Some of my Australian friends have just become grandparents for the first time and, not wanting to duplicate gifts the baby girl had already received, I asked them what they would like me to send for her. When they replied that they were already building up a collection of children's books, I thought immediately of a stunningly original book written by a fellow member of my writing group. It had been published only when she agreed to abandon her original title, which included the word kinky. As it was used with its original meaning - full of kinks - to describe the frustration of a black child with her hair, she was reluctant to do so. Being black herself, she did not find it at all offensive or ambiguous. However, she was told that that word is now completely unacceptable in children's literature. My Australian friends replied that this, although ludicrous, came as no surprise to them because their local newspaper had recently reported a new series of attacks on Enid Blyton. The article was entitled Subversive Enid strikes again.

I thought that Enid had suffered enough. In the fifties, many librarians refused to stock her books on the grounds that children would waste their time on her stories and not read the great works of literature. In the sixties and seventies, her characters, with their cooks and gardeners, were regarded as sexist and far too middle class. Her books were replaced by depressing stories about deprived children on rotting council estates. The children I taught, many of whom came from that kind of background, told me then that that was the last kind of book they wanted to read for pleasure. My father, brought up in equally poor surroundings, agreed with them and recalled how his greatest pleasure as a boy had been to immerse himself in the latest copy of the Magnet. He preferred to imagine himself on the immaculate cricket pitch of Greyfriars rather than the concrete yard of his elementary school in Plaistow.

The latest attacks on Enid seem to be fuelled by accusations of sexual innuendo. Apparently, the word police decided some time ago that Noddy could no longer say that he was feeling a little queer. Children might not realise that he was unwell, but picture him instead in a gay bar with Big Ears and PC Plod. There have also been moves to ban adventure stories like The Secret Seven and The Famous Five. How inappropriate for boys and girls to spend time together hanging around in garden sheds or going on holiday without adult supervision! Their lust for each other, fuelled by all that ginger beer, must surely lead them astray. Around the campfire on their cousin's private island, feminine little Anne would not only be in danger from her brothers, Julian and Dick, but also from George herself who so badly wanted to be a boy. As for the name Dick, well .................

Apparently Chorian, the publishing group that owns the rights to Enid's books has now decided to censor and change some of the words and characters from The Faraway Tree, another potential den of iniquity. Fanny and Dick, for example, have become Frannie and Rick in an attempt to stop youngsters sniggering suggestively. Why? Taking away a child's right to laugh at so-called naughty words is ridiculous. My friends and I were great fans of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons but I doubt if the fact that we giggled over the character called Titty has warped us for life.

According to the Australian article, the publishers are also planning to ‘modernise' Enid Blyton's text, replacing I say! with Hey!, for example. What next? Will they also be replacing egg and lettuce sandwiches with Big Macs and all that ginger beer with Coca Cola. Is it really necessary to make everything a child reads these days relevant? Must everything be immediately accessible? If so, how long will it be before Shakespeare, Dickens and the Brontės undergo the same treatment as poor Enid?