BOB OGLEY finds out about the claims Enid Blyton had a dark side.

IT IS 70 years since Enid Blyton published the first of her Famous Five stories and captured the imagination of an entire generation.

For those of us who were children at the time this ‘loving, caring’ lady took us into a world of thrills, adventures and happy endings.

Her books were compulsively readable with new intoxicating stories every Christmas.

The magic worked for us just as it does today with Harry Potter and a host of fine children’s books.

However, according to the memoirs of Ida Crowe, the woman who married Enid Blyton’s first husband, Hugh Pollock, the author was a scheming, vindictive, adulteress who never forgave Pollock for finding happiness of his own.

Ida Crowe’s memoirs, Starlight, were published in 2009 and villify the memory of Blyton who, as we know, spent all of her childhood in Beckenham and the first four years of married life with Hugh in Shortlands, Bromley.

Ida Crowe, who was born in 1908, is still alive.

She has often spoken out about Enid Blyton’s affairs with men she met at bridge evenings and she claims Enid also had a lesbian affair with a midwife-turned-housekeeper.

The memoirs claim Pollock agreed to be identified as the “guilty” party in the divorce in return for an amicable separation and access to their two daughters.

Crowe said: “It was nothing more than a sham.

“Enid had no intention of allowing him any kind of contact with either of the girls.”

Many of Blyton’s former fan club (now in their 70s and 80s) in Bromley, Beckenham and elsewhere will felt there was little to be gained by resurrecting such painful memories.

They prefer to remember Enid Blyton as a writer of hundreds of books who brought delight to millions.

When Blyton died in 1968, at the age of 71, critics condemned her books as kind of aestheticically anaemic and said there was little or no literary merit in her writing.

Her books about Noddy, the wooden boy, were described as politically incorrect or just racist.

Whatever they say, or have said, there is no doubt the girl who was educated at St Christopher’s, Beckenham — where she became head girl — was commercially more successful than any other children’s author of the mid-20th century.

Her output amounted to some 400 different titles, many translated in 20 or more languages.

Write to me at Bob Ogley, News Shopper, Mega House. Crest View Drive, Petts Wood, Kent BR5 1BT, email bobogley@globalnet.co.uk or visit frogletspublications.co.uk