This article was originally written by Faye Mayern at SWNS — the U.K.’s largest independent news agency, providing globally relevant original, verified, and engaging content to the world’s leading media outlets.
An English book collector was riffling through a children’s novel he’d picked up from a thrift shop when he stumbled upon a happy surprise: notes his wife had written 50 years ago as a child.
A collector of around 50 novels by the late Enid Blyton — a bestselling children’s author who penned an estimated 800 books over four decades — 67-year-old Steve Mills told the BBC he was “completely gobsmacked” by the discovery. He was going through some new additions when he found the writings from Karen, 60, in a copy of The Naughtiest Girl Again, which had been donated by her mother in the 1970s.
It somehow ended up in a thrift store in Rayleigh — a town in the U.K. that’s more than 160 miles away from where Karen grew up in Staffordshire. Steve, a retired civil servant who has loved Blyton’s books since he was a child, told SWNS, “We’ve taken it as one of the universe’s strange coincidences.”
“I had a load of books that I bought together and it wasn’t until a couple of months went by that I was rearranging the books on the shelf,” he continued. “I decided to look through them properly, opened one up, and recognized the number on the front cover.”
It turned out to be his wife’s old address. “I jokingly showed it to her and she turned the next page. There was her name, address, phone number, and drawings,” Steve recalled. “Her parents are in their 80s and they were delighted when we told them.”
Karen was also overjoyed to find her old notes, which she had penned alongside “stick-figure” drawings of her family. “She was equally shocked,” Steve told the BBC. “It was actually quite a cute thing to look at.”
But that wasn’t all: Steve later found more books in his collection that also contained his wife’s annotations. “Lo and behold, there was a second and third book belonging to my wife,” he told SWNS. The other books were Five on a Treasure Island and The Adventures of Pip — all with Karen’s musings scrawled inside. Steve also discovered a note that reads, “I have got 12 of Enid Blytons books,” her missing punctuation evidence of her age, and is determined to track down the remaining nine.
This serendipitous story has earned rave reviews from the public: Steve posted about the notes on an Enid Blyton Fan Group on Facebook, and has so far received 1,300 likes. “It’s touched on people’s heartstrings and there’s a lot of people out there who would love to find things from their childhood,” he said. “It was a simpler life and that’s why I like them so much.”
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Stories like this remind us of the power of human ingenuity and compassion. In a world where headlines are often dominated by negativity, it is refreshing to see developments that inspire hope and positive change. The story behind englishman “gobsmacked” after finding his wife’s childhood notes in a thrift store children’s novel is one that resonates with people across different backgrounds and cultures, highlighting the universal desire for progress and connection.
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