Famous Five; Castle and Island of Adventure; Corfe and Brownsea; Baden-Powell scouting for boys; anti-Blyton inverted-snobbery of libraries, schools, and BBC Children’s Hour in the 1940s; famous ferries from super Sandbanks; but morphism flourishes in children’s cartoon entertainment.
10h57-UTC Friday 21 March 2008-CE
Daily Echo reports on the new Disney cartoon series, Famous Five, originated by Enid Blyton in 1942, and frowned-on by libraries, schools, and BBC Children’s Hour. They hated the mass-selling author for her popular success. But one could buy Blyton books from the bookshop, or get them by swaps. They ruled.
The Famous Five were not my favourite Enid Blyton characters and books. I preferred her Adventure series. There was Island of Adventure, Castle of Adventure, Mountain of Adventure and two others I have forgotten. Inner City? Shopping Mall? No, not period.
‘Island’ was triggered by Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour. It was the site of Baden Powell’s first patriotic (and platonic) boy camp. You could learn how to scout. Scouting originally meant walking ahead to see the lie of the land and the location of the enemy, whilst surviving in the bush. Take a bush, any bush. Play hide and peek. Then sneak back to your lot to tell the boss. I know nothing about it.
An old lady owned the island for decades until the place was choked with rhododendrons. The peacocks have since found new quarters, but the red squirrels abide. The National Trust now owns it and there is a café.
If you go past Sandbanks Beach and along Banks Road to the end, you find (just before you return along Panorama Road, famous for its recent Lennons) ‘Sandbanks Ferry’. This chained ferry (called Bramble Bay) goes across Poole Harbour mouth to Studland and the rest of the Purbeck peninsular. Some small boats ferry you to Brownsea-Island or Poole-Quay, or tour the islands and visit Wareham.
‘Castle’ was triggered by Corfe Castle (on the Purbeck peninsular) by which is located Corfe Castle village. The local steam-railway-stalwarts have repaired the vandalism of Beeching and chuff-chuffs once again run from Swanage, through Corfe, to Wareham.
The annual Blues Festival at Swanage has become a major international enchantment and draws the right sort of people from all over Earth.
The stars that visit the annual Star Trek Ball in Bournemouth are escorted to dine at Sandbanks before touring the Purbeck Peninsular and every indication is that they thoroughly enjoy it.
But what I really wanted to say is that, from the clips of cartoon Famous Five on TV, and in stills, I see the two girls (Jyoti and Allie?) have great long thin legs. The two boys (Dylan and Max?) are hefty jocks and probably have long bones under the muscle. In other words, morphist prejudice reigns! Ectomorphs only! Endomorphs are NOT represented.
FIN 12h17
EDITED 08h19-BST Saturday 25 April 2009-CE
