The Magic Faraway Tree

"It’s the idea that one could climb up a tree and go into another land, a fantasy. Well into our time as puppeteers, going from city to city, I [Basil] realised that I was living the life of these books that had been so important to me as a child. I realised that we would stay in one place for three days and then move onto another place, and in each place we would create a world. The Magic Faraway Tree was so fantastical, whereas a lot of Blyton’s stories were about real situations."

"Enid Blyton wrote four books about the Enchanted Forest. I think the first one’s The Enchanted Wood , then there’s The Magic Faraway Tree , The Folk of the Faraway Tree , and Up The Magic Faraway Tree . As a child I just loved Enid Blyton, I avidly read as much as I could. There is just so much to enjoy in her writing. In these books, three children move to the countryside where they discover this tree in a magic forest. They are children, so of course they climb the tree! Up in the tree they meet interesting magical characters, with great names: Silky the fairy, Mr. Whatzisname, and Dame Washalot. Really, I think this is one of Enid Blyton’s best books because it’s just so creative and so gentle as well. But the story doesn’t end there. At the top of the tree there’s a ladder, and the ladder leads to a cloud, and in the cloud are different lands. Each time the children visit, there is a different land and a different adventure to have. There’s just so much for children to enjoy, and as a child I loved it. I’ve got two daughters, and we’re just about to embark on the series with our youngest now, because she’s just coming up to the right age—six to seven years."