Editing Enid Blyton (section)

==Charitable work==
Blyton felt a responsibility to provide her readers with a positive moral framework, and she encouraged them to support worthy causes.{{R|BiographicalEncyclopedia}} Her view, expressed in a 1957 article, was that children should help animals and other children rather than adults:
{{blockquote|[children] are not interested in helping adults; indeed, they think that adults themselves should tackle adult needs. But they are intensely interested in animals and other children and feel compassion for the blind boys and girls, and for the spastics who are unable to walk or talk.{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 2219–2225|ps=none}}}}

Blyton and the members of the children's clubs she promoted via her magazines raised a great deal of money for various charities; according to Blyton, membership of her clubs meant "working for others, for no reward". The largest of the clubs she was involved with was the Busy Bees, the junior section of the [[People's Dispensary for Sick Animals]], which Blyton had actively supported since 1933. The club had been set up by [[Maria Dickin]] in 1934,{{R|Timeline}} and after Blyton publicised its existence in the ''Enid Blyton Magazine'', it attracted 100,000 members in three years.{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 2228–2234|ps=none}} Such was Blyton's popularity among children that after she became Queen Bee in 1952, more than 20,000 additional members were recruited in her first year in office.{{R|Timeline}} The Enid Blyton Magazine Club was formed in 1953.{{R|EBSChrono}} Its primary objective was to raise funds to help those children with [[cerebral palsy]] who attended a centre in [[Cheyne Walk]], in Chelsea, London, by furnishing an on-site hostel among other things.{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 2262–2268|ps=none}}

The Famous Five series gathered such a following that readers asked Blyton if they might form a fan club. She agreed, on condition that it serves a useful purpose, and suggested that it could raise funds for the Shaftesbury Society Babies' Home{{Efn|Despite its name, the society provided accommodation for pre-school infants in need of special care.{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 2247|ps=none}}}} in Beaconsfield, on whose committee she had served since 1948.{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 2234–2241|ps=none}} The club was established in 1952, and provided funds for equipping a Famous Five Ward at the home, a [[paddling pool]], sun room, summer house, playground, birthday and Christmas celebrations, and visits to the pantomime.{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 2247|ps=none}} By the late 1950s, Blyton's clubs had a membership of 500,000, and raised £35,000 in the six years of the ''Enid Blyton Magazine'''s run.{{R|EBSBio}}

By 1974, the Famous Five Club had a membership of 220,000 and was growing at the rate of 6,000 new members a year.{{Sfnp|Druce|1992|pp=16–17|ps=none}}{{Efn|The Famous Five Club was run by the publisher of Blyton's Famous Five series.{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 2269|ps=none}}}} The Beaconsfield home that was set up to support was closed in 1967, but the club continued to raise funds for other paediatric charities, including an Enid Blyton bed at [[Great Ormond Street Hospital]] and a mini-bus for disabled children at [[Stoke Mandeville Hospital]].{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 2249–2256|ps=none}}