SARAH VINE: Blyton’s coin critics have lost the plot

My mother didn’t much like me reading Enid Blyton when I was a child. I suspect it was for the same sort of reason she wouldn’t let me have a Barbie doll: aspects of it made her uncomfortable.

I had no such qualms. The Famous Five were too jolly hockey sticks even for me, but I loved the demented fantasia of Blyton’s Faraway Tree series, with its strange, dream-like characters — Moon-Face, Silky the Fairy, The Saucepan Man, Dame Washalot . . .

Noddy I wasn’t so keen on: he felt like just a more priggish version of Pinocchio. But he, and many of Blyton’s other creations, remain favourites in the pantheon of children’s characters today.

That is why the decision by the Royal Mint to reject a proposal for a coin commemorating the 50th anniversary (in 2018) of the life and work of this quintessential children’s author is so misguided.

Minutes from a meeting held in 2016 and published at the weekend reveal a proposal to celebrate Blyton was scotched because some unnamed person claimed she ‘is known to have been a racist, sexist, homophobe and not a very well-regarded writer’.

On what basis this knowledge was obtained is not clear, but I strongly suspect Mr Google may have had something to do with it, since that analysis is almost word-for-word what Blyton’s Wikipedia entry says (I checked!).

If the unnamed person had bothered to investigate the source material, they would know that there is so much more to Blyton than a simple rap sheet of a few troublesome characters.

Because for all her flaws, you cannot deny that she shaped the world of children’s literature. Her compelling narratives inspired millions of youngsters to learn to love books.

Which is why Enid Blyton deserves to be acknowledged in the traditional fashion as a significant 20th-century figure.

Besides, if you banned the work on the basis of the artist, you would erase half of most major works of literature at a stroke.

Creative people are often deeply troubled individuals, and Blyton was no exception. She was also a product of her era, born in 1897. But this is about more than just one author, one woman. 

It’s about the cultural revisionism that is sweeping our nation, from universities to public institutions, the BBC to the civil service, that seeks to eradicate the works of all but the most socially unimpeachable.

Yes, some of what Blyton wrote makes the modern reader wince. So do works by Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene and Ernest Hemingway. But, like them, she was also a damn good storyteller who sold more than 600 million copies of 700 titles worldwide.

Whatever else she was, she is part of our cultural history. And it is wrong to try to rewrite history, however much you may despise certain aspects of it.

Good storytelling is not afraid to shine a light into the murkier corners of the human psyche. The attitudes and ideas Blyton explores throughout her books — prejudice, punishment, redemption — are, like it or not, universal to the human condition.

We should talk about them openly, not force them back into the shadows.

The fact that she managed to translate them into a style of language understood and loved by children is not an indication of wickedness; it is, in fact, a mark of her genius.

Optimists live longer, according to a new survey. This may indeed be the case, but let’s not overlook the benefits of pessimism. 

Not least, of course, the fact that an early death will spare you from the mindless optimism of others.

As a child, I had an imaginary friend who lived on the moon and used to visit whenever it was full.

Now we learn that today’s children are too distracted by screens for such old-fashioned reveries. 

Thus the imaginary friend has become another casualty of the digital age, replaced by an altogether more sinister concept: the virtual friend. 

Imaginary friends can be a sign of eccentricity, but they are generally benign and don’t hang around if they’re not wanted; the same cannot be said of virtual friends, who could be anyone from a middle-aged pervert posing as a 16-year-old girl to the school bully.

I know which I would rather my children were hanging out with.

Shirley’s bodice-ripper 

And so we ‘look forward’ to another series of Strictly. Is it just me or does this annual tinsel-fest, like Christmas, seem to start earlier each year? 

It’s still August, yet you can’t escape Anton’s swivel hips and Shirley’s doesn’t-quite-reach-the-eyes smile.

I wouldn’t mind were it not all so predictable: the spats, the snogs, the manufactured controversies, the terrible fashion choices. 

To wit, can someone explain La Ballas’s red-carpet dress to me? Is it an apron? A bodice? Or did she give her minders the slip before they could remove the rest of her straitjacket?

To wit, can someone explain La Ballas’s red-carpet dress to me? Is it an apron? A bodice? Or did she give her minders the slip before they could remove the rest of her straitjacket?

Failing to deliver humanity 

The appearance of a harried delivery driver at my front door usually heralds the arrival of some much-anticipated new purchase. But how many of us stop to think about the true cost of our next-day service?

It’s not just the moribund High Street, but also those caught up in the race to deliver. A tragic case in point is driver, Don Lane, who worked for delivery firm DPD. Mr Lane died last year after missing hospital check-ups because he was too scared to take time off. With good reason: DPD fined him £150 for absence over an earlier appointment.

In 2017 DPD made £121 million profit and paid its highest earning director a salary of £987,000; by contrast ‘self-employed’ Mr Lane got no holiday or sick pay.

Now his widow faces eviction after falling behind on her rent. Of course, companies cannot be held responsible for the financial situations of their employee’s relatives. However, while the firm claims it monitored Mr Lane’s situation, this does seem like a case of corporate inhumanity.

I, for one, would prefer to wait a day or two longer for my internet loot rather than be complicit in such savagery.

Time to tune out

Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour has for years sounded like a parody of itself; but this weekend’s episode, presented by Tina Daheley, was like a spoof within a spoof.

The subject: women in construction. ‘Why don’t more women work in this traditionally male-dominated sector?’ 

Daheley demanded. Next week: Jenni Murray asks why there are so few female sperm-donors.

Diana’s own principal dancer  

The American TV host Lara Spencer has had to apologise for supposedly mocking Prince George (pictured) for taking ballet classes

The American TV host Lara Spencer has had to apologise for supposedly mocking Prince George for taking ballet classes. 

It prompted thousands of aggrieved male dancers to take to social media to protest under the hashtag ‘BoysDanceToo’. Cue outrage. Or is it?

Actually, what Spencer said was: ‘We’ll see how long that lasts’ — obviously not an insult, more a reference to the fact it can be hard to get boys to stick to things like ballet once they get older.

And she’s right. I know this because when he was small, my son was very keen on dance — until some little tyke at nursery told him it was ‘for girls’. 

Which, having once interviewed the Cuban ballet dancer Carlos Acosta, I can assure you it very definitely is not.

Either way, I’m sure Princess Diana — an avowed ballet lover — would be delighted to know that her elder grandson is following in her footsteps.

Warnings from Germany that in the event of a No-Deal Brexit, exports to the UK of Sauerkraut, Schweinshaxe (pig’s knuckle) and other Teutonic delicacies will be halted.

With respect to our German neighbours, I’m not sure that’s quite the dire threat they imagine it to be.