By Tim Lambert
Enid Blyton was a famous writer of children’s books. Enid was born on 11 August 1897 in East Dulwich, London. Her father, Thomas Blyton was a salesman. Her mother was called Theresa. Enid had two younger brothers. Unfortunately in 1910, her father left the family for another woman.
From 1907 Enid went to St Christopher’s School for Girls in Beckenham. She was musically talented. Enid left school in 1915 and went to Woodbridge, Suffolk. She decided to become a teacher and started a training course at Ipswich High School in 1916. Enid Blyton began teaching a Bickley Park School in 1919. In 1920 she moved to Surbiton and became governess to four boys of a couple called Thompson.
Enid began writing in her spare time and she had poems, stories, and articles published in magazines. Her first book was published in 1922. It was a book of poems called Child Whispers.
Enid Blyton married Major Hugh Alexander Pollock on 28 August 1924. Afterward, she became a full-time writer. Enid was a prolific writer. Meanwhile, she had 2 daughters, Gillian born in 1931, and Imogen Mary born in 1935. Sadly the marriage was not happy and in 1941 Enid began an affair with a surgeon named Darrell Waters. Enid and Pollock divorced and she married Darrell Waters on 20 October 1943.
Meanwhile, Enid continued to write books and articles for magazines. The famous five first appeared in 1942 in a book called Five on a Treasure Island. In 1946 she published the first of 6 books about a schoolgirl called Darrell Rivers. It was called First Term at Malory Towers. Noddy first appeared in a book called Noddy Goes to Toyland published in 1949. The first of a series of books about The Secret Seven was also published in 1949.
In the 1950s books by Enid Blyton were hugely popular. She continued to write into the 1960s but eventually, her health failed. Enid Blyton died on 28 November 1968. She was cremated. However, her books and the characters she created remain popular.
