel. And Daisy wants to be Sherlock Holmes. And so she sets up a detective society in school with Hazel. And then... Is a student dies or a teacher dies? I think a teacher gets murdered. And they try and find it out.

[00:41:42] But then, like, the ultimate... Or the further ones on. Like, she sets one on the Orient Express. She sets one on a cruise on the Nile. You know, she sets one... So she's... Aping. Very much deliberately doing all of these. But they're great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever watch the Mrs. Bradley Mysteries? No, never even heard of them. Oh, my God. You would love them if you can get your hands on them. Diana Riggs. Diana Riggs. Oh, yeah. And she's Mrs. Bradley. Oh, don't tell Michael. Well, she's... It's 1930s. It's a bit... Like, kind of in the extended universe, I would say, of a Jeeves and Mooster sort of situation.

[00:42:11] And her and her loyal chauffeur go around a series of, like, fabulous house parties solving mysteries. But, like, one of them, she goes back to her old kind of finishing school. And the schooler putting on the Mikado. But one of the teachers ends up drowned in a bath. And she's solving the mysteries. And they are great. So, if you can... I think they might be on YouTube, if you can get your mitts on them. They're amazing. If you like a Jeeves and Mooster, if you like a Mallory Towers, it's... Yeah. Here's a question for you, right?

[00:42:40] And it comes back to the woman behind the books. Now, like I say, I don't know. I could be wrong. But I feel like a lot of the things that she's been criticized for... So, one thing was, like, if people were foreign... Kind of like Britain now, Will. If people were foreign, they were deemed untrustworthy. You know, probably criminals. Things like that. Oh, now we're talking. Yeah. There's sexism in that there were very much girls' roles and boys' roles. You know?

[00:43:08] And even, obviously, in the famous five, George. Where she pretended to be a boy so she could do all the things boys did. And... Do you remember the famous five adventure where she met the Harrys? Who were Henry and Henrietta, who were twins. But no one could tell them apart. So, like, there's definitely a lot of stuff like that. In terms of other racism, I mean, definitely, like I say, it was probably talking about, you know, well, the Africans in that tribe. Or their... I feel there were probably things that, like...

[00:43:36] And their good-natured dark faces or things like that, you know? Yeah. But, you know, does that mean that we shouldn't be giving them to kids nowadays? Well, this is what I wanted to ask you. So, there's been reprinting of a lot of them to edit them for sensitivity. Do you think it's worth adapting them to bring them to a new audience? Do you see them for what they are and use it as a teachable moment? Like, do you try to, you know, appeal to kids' critical thinking?

[00:44:04] And, you know, what do you think is the right thing to do? So, I think there's some things where it makes sense. So, if you look at And Then There Were None, which is an Agatha Christie book, and probably the best Agatha Christie book, I think. And that book used to be called something else. It was called Ten Little N-Words. And the location was N-Word Island.

[00:44:30] And there was a rhyme at the heart of the book about ten little N-words sat down to dine. One, you know, got chopped in half, and then there were nine. And anyway, so it's all based around this rhyme. It's not that there are characters who Agatha Christie might have called that or may have not. I don't know. It's only white characters in the book, basically. That book, any reprinting of it now, it's called And Then There Were None. And it's changed to Soldier Island.

[00:44:59] And it's called Ten Little Soldiers, blah, blah, blah. Right? I think that's probably a good thing to do. Because I do think it's a fantastic book. But I don't really think that people should have to read that the whole time. Right, yeah.

[00:45:14] Ina Blyton, I think it's different when you're using undoubted racist slurs to a book where you're reading it and you have Julian and Dick and George and Anne thinking, oh, but those foreigners are coming over on the, you know, and what are they up to? You know, why are they meeting with her? You know, I don't like the look of them.

[00:45:38] I think that's something where you can, as you say, if you're reading it with a child or something, you can be like, I mean, that's a bit mad, isn't it? But I don't think I'd want it edited because I don't know that I agree with that, you know? And sorry, just one other point I'd make is that, and this might sound incredibly ignorant and the sort of thing a racist person would say, but I hope it doesn't. Strap in everybody.

[00:46:06] Which is, I like to think that I am reasonably on the right side of things. The far right side. Progressive-wise, right? And I read Enid Blyton all my childhood and I think I turned out okay, you know? And I do think there is an element of... Yeah, but Hugh, like, you're also, like, a cis white guy reading them. Like, if you're bringing it into a wider audience of kids in the modern classroom, like, a lot of the stuff,

[00:46:35] and also, like, for girls, like, some of the, you know, I mean, you know, it was that when we were kids, was it reinforcing some of that stuff? Probably not to a massive degree, but slightly. And then if you're a child now who is, like, a, who, you know, isn't white or whatever, or is, whatever it is, like, is it acceptable, say, to have that sort of material knocking around the classroom or whatever?

[00:47:01] But it's interesting that the, it was, one of the publishers did re-release, I think it was in 2015, maybe? No, 2010. They re-released the 21 Famous Five books and they made sensitive text revisions and they were really badly received by the readers. But one thing I thought was interesting, they didn't just amend, like, the offensive, what we would consider the offensive word. They changed things like mother and father became mum and dad. That awful swatter was changed to bookworm and Anne was altered to enjoy teddies instead of dolls.

[00:47:31] So there was, like, loads of alterations made. They changed pullover to jumper. Like, I don't care about that stuff. I don't want them to be modernised. Well, and I also think if you have that many problems with the book, then, yeah, just, I don't know. Yeah, but I just, like, I don't think there's any, yeah. I don't know, like, it's hard to know. I don't know if I kids, if I give them, if I give them the books now, you know? But isn't the benefit, though, that, well, two things. The benefit is that you have the choice now, right?

[00:47:57] A parent can be like, I'll buy the sensitive version or I'll just buy the original or I'll have the original. And I think publishers do this now and then, obviously, to, like, keep up with the times, but also to sell more books. Yeah. Because it keeps you in the press. When people get annoyed about it, that's great press. And it allows you to be like, here's a new version of the book that we can sell. And I, 100%, when they released those sensitivity versions, the sales of Enid Blyton books would have gone up.

[00:48:24] So I think, I agree with both of you. I'm like, I think it's nice to have the option, but I don't think it's like, yeah, I agree. But I'm also like, it's not the biggest. I mean, I think only the point you make is good. And when I said what I said might make me sound ignorant, I think you confirmed that it probably does. Because I was probably thinking of like, oh, yes, but me as a white person, and if I end up having white children,

[00:48:51] and then we can read this book and think, well, do you know what? It's terribly old fashioned anyway. So like, we can see that it's a bit silly in that sense. But I guess, yes, if you're someone who's portrayed in the book in a less than positive way. Yeah, I just wonder what it would be like if you were a person of colour reading them as a child. What would it feel like to read them? You know what I mean?

[00:49:16] I mean, some of the stuff, like, it's like, apart from being racist, it's like wildly ignorant in the true sense of the word. Like she was obviously somebody who didn't have a great deal of exposure to the world. Yeah. I mean, these are being written in say the 40s, the 50s, the 60s. And the way like, you know, for example, in the secret island or whatever, it's all these ones. When she's talking about Africa as if it was another planet. You know what I mean?

[00:49:43] Like, it's not as if there wasn't, I mean, there was television at this point. Yeah. Like, even if you take Agatha Christie again, Agatha Christie set so many of her novels in North Africa and the Middle East in Turkey. But I guess that's where she was living. That's where she was working. She probably knew about the places, you know, whereas Enid Blyton, was she writing everything from Cornwall? Probably. Well, I think, I think one of the reasons children enjoy herself so much, I feel like she was perpetually a child. I think it's a bit like if I was me, age 12, like your mum sitting down to write the books.

[00:50:12] Like, that is probably the level of nuance you would have. Whereas I don't like, I mean, she was a pretty urbane woman who was having affairs and had a very kind of glamorous personal life and had money and like, you know, presumably had seen a television. You know, it's just something, I don't know, it makes me sad as well because I loved them so much and I love the idea of them finding a new audience. And I think there's so much fun in them.

[00:50:37] But I don't know, I think if I was a parent, I'd be having a quick skim ahead to see what was... Yeah. I suppose, like I said, I think, I think Mallory Towers is possibly the highlight. And, and there's definitely classist stuff in there, I suppose. But yeah, they maybe are less troublesome because, I don't know, it's only girls at least to start with. So you're not comparing girls and boys.

[00:51:02] There are just, in Mallory Towers, I mean, you have the girls who are quote unquote girly and the girls who are not, you know, and which of course in itself is a ridiculous word to use. Yeah. It's a tricky one. And obviously, you know, even things like, I mean, we're talking about things like a series of unfortunate events. Like would we, I haven't read them in so long. Would there be problematic stuff in there that I'm not, you know what I mean? Like, or even obviously then there's Harry Potter and there's the, the various issues therein, you know, like the time is on very quickly.

[00:51:30] I suppose you don't want to feel like you can't read anything, but I don't know. It's, it's a, it's a, it's an interesting, it's an interesting one. Like, you know, because I love them and I, I don't, I don't really know what to make of them as a body of work, you know? Yeah. And it's interesting.

[00:51:48] And I do always think like the whole, you know, the, the of its time argument is always an interesting one to make, but you can also be like, well, if it's of its time, maybe, because I suppose it's, it's used as a way of not criticizing something. Say, oh, it's of its time. And this was the language used, but then maybe you can argue, well, maybe it should stay in that time and not be read by people now. You know, I guess that's an argument, but I always think. Or be read with an understanding of the time it was in. Yeah.

[00:52:14] And I always think to try and find, you know, the intent of the author is obviously, I do think the intent of the author is very important. And as you say, it might come with a lot of ignorance, but even like, I read a series of books called the Adventure Series by a guy called Willard Price. And it was Amazon Adventure, South Sea Adventure, Underwater. You'd have loved them, Will, actually. Oh yeah? And you probably would have too, Anya. But basically it was these two boys, 13 year old and 19 year old who were brothers and they were the sons of a famous naturalist.

[00:52:42] And they were going around the world trying to save animals and rescue animals and all these different things. And there were tigers and all these places. But they, lots of the books were set in Africa. Now your man had clearly traveled extremely widely, but the book set in Africa, the baddie in the books would usually be very racist towards the Africans. And our heroes would not and would develop proper relationships and friendships and have an appreciation.

[00:53:09] Even though I'm pretty sure they would also use language that wouldn't be appropriate now. Right. But the intent is very clearly like, no, no, no. The point is the characters who we like and admire here have a great deal of admiration and respect for all people. And it's not judging people by skin color and all this, even though they're probably like describing people in ways that you wouldn't know. And also the other thing is, I don't think people should just read books where you see everybody behave perfectly. Because obviously people don't behave perfectly.

[00:53:37] And it wouldn't be very interesting if people, like if none of us had any flaws and never done anything wrong. But I just wonder, like whatever, I don't know, I would feel slightly different about saying to a 14 year old, have a read of this. And then what do you make of it? Oh my God. Like it's a, but like, you know, if you're six and you're reading a lot of these things, like, you know, like I don't even know if I can say golly walk. Like, you know, there's like a lot of the stories are like appalling racism. You know what I mean? That you, like that I would not give a young child because you can't put, it's, it's, you can't give them any context, you know? And. Yeah.

[00:54:07] You want to give them something safe, like a vape. Exactly. Yeah. Like I had when I was a kid. And a vape. That's what I was doing instead of reading. I was vaping a lot. My parents, they made vape. My parents invented vapes. Did I mention that on the podcast before? Will, your mother has already had to send in one correction through you that you did not live a terrible deprived childhood, I believe. No, it was not. Yeah, yeah, she had to. And I'm just clarifying. I had, I had as many vapes as I wanted. Any flavour you wanted to. What did you say the last time that your mother had to correct?

[00:54:36] Uh, I can't remember. Maybe one of our fans will be able to remind us. I can't remember. But I was, I was saying something. And then I was like, my mum was like, that was not what happened. That you never, that she never read to you. You had to correct the record that that was not the case. What? No, she, I hope I didn't say she never read to me. Seems like it's coming up again. Every car journey we went on, because I couldn't read in the car, mum would read out Harry Potter and read out different books to us.

[00:55:04] I think you introduced your foot to your mouth that you were like, basically, I was never read to as a, as a sprog. And you did have to correct the record. Absolutely not true. I firmly believe it wouldn't have been that. We can expect another correction coming shortly. Well, if Will's mum would like to get in touch, I'd be happy to. If we read loads of Enid Blyton together and I've forgotten about it, I'm going to stop drinking. See, Will, I think it's because of your hats. It is plausible that you were raised in like a squat in Camberwell or something.

[00:55:34] I don't know what that means. But I think, no, I know what you mean, but I think that I would be cooler. I think if that were the case, I think I cosplay as a cool person. Yeah. Well, I do. Yeah. I wonder, Will, like, if you were in Fagan's gang, right? His mum would come and pick him up, though. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing problematic about this. This elderly Jewish man has a gang of boys who steal for him. And a Seabag Montefiore joins in. Great. Yeah. So I don't think you'd be the Artful Dodger.

[00:56:03] You'd like to be the Artful Dodger. That would be me, obviously. Obviously, that would be Onya. There's no question. Michael would be Fagan. Or when you just took a big drink of water out of a giant wine glass. And who you would be dancing? Very Artful Dodger. I guess, no, actually, yes. Sorry, I guess, Will, you would be Oliver, wouldn't you? You'd get caught stealing first time out. Yeah. When I wasn't. But then you'd be adopted by a rich man. Yeah. And I'm Nancy, am I? Oh, I don't have Nancy's moxie. No, I don't think you're Nancy.

[00:56:31] I think you might be a sorted urchin. Or maybe you're the rich guy at the end. Or are you Oliver? Maybe you're Oliver. Maybe Will is the Artful Dodger. Michael's Fagan. And I'm... I might be the gruel. Oh, you're too rich to be gruel. I'm going to take that as a compliment on my rich personality. You do have a rich, meaty personality. You're a brothy boy. What sort of soup would you be? We probably did this on the soup episode, did we? We absolutely did this on the soup episode.

[00:57:01] I think I was a ramen. You are a ramen. I think you were probably a cold water. Yeah. Anya was a minestrone. I don't know. And Michael was Justine Stafford's daddy's soup. Oh, yeah. Of course. Will, any more thoughts on Enid Blyton? By that, do you mean any thoughts on Enid Blyton? No, I have no more thoughts on Enid Blyton. Will, based on what you've heard, okay, we've talked about the Magic Faraway Tree. Yeah. We've talked about Mallory Towers. We've talked about the Famous Five. We've talked about the Secret Island.

[00:57:29] Let's kind of keep it at those ones. And also the Five Find Outers with Fatty, obviously. Which franchise would you be most likely to step into? Faraway Tree. Having heard what we've had to say. Faraway Tree. Faraway Tree. That sounded really exciting and quite fantasy focused. And there's a movie out right now, so. Oh, is there? Yeah. Well, I won't watch that either. I don't really watch movies. I don't really do anything. I don't really know what I'm for. But I am enjoying being around, you know.

[00:58:00] Because I don't know anything. So, Will, is Enid Blyton a legitimate like? I'm going to say no. No. Just to add some level of sort of conflict to the podcast. I'd be like, oh, which way is it going to go? And that also means Ornia gets to settle the vote. So then you guys both get to do a nice little speech. But I don't like her. Because I'm not a fan of racism and homophobia and cheating on your partner. Actually, I also hate women.

[00:58:29] And she is a woman. But yeah, I feel like when we heard about her cheating, you know, we then heard she was cheating with another woman. As soon as she was gay, I was happy with it. Yeah, exactly. She's a gay woman in the early 1900s. I'm like, do what you got to do, girl. And she played golf. Okay, now that's another red flag against her. And golf involves red flags. I do know that. It's 18 red flags against her. I'm glad, though, because I actually thought you were maybe going to cede your vote to Ornia.

[00:58:59] Oh, I wouldn't cede anything to Ornia. That's disgusting. Poor Ornia. But no, I think it's good that Ornia will have a vote. And Ornia will have a vote. Because I'm going to go first here. I do think Enid Blyton, the books anyway, are a legitimate like. I do see the problems with them. I may be completely wrong. But I think the books that I have fought for here, which are the Secret Series, certainly the Secret Island, the first one. I'm not too worried about the next ones. The school stories in particular, Mallory Towers.

[00:59:28] Famous Five, I think, is a great series of books. If I'm wrong, feel free. Will's mum, get in touch and tell me. Okay? But while I think they don't hold all the values that we would have now. I don't know. Yeah. Are they really, really racist? Maybe I need to go and read them and check. But I don't know.

[00:59:52] I think they seem, I think they would seem misguided and ignorant more than deeply racist and xenophobic and sexist. I'm hoping. And so with that in mind, I've spent many hours over the years reading Enid Blyton. And I will probably bring some of them to my own younger relatives as they grow up and indeed appear into the world. But I do think, yeah, probably right. I would probably agree with what you say in terms of having a little flick through first.

[01:00:21] But no, I'm going to say she's a legitimate like. Oh, and which way is this going to go? Who knows? It's a legitimate like classic. Anya has the tiebreaker. It's genuinely so tough because it's not do I like them? Do I think they're worthwhile? It's do I think it's legitimate to like them? And I don't think I can stand over something that I wouldn't give to every kid in a class, which I wouldn't do. For me, magical childhood memories. But I, yeah, I think.

[01:00:50] But you want to get rid of them from the face of the earth so no one else can have magical childhood memories. Yeah, I just think if they're only magical for some, are they magical at all? Do you know what I mean? And there's some fairly spicy stuff in there. Ironically from someone who didn't like the places that had spicy stuff. What I would actually do myself is, as I say, I would probably do a little censoring before I dish them out. But on balance, I'm going to say they're not a legitimate like. Oh my God. What an upset. Wow.

[01:01:19] Oh no. Yeah. I also think she was writing too late for some of the stuff to be acceptable. I think some of the stuff like. Like eight o'clock or something. Sorry. I said like eight o'clock or something. Yeah. Like 8 p.m. I think some of the stuff. You said too late. That's a classic Will bit. Just interrupt very quickly. Throw the other person off their stride. I think some of the stuff. Have to say the joke three times. They're not books from the 1830s. Because like you said, she was writing a bit too late.

[01:01:47] So I interpreted that as a time, but not like a year. You know? Yeah. Like as a. I should have said 8 p.m. So it's not a little bit like. Because I would say that's too late to be writing. Can I. He's still gone. Can I update you briefly on my adventures at Michael's shoes? Just before we wrap up. Maybe it's a bit of bone con. Are you selling them? Yeah. So I'm currently selling. As long as you do it in a sort of Enid Blyton. I'll update you on.

[01:02:15] With lashings of ginger beer on Michael's shoes. We never even talked about the food of Enid Blyton, Hugh. Oh, the food. I do remember. It says a lot of tongue sandwiches. A lot of tongue sandwiches. You know? That's not what you think that means. A lot of seed cake. Oh, no. Ginger beer. So Enid Blyton, not a legitimate like. I'm not happy about it. But it is where we are where we are. I mean, you jammed the knife in. Yeah. Yeah. You know? You took the scalp. You've got Enid Blyton's scalp.

[01:02:42] If people have enjoyed this, they might enjoy our lighthearted look at fairy tales and nursery rhymes. I mean, we said that's what the episode was. But really, it was just Michael reading the book he wrote. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We've also got, if you want more stuff on books, you've got Sherlock Holmes. Cartoons. Sorry, I don't think cartoons are a book. I thought that wasn't very hard to be done. To be fair, I do. Yeah. Well, that's what it was like down your house, wasn't it? Down the squat. What did you read, Will, at the weekend?

[01:03:12] Tom and Jerry. Squarepants. We have Willy Wonka. Anyone remember anything else? We haven't done Roald Dahl or Agatha Christie. We should do those. Yeah. Yeah, we should. Yeah. And if you'd like us to do any other childhood favorites and eviscerate them before your eyes, let us know. Yeah. Yeah. Or if you'd like us to do The Count of Monte Cristo. Once I get past chapter seven, we'll be flying. When you are finny. Yeah. Well, thanks for listening to Legitimate Likes, Will. Did you enjoy that?

[01:03:42] I mean, it's always difficult. It's like I was on a Pokemon episode recently, and I feel I may have felt as you did now. Yeah. I mean, I've had a nice time, but I just am questioning my existence and role on the podcast and worth and value. Well, what I'd say there is it's not as bad if your dad didn't read you Pokemon. You know what I mean? That's true. Yeah. This slander about David and Liz needs to stop. I said, I've made it very clear that I'm here to represent Liz's side of the story here.

[01:04:10] That, you know, don't believe Will when he does this whole lot. Oh, mate, I've just been sleeping in kind of a communion clapping. I don't think I've ever said anything like that. When I was eight, we spent most of our time bumming fags. Oh, you can't say that. You can't say that, you. No, no, no.

[01:04:37] You've said an innocent sentence and it's got away from you there. Stealing cigarettes. Oh, okay. When I was nine, we were living on a barge down at Greenwich and then me mum had to go work on the mines. So me and me brother moved in with a couple of older lads in Shepherd's Bush. Okay, so that is a northern accent. My mum's working down a mine in Greenwich and we've had to move to Shepherd's Bush.

[01:05:07] And then me sister, she got in with a small bakery. So we were living... I'm glad it went that way. I was worried about what the sister was going to go in with. So we'd go around there in the morning and she'd throw us out the leavings of the pies. But then I fell in with a couple of skinheads. Like Sweeney Todd.

[01:05:34] And we were living in a sort of a loft in... Really ran out of steam there, didn't you? I couldn't think of another word for a squat. Like what I feel in London in the 90s, we were doing a lot of skag. But it passed the time, okay? I was nine years old and the reason I wasn't reading Enid Blyton is because I was up to the eyes in heroin.

[01:06:02] In a loft in London. And then Saturday come round, we'd bet on a legal rave out in... Harlow? Slough Harlow. So we went from Greenwich to Shepherd's Bush to Harlow. In those days we didn't care, we'd just walk it. Or get a piggy bag. We'd walk from Hastings to... Exeter. Exeter. Once there was a party, a bit of a rave, we didn't care.

[01:06:32] And then we were straight out to Nebworth Oasis. Never forget it. Ten years old. Skagged out of me brain. And then one day, this child finally... I found a copy of Spiggy Holes. Changed me life. If only I'd had a go with that when I was seven. Skaggy Holes, we called it though. The secret of Skaggy Holes. And then we'd forgotten about me and man down the mines.

[01:07:02] So where's your dad in all this, Will? I think only you can answer that question. He was still conducting research into oncology. Yeah. Where's David? Bearing in mind he came over from Canada. He's Canadian, huh? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Depending on the episode, Anya, they either came from Canada, Zimbabwe or Australia. Oh, brilliant. He was a rolling stone. I mean, he was literally one of the rolling stones.

[01:07:29] So, you know, also a lot of Skag there also. You're accusing David Seabagwanafuri of taking heroin. That's the game you're playing, is it? My lovely dad. I'm regretting this so much. Well, with Liz down the mans, there was not all else to be doing. I love that you think my mum's going to write in with corrections about my interpretation of my childhood. I think she might have something to say about yours.

[01:07:59] To be clear, David and Liz, I think you've raised a wonderful son and you've obviously raised him beautifully. And, you know, it's amazing that you managed to do it with all the heroin problems is what I'd say. No, that's not okay. It's wonderful what you've done. I love the double down. No, back down. Redouble down. Immediately back down. Well, you know, sometimes you have the ball at the goal and it's, what are you going to do? Not bury it. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. But you bury it and then immediately get it out and go, it wasn't over the line. I'm so sorry.

[01:08:29] I'm so sorry, Liz and David. I'm so sorry. Thank you for listening to Legitimate Likes. I'm going to go take a bit of heroin and we'll see you next time. Love you. Goodbye. Goodbye. This podcast is part of Podomity, the UK's podcast comedy network. Why not laugh at what else we've got?