Enid Blyton Read Online Free Page B

competitions whenever the opportunity arose. She also avidly read any books she could find about writers and their techniques and for many years kept a diary in which she recorded her feelings and activities in and out of school but, after her mother discovered and read some of the jottings, Enid destroyed this evidence of what she considered to be her ‘very innermost thoughts’. Hanly remembers how his sister’s fierce temper had flared over this intrusion into her privacy and how she had locked herself away into her first-floor room, tearfully announcing that in future her diaries would include little more than outlines of her day-to-day activities.
    Hanly has good cause to remember that fiery rage, for he was the recipient of it himself on many occasions, the most memorable being the time when, in her opinion, he had shown ‘extreme cruelty’ with an airgun. He had been given the gun for his fourteenth birthday and, bent on trying it out, had crept into the small downstairs lavatory, locked himself in, thrown bread on to the lawn and waited for the small London sparrows and starlings to appear. When they did, he took aim and fired, but his shot was hopelessly off target. He had no opportunity, however, of trying again for a window directly overhead was flung open and Enid, her voice shaking with rage, yelled out, ‘You wretched boy, I’ll tear you limb from limb.’ Hanly did not wait to hear more, for he knew that by then his sister was on her way down and she was a power to be reckoned with when roused. He was out through the window in an instant and ran round into the kitchen, in time to catch a glimpse of her breaking down the lavatory door with her bare fists.
    As time went by, the relationship between Enid and her mother deteriorated. Perhaps subconsciously she blamed Theresa for her father leaving home, for she had always objected, as he had done, to her mother’s obsession with household affairs. She felt resentful that her brothers’ interests seemed inevitably to be considered before her own and had no intention of becoming the domestic, home-orientated daughter Theresa wished – nor did she hesitate to make this apparent. Her deliberate withdrawal from the rest of the family, either to Mabel Attenborough’s home or to the cosy room upstairs, was a source of constant irritation to her mother and when this also took her away from her piano practice there were even more heated arguments between the two. Theresa had not forgotten her promise to Thomas that she would ensure their daughter practised for the number of hours required by her teacher and this, at least, she was determined upon – however, reluctant Enid might be to put aside her writing and other interests. This vigilance was in no way slackened after her daughter left St Christopher’s in 1915, to prepare for her entry into the Guildhall School of Music the following year.
    During Enid’s final term at St Christopher’s, the family had moved from Elm Road into a smaller, semi-detached house in nearby Westfield Road, which had only two main bedrooms and a boxroom for Theresa and her three teenaged children. The loss of the room at Elm Road that had meant so much to her and the impossibility in the smaller house of escaping for long from the critical eye of her mother drove Enid into spending more time than ever with Mabel and this inevitably aggravated the situation between mother and daughter. As the months passed, Enid’s frustrations grew, for she was now convinced that she was being made to work towards a career for which she was totally unsuited.

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    F rom earliest childhood Enid had been schooled in the belief that she would eventually become a musician. She had always been told how much she resembled her Aunt May, both in looks and temperament, and knew that her father was convinced she possessed a similar musical talent. Year after year she had worked doggedly through examinations and practice sessions – not because she