Enid Blyton (17 page)

Despite the shortage of paper, she had no difficulty in obtaining further commissions for her work, for the publishers had long since realised that a book by Enid Blyton was usually guaranteed to sell almost as soon as it left the presses. But the accolade for the most enterprising idea for making use of her talents and of what little paper was available during those early war years must surely go to Brockhampton Press and its managing editor, Mr E.A. Roker. It was his brainwave to use previously scrapped off-cuts, from the highly popular
Picture Post
magazine, to produce child’s hand-size cartoon booklets, measuring about three by six inches, and he engaged Enid to write the first script. She suggested, at their meeting in bomb-scarred London, that a mouse might provide a good central character and within a few days had completed outline stories. By late 1942, ten thousand copies of
Mary Mouse and the Dolls House,
printed in two colours and selling at a shilling each, were on the market. The whole project proved to be a resounding success, for its very Lilliputian size endeared the book at once to young children and other titles quickly followed.

The popularity of this format was such that eventually several reprints and new titles were printed at the same time so that the publishers could keep up with their readers’ voracious demands. By 1966 the sale of books in this series had run to more than a million and one parent complained that her child so loved one particular book she had refused to be parted from it and it was now worn down to ‘three-quarters of its normal size’. Other companies took up the lucrative idea and similar strip picture books, written by Enid, were put on the market.

Hugh had put his name on the reserve list of officers prior to the outbreak of war, despite Enid’s protests, but it was not until the early spring of 1940 that he was once again in uniform – if only in a part-time capacity at first. With events across the Channel forcing the British Army into retreat and his beloved country in jeopardy, Hugh could not ignore Anthony Eden’s call to civilians to take up arms and he was soon organising – and was finally put in command of – the local battalion of the Home Guard. After this had been running efficiently for a few months he agreed to take up other duties elsewhere, but Enid did not take kindly to this decision. She could see no reason why Hugh should have decided to leave both herself and Newnes, particularly when, in spite of the war, everything seemed to be going so well for them both. She pleaded and cajoled but to no avail. At length she realised that, this time, her husband was not to be swayed by words or tears. She felt rejected and unhappy and, surprisingly, very much alone without him beside her at Green Hedges. Even Dorothy could offer little consolation, for now her nursing services were even more in demand and meetings between the two friends consequently became fewer as the war progressed. There seemed nothing for it but to continue to work at her writing and the stories that were generally set in a less troubled world, undisturbed by wars and separations.

Hugh meanwhile had rejoined his old regiment – the Royal Scots Fusiliers – and was soon posted to Dorking in Surrey as Commandant of the No. 1 War Office School of Instructors for the Home Guard. His prime function was to organise weekly courses for officers of the South Eastern Command on the use of small arms and, as with everything else he undertook, he gave himself wholeheartedly to his task.

After a few weeks, Enid became more reconciled to his absence – especially now that she was able to tell her readers that he, too, was ‘serving his country’ and she commented, as far as she was able, on his movements to and from Green Hedges:

During that hot summer of 1940, the German air raids started, and although no bombs fell close to the house at Beaconsfield, the family at Green Hedges could hear the noise from the anti-aircraft guns and other activity coming from the direction of London. One of her columns told of how, during a particularly noisy night, she had taken her daughters into the air-raid shelter at the back of the house and, ‘much to their delight’, had tucked them up on the seats there, with blankets and rugs, until the morning. Many of her readers’ experiences at that time were not so happy – as was evident from some of the letters she was receiving from teachers, telling of the long hours their young charges were having to spend in cold, damp and poorly-lit shelters. The time was often whiled away with stories read out by their mothers or teachers … and Enid’s books were often first choice among these children. ‘I like to think I am with you in that way, when you are waiting underground for the all-clear to go …’ she wrote, commenting on these letters, in a December column. ‘I only wish I could come myself and tell you stories – that would be fun for you and fun for me, too!’ But her main source of amusement by that time came from another quarter.

Imogen and Gillian were now both at school during the day and after they had gone to bed Enid did not always feel like taking up her work again and the evenings seemed to pass slowly, with neither Hugh nor Dorothy there to keep her company. There were still several unattached men living in the neighbourhood and it pleased her that one or two in particular appeared to seek out her company. Although she was used by this time to a certain amount of adulation over her work, it was a boost to her morale, with Hugh away, to have members of the opposite sex paying court to her and she did not discourage their attentions.

Hugh was also not without alternative company at that time. While on a visit to the War Office in the late summer of 1940, he had chanced upon Ida Crowe – a novelist he had first met at Newnes – working in the Records Office. As he was in the process of recruiting staff, he had asked Ida if she would care to join him at Dorking and she had readily agreed.

With two such highly-strung, possessive people as Enid and Hugh, such a situation was bound to prove inflammatory and the tinder appears to have been ignited during Hugh’s first Christmas leave.

No one knows exactly what passed between the Pollocks at that time. Enid had seemed excited about his homecoming, and for several weeks beforehand had told her readers that he would be back at Green Hedges for a week and would be able to ‘put up the Christmas decorations as usual’ – but she made no reference to ‘our Daddy’ in any of her subsequent columns.

After the breakdown of a marriage, recriminations on both sides are commonplace and it is always difficult to gauge the truth, but Hugh told Ida years later that one of his staff at Green Hedges had given him disturbing information about the way his wife had been entertaining men in his absence – and to someone whose previous marriage had come to an end through similar circumstances during the First World War, such news must have come as a great shock. On the other hand, Enid also confided to Dorothy at a later date that she had been upset by an anonymous telephone caller whose only words had been: ‘Don’t let Ida crow over you’ – a pun worthy of Enid herself. But, whatever the truth of the matter, their relationship reached a crisis point that Christmas, from which it was never to recover. Hugh returned to Dorking in a thoughtful and depressed frame of mind and told Ida, although he gave no reasons at the time, that it had not been a ‘good’ leave. Enid plunged back into her work and sought consolation from one admirer in particular, who seemed only too willing to provide the diversion she needed.

But the marriage might, perhaps, have been saved even then, if Dorothy had not had a few days’ holiday during the spring of 1941 and, unwittingly, been instrumental in introducing Enid to the man who was soon to replace all others in her affections.

Dorothy had arrived at Green Hedges to find, to her dismay, that her friend appeared to have become deeply involved with a rather dubious and unscrupulous character – more interested in Enid’s money and position than in the woman herself. To get her away from what she felt to be an impossible and dangerous situation, and hoping that a change of scene might bring Enid to her senses, Dorothy suggested that they should both take a few days’ holiday with her sister Betty at Budleigh Salterton in Devon. Some doctor friends from Betty’s pre-war days at Twickenham were also there on a golfing holiday and they were invited over one evening for a game of bridge. With them was a middle-aged surgeon from one of the London hospitals, Kenneth Darrell Waters, and from the moment of their meeting, Enid knew that there was now no chance of any reconciliation with Hugh, and all interest in the other man she had left behind at Beaconsfield faded.

There is little doubt that the attraction between them was immediate and mutual. Kenneth was captivated by the vibrant dark-haired woman whose quick brain and witty exchanges so enlivened the evening for everyone, and Enid was flattered and excited by the obvious attentions of the tanned, good-looking doctor sitting opposite her at the bridge table. They arranged to meet the following day and the rest of the holiday was spent in each other’s company. From then on, events moved quickly. Within a few weeks of returning home, they were meeting regularly at a London flat which Enid had rented under Dorothy’s name, and Kenneth became a frequent visitor to Green Hedges in Hugh’s absence.

After the disastrous Chrismas leave, Hugh had also become romantically involved with Ida Crowe, but he continued to come home from time to time – despite Enid now having put his clothes into the spare room and the relationship between them being anything but happy. The young Austrian maid did her best to cover up for her mistress when Hugh returned home unexpectedly, but it was not long before he discovered the real reason for his wife’s frequent overnight visits to London and he told Enid that he proposed to start divorce proceedings against her. Enid, however, had also become aware of Hugh’s own involvement with Ida in Dorking and, after much discussion between them, it was agreed that the position should be reversed and Enid should be allowed to present the petition against him. Hugh later told Ida that he had consented to this on the understanding that after the divorce there would be no animosity between them and he would be allowed free access to his daughters at Green Hedges. Meanwhile, Kenneth’s wife was also obtaining a divorce and Enid was careful to ensure that she would not be implicated.

Her divorce decree was granted in December 1942 and made absolute in June of the following year, by which time Kenneth was also free to re-marry. The wedding took place quietly on 20 October 1943, at the City of Westminster Register Office – six days prior to Hugh’s marriage to Ida at the City of London Register Office. For the past year, Hugh had been in the eastern United States as an adviser on static defence and had not seen his two young daughters since his departure from England when Gillian had walked with him to the station at Beaconsfield, hating as always to say goodbye to the father who loved her so dearly and whom she so closely resembled. She had cried bitterly on that occasion for she had a premonition that she would never see him again and this, sadly, proved to be the case.

There was nothing unusual about fathers being away from home during those war years and Enid had given no hint that anything was amiss, so the first her elder daughter was to hear of the true situation was a few days before her mother’s marriage to Kenneth, when she made a special visit to Gillian’s boarding school to break the news. Imogen was told later in Enid’s bedroom. Both girls were upset, but as they had not seen their own father for some time, it was not long before they came to accept ‘Uncle Kenneth’ as Hugh’s replacement. They accepted also Enid’s later decision to change their surname to that of Darrell Waters ‘so that we can all be one family’. But this, and her repeated refusal to allow him to visit his children, was something that Hugh was never to forget or forgive.

The war was driving more trivial matters from the notice of the Press and it was easy for Enid to slide into her new life without any hint of the divorce reaching her wide readership. By the time the feature writers were again taking note of her activities, ‘Enid Blyton’ was already firmly established as the devoted wife of a London surgeon, living with their two young daughters at Green Hedges – an image which was soon to become well known throughout the world.

K
enneth was fifty-one years of age on his marriage to Enid. An active, virile man, he was fond of the open air and many sporting activities, all of which he entered into with vigour and enthusiasm. His enjoyment of these was in no way marred by an acute disability which must have been a considerable handicap to him in his career. An exploding shell at the Battle of Jutland during the First World War had permanently impaired his hearing, but his skill as a surgeon had taken him to his position as senior consultant and Deputy Medical Superintendent at St Stephen’s Hospital, Chelsea.

There were no children by his first marriage, but he readily accepted Enid’s as his own. He had long been a familiar figure to them both, for he had already spent holidays with them at Swanage, taken Imogen’s tonsils out in the nursery at Green Hedges in the spring of 1942, and stayed at the house so often prior to the wedding that it seemed to make little difference to their lives when he moved in permanently. By the time Imogen had joined Gillian at boarding school some twelve months later, the household was beginning to settle down into its new pattern – though for a while Enid and Kenneth were still in the process of adjusting to their new marital state.

Enid had for some years now been used to getting her own way and running her life as she chose. Kenneth was also a man accustomed to being in command and he, too, wanted a say over affairs in which he considered he had a part, and during their early married life, heated, stormy exchanges between them were commonplace as each sought to dominate the other. When Enid eventually realised that her husband could be as stubborn as herself, she found a better way of overcoming his obstinacy than trying to counteract it with harsh words. By using all her feminine wiles and coaxing, she was soon able to manipulate any situation her way – all the while letting him believe that he still retained the upper hand. She brought him more and more into her affairs and found, to her surprise, that not only did he enjoy this, but that it was a relief to have him share some of her problems. She knew that in Kenneth she had a devoted husband upon whom she could always rely and with him beside her as an ever-willing prop to her confidence, she felt she could achieve anything.