Despite a heavy cold that had troubled him for some weeks, Hugh had stubbornly refused to take to his bed, but one evening he returned to Old Thatch on the point of collapse and Enid called in the doctor. His diagnosis, that Hugh was seriously ill with pneumonia and would have to be moved without delay into the local cottage hospital, came as a considerable shock to Enid. She had always had a fear of illness – and hospitals in particular – and had never known Hugh to be physically ill before. When he was put to bed in the ward, it was almost more than she could bear to see him lying pale, helpless and breathing with difficulty in such alien surroundings and she felt herself totally inadequate to cope with such a situation. Dorothy was away on a case and for the first time in her life Enid could find no release from unpleasant reality through her writing. Her stream of creative thought, normally so active, appeared to be stemmed and she found it impossible to get down to work.
Hugh’s condition worsened and his brother was summoned from Scotland. For a few days, while the fever was approaching its crisis, no one was sure of the outcome. Dick Hughes, meeting Enid on the doorstep one morning and asking for news, was disturbed to see the normally bright and imperturbable Mrs Pollock bury her head in her hands and, between sobs, admit that she was frightened and did not ‘want anything to happen to Hugh’. But by the next morning the crisis had passed and Hugh began to recover.
Although this period of deep anxiety was short-lived, the experience seemed to bring back to Enid the happiness of her early years with Hugh, and the realisation of what she might have lost if he were no longer there to share her life. She looked again at the attractive setting in which they played out their joint lives and, in her own way, showed that she recognised her good fortune. Her Teachers’ World letter for 22 June, written shortly after that crucial day – and probably the first piece of work since his illness – described how she had woken up early, pulled back the curtains of her room and looked outside:
The sun is low, and its beams come slanting through the waking trees, giving them long shadows towards the west … There is a blackbird talking away to himself slowly and melodiously in the pear tree nearby – and a chaffinch is carolling in the pink hawthorn … The big scarlet poppies are shining like red lanterns by the tall blue lupins. I can see Gillian’s little garden in the distance, her Virginia stock a thick green mass and her cornflowers growing tall …
She went on to tell of how she had listened to her doves cooing to each other, her dogs, cats and other pets waking and, as breakfast time approached, the ‘two little voices’ that meant Gillian and Imogen were also awake. ‘It’s lovely,’ she wrote, ‘to see the world looking so fresh and new.’ She made no mention of Hugh’s illness at that time but the following week she wrote:
Gillian’s Daddy has been very ill indeed and I have had to keep staying near him … am sure you will be glad to know that he is getting better now – but it is a dreadful time when daddies or mummies are ill, isn’t it?
When Hugh came out of hospital, after almost a month’s illness, he was still very weak but happy to be with his wife and two small daughters again and he looked forward to a holiday at the seaside to convalesce. Even the arrival of Dorothy, who had been engaged by Enid to act as his nurse, did not dim his happiness, for he had come back to a seemingly loving and attentive wife and their marriage appeared to be all set for a new, brighter phase.
She informed her young readers, as usual, that she would be going away: ‘Gillian and Imogen have already gone with their nurse, but I am waiting till their Daddy is well enough to go too …’ – but it was not until a week later that she gave them the surprising news that, this time, the family would not be returning to Old Thatch.
9
The Pollocks had for some time been looking for a larger house for their growing family and staff, but both had been reluctant to leave Old Thatch and its delightful setting. Although they had extended it once, they felt that further additions would only spoil the character of the cottage and make it, in Enid’s words, ‘neither old nor new – just a hotchpotch’. But the house that eventually replaced their old home and was to be associated with Enid for the rest of her life was not of Hugh’s choosing. Dorothy and Enid had decided upon it together, weeks before Hugh’s illness – a fact which had further aggravated the situation existing at that time between husband and wife and possibly accounted for Hugh’s dislike of the proposed new home from the start.
The house was some thirty years old and was built of red brick with black and white half-timbered gables. It had eight bedrooms, several large reception rooms and stood in two-and-a-half acres of grounds in a pleasant, tree-lined road in Beaconsfield, a small Buckinghamshire town about twenty-five miles from London. Much to Hugh’s dismay, for he was a countryman at heart, it was situated in less rural surroundings than Old Thatch and, in his view, the house itself had little character. But it was close to the station and shops and with Gillian now at school and Imogen soon to follow, Enid felt it would be altogether more suitable for the family. There were bitter arguments at first over her choice, but she was adamant that it was the house she wanted and Hugh, as always, eventually let her have her way and plans for the move were already well advanced when Hugh became ill.
But despite her determination to make the change, as the time approached for leaving the house that had been her home for close on ten years, Enid began to realise just what a wrench it would be. Several of her Teachers’ World columns beforehand extolled the beauties of the cottage and garden and she wistfully wrote in her letter of 27 July:
I know you will be sad that Old Thatch is no longer going to be our home, because you know it so well – I am sad too because it is a beautiful place, and we had made the garden so lovely …
There was no going back on her decision by that time, however, and she set about convincing her readers that her new house would be as appealing to them as the old:
… But I am sure you will love our new home and garden. I want you to think of a name for it. It has a bigger garden than Old Thatch, very sheltered, with a great many little lawns surrounded by green yew hedges …
It was, she wrote, a very ‘happy-looking’ house with its roof of deep red-brown tiles, many casement windows and tall chimneys. Gillian was to have a small bedroom to herself and on her recent birthday had been given presents towards its furnishing. There was, as yet, no pond, but the new garden had two rockeries, an orchard and a large vegetable garden ‘that seems to grow prize vegetables’. Gillian and Imogen were to have ‘one of the little hidden lawns’ for themselves – ‘their own secret place’ for their gardens, swing and sandpit.
Enid’s request for names for this new home met with an enthusiastic response. Hundreds of children wrote to her in the weeks that followed and she quoted their suggestions in her columns. Eventually she revealed to them that although she thought Sunny Corners, Red Roofs, Tall Chimneys, Cherry Trees and many others, were all ‘charming’, one name in particular – Green Hedges – had appeared more frequently than any other. It had been first choice for close on three-quarters of her readers and she had decided to use this for her new home. From then on her page in Teachers’ World and her letter in Sunny Stories always carried ‘Green Hedges’ at its head – a house-name which was to become synonymous with Enid for several decades. But she did not entirely dismiss the other names that had been suggested for many subsequently appeared in her stories and books.
There was still a considerable amount of decoration needed before the family could move in, so it was not until the end of August that Enid was able to tell her readers that she was actually living in her new home and that she had written a poem to mark the event:
GREEN HEDGES
What shall we call you, little new house,
With your chimneys red and tall?
Your leaded windows and cosy nooks,
Your sunny corners and smiling looks,
And your creepers all over the wall?
I think we shall l
ove you, little new house,
With your big trees all around,
And your quaint green hedges and secret bowers,
Your hidden lawns and your glowing flowers,
Your daisies all over the ground!
Will you shelter us well, you little new house,
And welcome my family here,
And love my two little girls at play,
With their birds and animals happy and gay,
For many and many a year?
We’ll call you Green Hedges, little new house
It’s just the right name for you,
We’ll be like the birds for they build their nest
In the hedgerows high that they love the best,
And we’ll build in Green Hedges, too.
Perhaps Enid and Hugh intended to ‘build’ and strengthen their marriage in their new home. On the timber beam of the front doorway, a former owner had carved Pax huic domui and Enid decided the inscription should remain there for, as she explained later, on describing Green Hedges in her autobiography, ‘all homes should be happy, peaceful places’ – but for Hugh it was to be associated with one of the unhappiest periods of his life.
The first autumn at Green Hedges got off to a bad start when the whole family developed influenza and once again Hugh had a bout of pneumonia – though not as serious as during the summer. Hugh was, however, very worried about the international situation and became even more sure, after the Munich crisis, that – despite Chamberlain’s assurances – the country would soon be at war. Enid dismissed his fears as groundless, and refused to believe he was serious when he expressed his willingness to be called up as a reserve officer should the need arise. She never liked to have the pattern of her life disturbed and, at that time, everything seemed to be running smoothly. She now had room in the house for a cook as well as a general maid and it was easier than ever to delegate all her domestic affairs, the management of her daughters and the care of her pets and concentrate fully on her writing. The large garden was tended by a new gardener, a Mr Tapping, for Dick Hughes had been left behind at Old Thatch.
Many of Enid’s friends were also ‘left behind’ at Bourne End, for she only kept in close touch with one or two after she moved house. Dorothy was one of the few people whose friendship she really valued and their close relationship had remained unchanged over the years. Since his illness, Hugh seemed more willing to accept that Enid needed both of them to ensure her happiness: Dorothy to provide a stabilising influence and Hugh to be father to her children and a husband upon whose deep love and affection she knew she could always rely. At no time would she let herself believe that events outside this small, cosy world might change the course of all their lives.
By the beginning of 1939 she was working harder than ever. In addition to the regular items for Teachers’ World and Sunny Stories – both read by ‘hundreds of thousands of children’, according to one critic of the time – she was compiling school readers, books of plays and putting many of her serial and other stories from her magazines into book form. She tried to interest the BBC in broadcasting some of her work but nothing came of this, despite the fact that both she and Hugh repeatedly sent in material they considered suitable for the children’s programmes. But she had few rejections elsewhere, for most publishers seemed only too willing to take what she had to offer.
Her routine day began early and the pattern had changed little over the years. Soon after breakfast, if she was at home and not consulting publishers in London, she would first give instructions to her cook on the family’s meals and then start writing on the verandah overlooking the garden, or in an armchair by the fire, with her typewriter poised, as always, on a board across her knees and her red silk Moroccan shawl close at hand. She liked to have red near her for the colour acted, she thought, as a ‘mental stimulus’. She had usually written between six and ten thousand words by five o’clock, with only a short break for lunch on a tray, during which she would read one of the many books she obtained weekly from two libraries. Then it was time for the children.
This was the hour her daughters enjoyed most during the day, for Enid would play games or read stories with them, all the while listening carefully to what they had to tell her. On summer evenings they would go out into the garden and play with the animals or listen for and try to identify some of the birds round about. Both girls liked to hear about the stories she had written during the day – particularly if they included Amelia Jane, or one of the family pets. Enid was quick to note that Gillian’s and Imogen’s favourite stories were often those which were eventually to prove the most popular with her other readers, and it is interesting to note that as the years passed, so did the proportion of books for their age group increase. As the girls grew older they were sometimes entrusted with reading proofs and earned themselves a penny for every mistake they spotted.
Hugh’s return home was usually the signal for the ‘playtime’ sessions with her daughters to come to an end and Hugh and Enid would then have a quiet dinner alone together. Afterwards she would set about answering some of her vast correspondence, which still ran to hundreds of letters each week. Occasionally she would take an evening off for a game of tennis or bridge or to visit a cinema or theatre with Hugh. But they generally retired early, for Enid always maintained that her active brain needed plenty of sleep to keep the story line flowing.
She would allow little to interfere with this strict, daily pattern which she had set for herself and visitors were often made to feel unwelcome if they brought about any change in her routine.
In the early summer a new maid arrived at Green Hedges. Mary was an attractive, auburn-haired Austrian girl, who had been forced by the crisis in her country to leave her comfortable home in Vienna and seek safety and work in England. Although Mary had never undertaken any form of domestic work before, she was bright, intelligent and willing and was soon helping with all manner of jobs around the house. She assisted the cook, stood in for the nanny on her day off – even did a little typing for Enid on occasions – and after a while became more friend than servant to the whole family.
Enid was at her best with people she liked and she went to endless trouble to ensure that Mary’s stay at Green Hedges should be happy, for she realised that there were times when her young maid felt very lost and homesick. She managed to get a letter through to Vienna to let Mary’s parents know that she was in good hands and would be well looked after. She also wrote to the Home Office to say that she would take the responsibility of looking after Mary’s parents should they decide to come to England but by the time both letters had been received, the rest of Europe was at war. Mary never forgot Enid’s kindness at this time and remained a loyal friend throughout the stormy and eventful years that were to follow. After she left the family in 1945, Enid based ‘Greta, the Austrian maid’ in House at the Corner on this young woman who had a special place in the family’s affections.
Enid and Bobs both broke the news to their readers of Teachers’ World that their country was at war. Bobs ‘wrote’:
Did you know we were at war with the Germans? Well, we are. Gillian told me …
Enid’s letter was more explicit about the changes that were now inevitable. Many of her readers had been evacuated into strange surroundings and these children received her special attention. For a while, she told them, her page would not be quite so large and she would have to cut down on her weekly story:
… The war is making all our lives different and until things shake down a little, we will put up with them cheerfully … Some of you have left your homes and are in the country. You will now be able to see all the things I write about – how lucky you are!
She continued in the same vein, the following week, having heard through her correspondence of the problems that were being encountered:
you will be able to see, hear, smell and enjoy all the loveliness of the countryside and you will make the most of your stay there. You are guests of the kindly country folk and w
ill do your best to help them …
There followed a description of some of the poisonous fruits the children might come across on country walks, and she finished her letter with a gentle reminder to all her readers:
We have a little underground shelter in our garden – Gillian and Imogen call it ‘Bunny Burrow’ …When the sirens go they are as obedient as soldiers and do exactly as they should. I am sure you are the same …
In a later column she wrote of the ‘many happy letters’ she had received from town children who were now living in the country:
… and how they love the country! Well I knew they would and I only wish that we had big camp-schools for children, so that we might always have all our children in the country going home for weekends and holidays. Perhaps we shall some day.
Her mail in war-time did not appear to decrease – rather the contrary. Evacuated teachers and children wrote in their hundreds asking for advice on country matters and many schools took up her suggestions for contributions to the war effort. By early 1941 Enid had already distributed to the Red Cross and other organisations over three thousand blankets, made from squares knitted by her readers. These were usually sewn together by the teachers but Enid made up many of the blankets herself with the help of any members of her household who happened to be available. In the spring of that same year she wrote of having received during the past few weeks – in addition to the usual quota of blankets:
Enid Blyton Page 12
