Gillian Baverstock, the daughter of Enid Blyton, one of the most popular children's authors of all time, looks back fondly on her childhood. She loved her mother dearly, but the memories she treasures perhaps most of all are of the happy times she spent with her father - with whom she had no contact after the age of ten.

AS A CHILD, Gillian Baverstock thought everyone's mother spent hours at a typewriter. Little did she know that, as she tapped away at the keys, her mum Enid Blyton was destined to become one of the most well-read children's authors of all time, producing 700 books.

Raised in the south of England, Gillian had a happy upbringing and speaks warmly of her mother, who - before her writing career took off and claimed much of her time - gave her family an insight into the wonderful things the world has to offer.

The family lived in a thatched cottage near the River Thames. Gillian says: "We did all sorts of things - walks by the river or visiting the nearby farm. My mother was a lovely pianist and played the piano and sang in the evenings."

Enid, who is most well-known for her Famous Five series of books and for Noddy, also contributed to her children's education. "She taught me so well - about writing, how to form letters and how to do sums, and about natural history,'' says Gillian, 67, who now lives in Ilkley.

She also adored her father, Hugh Pollock. Working in publishing, he commuted to London and did not see much of the children. But on family holidays he made up for that.

Says Gillian: "He was such fun and I have many happy memories of the Isle of Wight where we stayed in a cottage. As the tide went out it left little sand islands and I'd get stranded. He would come wading out and carry me across to another island."

In the early years the only thing that marred Gillian's happiness was her relationship with her sister Imogen, four years her junior. "I was very jealous of her. I remember being very unkind to her when I was still very little - throwing her bedclothes and mattress onto the floor to get her into trouble, and throwing food from her high chair onto the floor."

Sadly, Enid and Hugh's relationship deteriorated, said Gillian, and, when she was ten, the couple divorced. After that, the sisters never saw their father. Enid forbade them contact, says Gillian, but she feels no anger towards her mother for this and can even understand her motives.

Enid Blyton's own father had left home when she was 13. His departure had had a huge effect on her, impeding her growth and making her ill.

Gillian says: "She saw him for one day every month and found that desperately unsatisfying. He had been a very close childhood companion - he was everything to her and she didn't want us to suffer like that emotionally."

Gillian says she was not curious as to why her own father was no longer around: "It was wartime and there were many absent fathers."

Hugh became head of secret armaments during the Second World War, and later married his secretary, Ida Crowe, while Enid married surgeon Kenneth Darrell Waters, says Gillian

Hugh made efforts to see his daughters, although Gillian says she did not find out until years later. She learned from a family friend that he had stood outside the church when she got married to catch a glimpse of her.

In later life, Gillian made attempts to find her father, looking him up in Who's Who. "But by the time I went to his address and looked up to see which window was his, he'd moved."

At this time her mother was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. She died when Gillian was in her late thirties.

Gillian, who, like her mother, worked as a primary school teacher before becoming a director of the Enid Blyton Company, eventually found out that her father was living in Malta. But sadly, by then he was too ill to receive visitors and, to her regret, died before she could see him. She has gleaned some information about him from her half-sister Rosemary and her mother, Ida, to whom she is close. She says: "I would like to have met him again and talked to him."

As well as this great regret, Gillian has also had to live through personal tragedy. Not a day goes by when she does not think of her eldest son, Glyn - one of four children - who died aged 22 as a result of injuries sustained in a car crash. Gillian also misses her late husband Donald, a former YTV programme director.

Now a grandmother, she is channelling her energies into a new venture - a children's comic, Blue Moon. Packed with stories, puzzles and wonderful pictures, she hopes the traditional-style publication will be a success. "I am very excited about it. It will be wonderful if it does well."

Blue Moon is published by Quill Publications and can be ordered through newsagents

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