Show devoted to Britain's bestselling author of 20th century attempts to bring her stories to life – and reveals her work ethic
Enid Blyton's typewriter and diaries on display at the Seven Stories centre in Newcastle. Photograph: Seven Stories
All Enid Blyton fans have very definite ideas about her stories – exactly how a toffee shock or a google bun would taste (the best!), what sort of dog Timmy was (a collie) and who was more of a bore, Julian or Dick (Julian – obviously).
It is inevitable, then, that disappointment awaits the hardcore Blytonian, confronted with a "real life" rendering of the slippery-slip from the Magic Faraway Tree, installed in the new Blyton retrospective at Seven Stories, the national children's literature centre in Newcastle.
The slide, of course, began in Moonface's circular living room in one of the uppermost tree berths. After a hard day up in the clouds exploring one of the more taxing imaginary lands – such as the Land of Topsy Turvy, where you had to walk on your hands all day – Moonface's slippery-slip would transport children at top speed to the forest floor, allowing them to avoid the suds of Dame Washalot, the laundry-obsessed old crone, or the Angry Pixie, who never had a good word to say to anyone.
A titchy polypropylene slide jutting out from a cardboard tree was never going to cut the mustard. "But it is supposed to be a spiral slide!" one 32-year-old reporter could not help exclaiming at Thursday's launch. "I know," said Gillian Rennie, senior curator at Seven Stories, "but you wouldn't believe the health and safety issues we had just getting this one in."
It is inevitable, then, that disappointment awaits the hardcore Blytonian, confronted with a "real life" rendering of the slippery-slip from the Magic Faraway Tree, installed in the new Blyton retrospective at Seven Stories, the national children's literature centre in Newcastle.
The slide, of course, began in Moonface's circular living room in one of the uppermost tree berths. After a hard day up in the clouds exploring one of the more taxing imaginary lands – such as the Land of Topsy Turvy, where you had to walk on your hands all day – Moonface's slippery-slip would transport children at top speed to the forest floor, allowing them to avoid the suds of Dame Washalot, the laundry-obsessed old crone, or the Angry Pixie, who never had a good word to say to anyone.
A titchy polypropylene slide jutting out from a cardboard tree was never going to cut the mustard. "But it is supposed to be a spiral slide!" one 32-year-old reporter could not help exclaiming at Thursday's launch. "I know," said Gillian Rennie, senior curator at Seven Stories, "but you wouldn't believe the health and safety issues we had just getting this one in."
Blyton with her family in the garden at Green Hedges. Photograph: Seven Stories
Health and safety was never a concern in Blyton's imagination, a place where children would roam around enchanted woods after dark, sleep in caves and encounter the most dastardly criminals when staying with their cousins during the summer holidays.
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