Enid Blyton

So I want to say a thank you to Enid, to my mother who bought me her books and to my sister who often read her to me.

Enid fired my imagination. Took me to Toyland and to realms inhabited by pixies and brownies, elves and talking animals.

Enid filled my mind with the wonder of stories, with the colour of the imagination, with the idea that fantasy can take us on journies further than the most distant star.

The Magic Faraway tree and the enchanted wood filled my sister and I with a belief in magic. How often we hunted for that tree, hoping the next forest, the next bend in the road, the next dream, would take us to the land of topsy-turvy where we would spend hours walking on our hands.

The wishing chair became a game for us, as did the belief in flight, the whispering that one day we would travel to another land by some magical means.

Enid was prolific, with her noddy stories, her Toyland stories, the Secret Seven and Famous Five adventures. Rainy days meant stories from her world. olidays were filled with her worlds. Lonlines s banished bya a mere opening of a book. Enid gave me the gift of story.

I carry it with me still.

This is just a way of thanking her, and letting my mind as I write, drift down those old lanes and country roads where adventures where found to wait, like shimmering mirages.