Swimming in fiction: The Famous Five

The Famous Five adventure series features a few swimming scenes, as the super-slueths take off in their school hols fighting crime and evil-doing the length and breadth of England - well the West Country part of it, really.

Here's bossy Julian, wimpy Ann, tomboy George and gormless Dick (not to forget Timmy the Dog) and all the Blyton sexist and class-based stereotypes played out in some swimming secnes.

Extract from Five Get Into Trouble (first pub Nov 1949):
"Now for the lake," said Julian, folding up the map which he had just been examining. "It's only about five miles away. It's called the Green Pool, but looks a good bit bigger than a pool. Gosh, I could do with a bathe. I'm so hot and sticky."

They came to the lake at about half-past seven. It was in a lovely place, and had beside it a small hut which was obviously used in summer-time for bathers to change into bathing suits. Now it was locked, and curtains were drawn across the windows.

"I suppose we can go in for a dip if we like?" said Dick, rather doubtfully. "We shan't be trespassing or anything, shall we?"

"No. It doesn't say anything about being private," said Julian. "The water won't be very warm, you know, because it's only mid-April! But after all, we're used to cold baths every morning, and I daresay the sun has taken the chill off the lake. Come on - let's get into bathing-things."

They changed behind the bushes and then ran down to the lake. The water was certainly very cold indeed. Anne skipped in and out, and wouldn't do any more than that.

George joined the boys in a swim, and they all came out glowing and laughing. "Gosh, that was cold!" said Dick. "Come on - let's have a sharp run. Look at Anne dressed already. Timmy, where are you? You don't mind the cold water, so you?"
...
The next day was fair and bright. It was lovely to wake up and feel the warm sun on their cheeks, and hear a thrush singing his heart out....

"I'm going for a bathe," said Julian. "Anyone else coming?"

"I won't," said Anne. "It will be too cold for me this morning. George doesn't seem to want to either. You two boys go by yourselves. I'll have breakfast ready for when you come back. Sorry I won't be able to have anything hot for you to drink - but we didn;t bring a kettle or anything like that."

Julian and Dick went off to the Green Pool, still looking sleepy. The two boys were almost at the pool. Ah, now they could see it between the trees, shining a bright emerald green. It looked very inviting indeed.

They suddenly saw a bicycle standing beside a tree. They looked at it in astonishment. It wasn't one of theirs. It must belong to someone else.

Then they heard splashings from the pool, and they hurried down to it. Was someone else bathing?


A boy was in the pool, his golden head shining wet and smooth in the morning sun. He was swimmign powerfully across the pool, leaving long ripples behind him as he went. He suddenly saw Dick and Julian and swam over to them.


"Hallo," he said, wading out of the water. "You come for a swim too? Nice pool of mine, isn't it?"

"What do you mean? It isn't really your pool, is it?" said Julian.

"Well - it belongs to my father, Thurlow Kent," said the boy.

Both Julian and Dick had heard of Thurlow Kent, one of the richest men in the country. Julian looked doubtfully at the boy.

"If it is a private pool we won't use it," he said.

"Oh, come on!" cried the boy, and splashed cold water all over them. "Race you to the other side!"

And of all three of them went, cleaving the green waters with their strong brown arms - what a fine beginning to a sunny day!

The marvellous website Enid Blyton.net provides a plot summary of each of the books, and some reproductions of illustrations.


In Five Go To Billycock Hill, "Toby takes the Five down to a pool for a swim, but Julian is concerned about the sign that informs them the area is restricted. Toby tells them it's been there ages and doesn't mean anything, so they all plunge in—but soon an officer arrives from the RAF base and tells them to clear off. So swimming is out. But Julian sets things right by apologizing in a most grown up way that impresses the officer no end. Good old thirteen-year-old Ju! "

In Five Have Plenty of Time, "The Five are once more staying at Kirrin Cottage and enjoying the sunshine and swimming in the bay."

Swimming in Fiction: Enid Blyton's Malory Towers

The Malory Towers series by Enid Blyton was a favourite of mine during my childhood. Darrel Rivers, the main character is a jolly-hockey-sticks all round good egg, who manages to get into a few scrapes on her inevitable journey to Head Girl. In first term, we meet most of the characters who remain throughout the series. Mary-Lou is a scardey-cat, frightened of everything: spiders, the dark, the swimming pool. The pool is a rock-hewn one, at the base of a cliff in Cornwall. Gwendoline, a particularly nasty girl doesn't like the pool either. She ducks Mary-Lou in the pool, holding Mary-Lou under too long. Darrel sees her and gives her a whack. For her troubles she is ordered out of the pool by Head Girl, Katherine. Eventually, Darrel, and best friend Sally orchestrate a near-drowing so Mary-Lou must save Darrel, and thus gain confidence. Swimming and the pool feature again in the final term, when sporty and boastful new girl Amanda, an Olympic hopeful, arrives from the burned down Trennigan Towers. Amanda has been banging on all term about going swimming in the sea rather than just the pool, and ignoring warnings about strong currents. Of course she gets into trouble and has to be saved by another girl. All that pride and a lesson hard learned! "One of the things that Darrel liked best of all was the big swimming pool down by the sea. This had been hollowed out of a stretch of rocks, so that it had a nice rocky uneven bottom. Seaweed grew at the sides, and sometimes the rocky bed of the pool felt slimy. But the sea swept into the big natural pool each day, filled it, and made lovely waves all across it. It was a sheer delight to bathe there. The coast itself was too dangerous for bathing. The tides were so strong, and no girl was allowed to swim in the open sea. But anyone was safe in the pool. One end was quite deep, and here there were diving boards and a chute, and a fine spring board for running dives." - First Term at Malory Towers (1946) The pool, and the swimming incidents have featured on the covers of various editions: In her book The Dorset Days of Enid Blyton, Vivienne Endecott discusses the Malory Towers pool: "It was a school swimming pool like no other, and countless Blyton readers have dreamt about midnight feasts on moonlit nights around its rocky perimeter. Whilst the pool itself never existed outside Enid Blyton's imagination, it is likely to have been based on two seawater pools, one in Cornwall and the other in Dorset. The Malory Towers pool was big. It was deep and had high diving boards. It even had a water chute. It had everythign that could be ebjoyed at the most fashionable of 1930s lidos. When Enid Blyton remarried in 1942 she had honeymooned in Cornwall, and it is possible that she would have seen the fantastic Jubilee Pool at Penzance that had diving boards and water chutes, and was filled with sea water." (see postcard below) "For a school to have a pool in the 30s or 40s was very unusual. Yet there was a school at Langton Matravers near Swanage that did have a pool of its own, on the rocks at the base of the cliff. Durnford Prep School had a tradition for the boys to swim naked in the sea from Dancing Ledge, but their headmaster knew that thr coast was dangerous. So he ordered that a small swimming pool be blown out of the rocks so that the boys could bathe in safety. School children and countless tourists have used the pool ever since. Enid Blyton may have swum there as well since it is only a three mile walk along the coast path from Swanage. "

In June 2008, I re-visited Dorset (where I used to live) and did the walk along the coast path from Durlston Head to Dancing Ledge. Here's some pics I took of the rock pool at Dancing Ledge mentioned above: "It would not have taken too much imagination to combine the real location of a school swimming pool that was down in the rocks and the elaborate facilities of the pool at Penzance to devise the most famous school swimming pool ever written about." Here's a more recent pic of the Penzance Lido: To my mind, however, Blyton's Malory Towers pool is more reminiscent of either this pool at Bude in Cornwall: or Westward Ho! in Devon: "Among the rocks on the southern end of Westward Ho! beach, this pool has been in existence for at least 120 years and was renovated in the spring. Local people are passionate about the pool, which the local council, like other authorities, regards it as a bit of a health and safety nightmare." From this Guardian article. or even this pool hewn into Table Rocks at Whitley Bay, in Northumberland: