GILLIAN BAVERSTOCKGillian Baverstock, who died on 24 June 2007 aged 76, was the eldest daughter of the children’s author Enid Blyton and the protector of her literary reputation.Although she spent much of her life as a schoolteacher, Ms Baverstock also worked in children’s publishing, wrote several children’s stories and found success with her own children’s magazine Blue Moon.She dedicated her life to promoting the life and works of Ms Blyton – a role which often found her defending a parent whom her own sister described as “the mother from hell.”But Ms Baverstock claimed Blyton was “a fair and loving mother” who “communicated with children in a quite remarkable way, and not just on the page.”Gillian Mary Pollock was born in Buckinghamshire on July 15 1931. Her mother Enid was already by then an acclaimed children’s author.Like many of Ms Blyton’s characters, she had an idyllic early childhood in a fairy-tale cottage, raised by nannies in a traditional nursery. From a young age, she loved gardening and spoke fondly of her mother’s ‘fascinating companionship.’But her younger sister Imogen experienced their upbringing differently, describing Ms Blyton as "arrogant, insecure, pretentious, and without a trace of maternal instinct".Eventually the sisters became estranged, with conflict surrounding their mother’s parenting and marriage to their stepfather.In 1949 Ms Baverstock went to St Andrews University to study History. She went on to work in children’s publishing, including a stint on Enid Blyton’s Magazine. In 1957 she married Donald Baverstock, who later became the director of BBC television.The couple moved to Yorkshire, and from the mid-70s Ms Baverstock taught at Moorfields Primary School. She later helped to run Darell Waters Ltd, the family-run publishers that managed her mother’s copyright.She dedicated herself to keeping her mother’s work alive, visiting schools to speak about Ms Blyton and her stories. She was in demand on the festival circuit and was one of three patrons of the Enid Blyton Society.In 1996, the Blyton literary estate was sold for £14 million and Ms Baverstock acted as consultant to the buyers, Chorion. She was an advisor to the BBC Noddy magazine and also launched her own children’s magazine Blue Moon, based on her own stories rather than her mother’s.Gillian Baverstock’s later years were blighted by tragedy. Her husband died in 1995 and of their four children, one died in 1983 and another in 2006.Throughout her lifetime, Ms Baverstock was an active defender of her mother’s work. Even when allegations of racism were raised, she claimed her mother didn’t know the golliwog would become politically incorrect and was simply reflecting her era.Her upbringing proved to be a constant point of controversy. Her mother was accused of being cold and uninvolved, more interested in her fictional characters than her own children.Despite their differences, her sister described Gillian as having a ‘generous and outgoing personality’.
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