Snow Bound with Enid Blyton

Post-Xmas Snow: We Didn’t Go Back to School

--was the name of a post I did some years back on Arthur Ransome’s Winter Holiday (a take, d’you see, on another series book We didn’t mean to go to Sea). There has been a lot of snow in the UK over the past few days, so it's obviously time for this (even more) weird (than usual) entry in the Barney or 'R' mysteries. I covered the rest of this series on the blog in 2024.

The Rat-a-Tat Mystery by Enid Blyton

published 1956

 

Things are getting desperate in the Lynton household – Christmas is over, and the parents can’t believe that they still have to spend time with their children Roger and Diana, and visiting orphan Snubby, until the schools go back. (which, notoriously with Brit private boarding schools, will be well into January). It’s a tense situation. If only it would snow: “Then you can go out the whole day long, and snowball and toboggan and skate—and I shall be rid of you for a little while!”

But luckily a complete stranger, someone they’ve never met, offers a free holiday to the children in an old house by a lake. Mr and Mrs Lynton can’t accept fast enough.

To be fair, the offer comes from Barney’s newly-discovered grandmother, but still…

And even better:

They ran to the window and looked out. Yes, big snowflakes were falling steadily down. Diana looked up at the sky, but the snowflakes were already so thick that they hid it completely.

And the lake at the house is frozen so there will be skating. Those transporting them rush their journeys to make sure children are dumped there with no danger of their relations being stuck there too. The children will end up snowed in, out of contact with the rest of the world and with the phone lines down. Mr and Mrs Lynton must be delighted – perhaps the children can stay there till they are grown-up.

They are in the charge of the cook’s sister (changed to ‘the help’s sister’ in more modern editions), who can produce magic meals from the store cupboard – she knew they would be snowed in, so brought extra supplies. (No other responsible grown up seems bothered.)

 

The house is – no surprises – old, and mysterious. It has a lot of panelling, and it has secrets. It also has a wonderful door knocker.

It was magnificent. It was in the shape of a great lion’s head. Diana and the others marvelled at it. They had never seen such a knocker in their lives - no wonder it made so much noise!

This has legends attached to it, and the rat a tat sound gives the house its name.

The snow keeps the loving parents away, but not so the villains. There is evidence that people are creeping round, getting in and out of the house, there is a bang on the knocker, and the worst of the children (Snubby) disappears – where can he be? (spoiler: locked in the cellar. Best place for him and his blooming dog)

All I can remember of the criminal plot is this spoileresque sentence near the end:

The inspector and the sergeant, with the box of guns, took off in their helicopter after lunch. The children were sorry to see them go - everything had been so very exciting! They waved till the helicopter was a speck in the sky and then went indoors.

Which is followed by this:

 “Jolly good! I wonder if we'll still be here when those men come to get their guns from the lake. I do hope so.”

Yes indeed, the holiday isn’t over, they are going to stay on and have fun and the criminals haven’t been caught yet, and will be returning to put everyone in danger. It seems an extraordinary ending – perhaps Blyton was intending a two-part story, and it just trailed off.

Snowballs on a sled from the Museums of History of NSW

Outdoor skating picture from the Provincial Archives of Alberta.

Children snowballing from a more modern source.

Door knocker is at the cathedral in Konstanz in Germany, picture from Wikimedia Commons.