Edwardian child Enid Blyton begins to tell stories to her brothers as an escape from their parents' rows before the father deserts the family. While training as a teacher after the Great War she sends her stories to publishers; one of them, Hugh Pollock, takes her on and also marries her. They have two daughters, but Enid is a terrible mother, letting a nanny raise them while she, ironically, is bestowing treats on anonymous children who worship her for her stories. She is completely self-absorbed,driving Hugh to drink and then to another woman. Enid uses the children as emotional blackmail to get a divorce on her terms before marrying Kenneth Waters, a weak man similar to her father. After World War Two she is as popular as ever, despite accusations of using a syndicate to pen her books, and she carries on, adored by children who do not know her true nature, for another 20 years before her death in 1968.—don @ minifie-1
