TOYTOWN hero Noddy is all set for a new adventure in China - helping to teach his young fans English.

But the Eastern adventure has come has no surprise to Gillian Baverstock, the Ilkley-based daughter of Noddy's creator, Enid Blyton.

Mrs Baverstock said that the much-loved character had already notched up decades of English teaching in Singapore and India.

Mrs Baverstock, a former teacher now in her 70s, said Noddy made a perfect teacher because he has such a large following of young fans who got to know him when they were just toddlers.

She said it was also a fitting tribute to her author mother who was a pre-school teacher and originally came up with Toytown as a way of making learning more fun for her pupils.

Mrs Baverstock said: "Many children get to know Noddy when they are just tiny tots so by the time they are ready to learn to read and pick up a new language he, and all his friends, are already familiar to them."

According to Mrs Baverstock, Noddy has been used in Singapore schools since the 1950s and is also already a big hit with schoolchildren in India - a country which has more than 600 dialects and language forms.

"Noddy is very big in India. You'll find more Enid Blyton books on shelves there than you will in this country. He's been used there for years. He's known all over the world: France, Germany, all over the East and now even America and Canada," she said.

Noddy went to China for the first time in 2002 when 24 of his story books were translated - but this is the first time he will be used as part of an official learning programme to teach English over there.

Mrs Baverstock sold the rights to her mother's work in 1988 to the Enid Blyton Company which later changed its name to Chorion.

It has just awarded the rights to its Learn English with Noddy programme to Beijing-based academic publisher Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press and is holding talks about screening the Make Way for Noddy computer animated TV series.

Chorion has just revealed a six-fold jump in annual profits to £3.1 million - mainly thanks to expanding the Noddy brand worldwide.