Golly! No more lashings of ginger beer
I learned two things upon arriving in the UK many moons ago. First, the name Enid was pronounced ‘EEnid’ and not ‘EHnid’ as I had been pronouncing it ever since I begun reading
Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books. The other was that ginger beer, always a mystery to my young mind, i.e. how could children be allowed to drink beer, was no different from tangawizi soda.
When growing I really loved the Famous Five Series. I was captivated by the fantastic tales of extraordinary dog, Timmy, brothers Julian and Dick, younger sister Anne and cousin Georgina, known as George and who was a tomboy. Although I had a mild crush on Julian, I think I loved George the most – she was just so daring, tough and not scared of anyone – just what a typical 9 year old like me wanted to be like. The Famous Five adventures were always the same and revolved around the children tackling a gang of hapless criminals (smugglers, kidnappers, etc) during the school holidays. The fact that the villains were always swarthy and that Anne always did the washing-up led to accusations of racism and sexism decades after the books had been written.
And of course, no story was complete without lashings and lashings of ginger beer and exclamations of ‘gosh!’ and ‘golly!’
It is all change now and the Famous Five have received a makeover. A new series has been written which consists of George’s daughter, Joyti, who is Anglo-Indian (ha, who’d have thought George would end up married), Max, Julian’s son, Allie, who is Californian (??) and Anne’s daughter and Dylan the son of Dick. And Timmy, of course but no more ginger beer, apparently, the ginger beer and the cream buns from the tuck shop have been replaced by replaced by mobile phones, laptops, iPods and pizza.
8 comments
I actually remember reading one of the Famous Five books. For some odd reason though they never had the appeal of the Hardy Boys or even Nancy Drew.
An Anglo-Indian in a British book is long overdue, after all for a lot of Indians, the motherland is India. As for the Californian……………huh?!
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I was going to say that the perhaps the reason you did not take to the Famous Five was generational until I saw Spicebear’s comment. I don’t understand why one character is Californian either…
boy am i glad i’m not the only one who wondered what kind of place children lived in where they were allowed to drink beer. and let me not even get started on the names and things i have found out i have been pronouncing wrong for the longest time.
i used to love EEnid blighton. read everything that i could get my hands on. i remember going home and reading the adventurous four books again and being highly amused.
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LOL, you too, Spicebear. And you know I also found out that that tangawizi soda is an excellent hangover cure when drank ice cold…
I read the Enid was a pretty awful mother.
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Never heard anything like that…
I too loved the Famous Five Series and I also love ginger beer.
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Same here, Whitney
Wasn’t too keen on Famous Five. My favourite was Hardy Boys then Nancy Drew.
Did they not do some book(s) with characters from both? Hmm not sure.
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Hi Candybox, some books with the same characters? Not to my recollection – I have not read them for a while however and you could be right
As for pronunciations; Edinburgh and Leicester. Oh boy the embarrassment.
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One day I shall write something about English pronunciations (and yes, the embarrassment)
hello
Yes the Famous Five what joy to read those books.On pronunciation do you remember how many times you used to correct me on Islington, until I stopped using it. The best place to get the correct English pronunciation was the football results at the BBC on Saturday ” Partick Thistle-1 Mid-Lothian 3 etc. Yeah Leicester square?? Love and kisses Nyaks I should be sleeping missing you guys like crazy where are your FT Contributions?
Nyaks
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I cant remember how you used to pronounce Islington! Was it I-slington instead of EEslington? Haha. Now I know what tease you about. Remember Gambwerwell?
The other place to learn interesting English pronounciations is the the weatherforcast – Dogger, Viking, German bite (?)
Here in the USA we call ginger beer, root beer. One of the most popular brands is Dr Pepper, though it tastes slightly different than most ginger beers.
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Thanks for revealing more of the mystery of ginger/root beer, Billy
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