With love, to Enid Blyton

Picture Courtesy: goodreads

When life revolved around the adventurous George, Timothy and her cousins, life was beautiful and seemed ever-exciting. The mere thought of coming across another book on their adventures, on those wooden shelves in the school library brought bliss to my mind. And getting to know of a new mystery series altogether, i considered, was like the ultimate success i could achieve in my life.

Picture Courtesy: YouGov

I wished for my share of "ginger-ade" and apple pies, going around cycling,on sunny mornings, along the picturesque country-side, greeting people on my way. Camping in unfamiliar places and cooking breakfast in the tent, drinking water from crystal clear mountain streams. I fancied getting away to a moor on a cool moon-lit night looking for thieves and treasures. Exploring mysterious old castles and dark, cold, sinister dungeons. Ohh! My heart cringes thinking of these adventures when it felt i was one of the Famous Five!

I remember the girl who first introduced me to this author as 'Gnid Blyton', thanks to the signature on the front-cover where the 'E' looked more like a 'G'. This was one evening in the school bus, as we discussed the books we'd recently borrowed from the school library. And then to our surprise one day, we found out that 'Gnid Blyton' was actually ' Enid Blyton', and more; it was a 'She', and not a 'He' we'd been assuming the author to be, all this time! The book belonged to one of Blyton's lesser known adventure series, The Five Find-Outers. I read this new book and immediately loved this set-up of kids my age solving mysteries in small-town England. And thus began a journey of never-ending adventures set up in twentieth-century British towns, islands and country-side.

At the end of every story, a new mission was in hand - to look for more books in the series. Reading these books were now turning out to be my passion, favourite pass-time and slowly hysteria, when i couldn't find a book. Those days were thus spent when Blyton's books went hand in hand with Math and Science text books.

I still bear in my heart that secret desire to go to that remote part of Britain in search of George and Julian and the Kirrin Island, to meet the Secret Seven and that Naughty little girl and many others who made my school days so colourful and fun to live! I wish to have beside me each of those books, read and re-read them word-by-word, and re-live those wonderful adventures, and once again be a part of the plot! Oh how i sometimes long.., long to go back to those beautiful days, when life had much different priorities. When life was about school and friends and a fantasy world filled with loads and loads of excitement and fun, life was liveable in the true sense then! 

Thank you dear Ms. Enid Blyton, for giving me and many others like me such a wonderful childhood! Cheers!