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Research Topic: How old were the Famous Five?

By Ian Mander, 25 December 2005, updated 13 June 2006, updated 4 March 2009 including data and analysis of Timmy's age.

Sequential Timeline | Optimised Timeline | Timeline References

Sequential Timeline

The Famous Five aged over the course of their adventures - the humans, at least, there's not much mention that Timmy aged at all once he got past the puppy stage, although he was affectionately referred to as "old Timmy" occasionally. Unfortunately if the adventures are in sequential order a lot of holidays are "wasted" and the "children" are decidedly adultish by the end of the series.

If we place the adventures in sequential order this is what we get:

Obviously, this raises all sorts of questions, like why would young adults in their early twenties want to holiday with a nine year old in book 19? How did a very old dog cope with the huge amount of running around with bicycles in the last couple of books? These are issues that probably just won't ever have answers.

Timeline | Optimised Timeline | Timeline References

Optimised Timeline

Sometimes aging was expressed by Enid Blyton, most of the time it has to be inferred. If we assume the children did actually age*, we can take one of two views: Either Enid Blyton was rather careless with how the stories related to each other because it was too much trouble making sure the Five didn't get too old, or she was very clever, and omitted mentioning their ages but left important clues which allow us to place the Famous Five adventures in the "actual" order they happened, which means we can work out the "actual" ages of the children in each of the adventures. Surprisingly, they almost all fit, with only one serious contradiction that's easily resolvable with a single-word text change.

*We have to remember they're only kids' books. And it seems very likely that she only intended to write the first six, but found she was onto a good thing, so kept going.

George's birthday is between the Christmas and Easter holidays (they have a three term year), so there's the implication the others had their birthdays at other times of the year. It's desirable for Anne to be as young as possible in April (due to an unrecoverable contradiction with Richard's age), so I've arbitrarily decreed her birthday to be between the Easter and Summer holidays. Of course, this also helps explain why she tends to be looked down on, and is often given special consideration by her brothers for being small and/or weak.

To keep them as young as possible (for those who wishfully think they never grew up) Julian's and Dick's birthdays might also occur at the same time of year, although that would mean that all Spring/Easter adventures have George the same age as Julian, in whole years, anyway. This is unlikely since Julian bosses George around quite a lot (mostly based on her being a girl, the male chauvinist pig) and George goes along with it, albeit angrily for the most part. This implies that Julian is more than a year older, so I've arbitrarily decided that Julian and Dick's birthdays occur after summer. Only three adventures are affected.

Since this timeline is an "optimised" timeline, many adventures have been moved from their sequential positions. This optimisation of the timeline means the final story is three years earlier than it would be if all stories were in their numerical order, and subtle clues from the books are incorporated to eliminate contradictions. Extra characters have ages given or calculated, where information is available from the books. The rest are just guesses.

Boxes with  blue  or  pink  or  yellow  backgrounds are placements of the adventures relative to each other of the same colour. They are in the required order but not necessarily the required spacing - so book 12 at optimised position 20 could be swapped with book 15 at optimised position 18. The exception is book 18 which could be before book 9 (although book 9 must still be before book 11).

Update 13 June 2006: I've moved the placement of book 10 because of the requirement for book 14 to be the 14th adventure. It makes that year a very busy one.

Update 4 March 2009: Green boxes are now emphasised a little more, and the colour key above has been clarified. Also minor typos fixed, and an explanation added to the book 2 notes as to why that book in optimised position 2 doesn't have a background colour when there is probably ample evidence to firmly place it in the timeline. Also an extra note for book 15.

The Famous Five books in optimised order:

This places Timmy at an old but still reasonable age for an easy life in retirement, before he gets too old to run next to a bike in the last story.

Timeline | Optimised Timeline | Timeline References

Timeline references

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

All page references are to the 1967-1971 Knight editions of the books.

1. Five on a Treasure Island

• The first adventure, the children are introduced as being 10 to 12 years old.
• George says she found Timmy "out on the moors when he was just a pup, a year ago" (page 30).
• Alf (known in some later books as James) is described as being "about fourteen years old." (Page 40.)

2. Five Go Adventuring Again

• Christmas holidays.
• Have misplaced my copy, so I haven't been able to read it for positioning clues. :(

3. Five Run Away Together

• Set in summer one year after book 1, so children must be one year older than in that book, ie 11 to 13 years old.
• George has been by herself for the first three weeks of the summer holiday and Julian, Dick and Anne had gone away with their parents, so there are no adventures in this summer prior to this one.
• George's mother said two or three years ago that George could have Kirrin Island (page 9).
• Jennifer Mary Armstrong is described as "a small girl" without any age given.
• Jenny is old enough to recover quickly and for the Five to want to have around for a week on the Island after the adventure.
• Alf/James still Alf.

4. Five Go To Smuggler's Top

• Starts "One fine day right at beginning of the Easter holidays". Cold, windy, fishermen expecting a big storm.
• The Five "haven't been [to Kirrin Island] since last summer" which isn't specifically mentioned in book 15 but is in book 14.
• Anne says Dick's book can't be as exciting as "some" of the adventures the Five have had (page 8).
• George says Julian has "gone thin" - a growth spurt? Or just not eating enough?
• Timmy spontaneously offers his paw to Mr Lenoir (page 181). If book 16 is the first time he does that, this places this book at least six years later than the natural (consecutive) positioning of it, but solves the problem for Timmy climbing spiral stairs in book 19 because that adventure can simply swap with this one - two problems solved at once.
• "George found herself twinkling at him [Sooty] in a way quite strange to her..." I have no idea what that's supposed to mean (and don't think I want to know), but I suspect it must be her teenage hormones finally kicking in.

5. Five Go Off in a Caravan

• August, first week of summer holidays, so cannot be set in any earlier year, as it can't be before book 3.
• Dick rules out cycling as an option because Anne couldn't ride as fast as the others (page 9), so Anne is still quite young.

6. Five on Kirrin Island Again

• Easter the year after book 5.
• George thinks Anne already knows what Kirrin Island is like at Easter - how? The only Easter adventure written at this point was when they went to Smuggler's Top, book 4 - they never got to Kirrin Island.
• No other book set at Easter includes visiting Kirrin Island, as they're all set somewhere else.
• However, book 3 (page 7) mentions that the Five "usually joined up together and had plenty of fun." It's possible they had fun but no adventure the Easter before book 3.
• Five have not stayed together since they went caravanning in book 5 - ie, no adventures can be squeezed in there.
• George has Timmy at school.
• Timmy went up the tower (page 38) "having managed the spiral stairs with difficulty." On his way down (page 40) Timmy pushed passed Anne and "disappeared below her at a remarkably fast pace." No trouble at all now - almost as though it took a while to remember how to do it. Or maybe he's just having a problem with gravity. See book 19 for another spiral staircase he learns to climb.
• We read that Martin Curton looks about 16 and the coastguard tells Julian that Martin is "about your age, I should think." (Page 55.)
• Enid Blyton obviously meant for the children to get older if Julian is looking this old already. However, aging at this rate is another indication that the adventures (especially the later ones) are not all in sequential order.

7. Five Go Off To Camp

• Set in summer, one year after book 5.
• Book starts with planning the trip, six days before they leave for the moors.

8. Five Get Into Trouble

• The Easter, the first time they go camping after book 7.
• Anne must be older now because she can now keep up with the others cycling (see book 5).
• Richard Thurlow Kent being "not much older than Anne" (page 34) is probably the biggest boo-boo on Enid's part in the whole timeline (apart from them still being referred to as children when they're into their twenties!).
• We know when this story is set relative to book 5, and that's OK as it allows Anne to grow up a bit to be able to cope with the cycling, but book 5 couldn't itself be any earlier because it can't be the same summer as book 3 (or book 1, obviously). In other words, Anne is a minimum of 13 years old in Five Get Into Trouble, a few months short of 14.
• Richard Kent is thus at least nine or ten months younger than Anne; hence the line should read "not much younger than Anne".

9. Five Fall Into Adventure

• Starts on 2 September! Last two weeks of eight week break
• Julian and Dick have been in France for the first six weeks, so no adventures can be squeezed into the first part of these hols.

10. Five on a Hike Together

• October, mid-term break.
• Miss Peters (a name that seems very familiar) isn't worried at all by the idea of them going off by themselves for a weekend, so even Anne must be quite old by this time.
• George has Timmy at school.

11. Five Have a Wonderful Time

• April.
• First hols since George's birthday, implying that the others have their birthdays at some other time of year.
• Previous adventure with Jo (book 9) was "the year before".

12. Five Go Down to the Sea

• Summer, very hot.
• Yan is over 80 years younger than his great grandfather, who first saw the wreckers' light "near 90 years ago".
• Julian and Dick are presented with Clopper, but the suit is never mentioned again in any other book.

13. Five Go to Mystery Moor

• April.
• Is anyone not yet tired of girls trying to look like boys?

14. Five Have Plenty of Fun

• Summer, hot, three weeks left of holiday.
• Boys have been abroad for the first four weeks of this holiday while Anne had been to camp and had a friend stay (page 17) so can't fit any other adventures in the same holiday.
• Fanny mentions George first met her cousins "a few years ago" (page 55).
• Dick mentions it's their 14th adventure and refers to two previous adventures with Jo (book 9 and book 11).
• Adventure includes a trip to Kirrin Island (fulfills requirement for the summer preceding book 4).
• Timmy is straight away great friends with a black poodle (page 51) which places this story after book 18 where he apparently meets a black poodle for the first time.

15. Five on a Secret Trail

• August, hot at night, different hols from book 14. Fanny to Anne: 'Will they [Julian and Dick] be coming down at all these holidays?' 'I don't know,' said Anne. 'They're still in France, you know, on a school-boys' tour.' (Page 16.)
• A particularly big gorse bush (page 108) has "a few yellow blooms on it still" implying late summer.
• Julian ("like everybody else") is old enough to have done his First Aid Training (with capital initials).
• Update 4 March 2009: A quick web search indicates 16 is the present minimum age for first aid courses in Britain, which is great, as the existing placement of this book has even Anne age 16.

16. Five Go to Billycock Hill

• Whitsun (seven weeks after Easter).
• Timmy spontaneously offers his paw to someone (Cousin Jeff), supposedly for the first time - 'Timmy's never done that before!' said George (page 73). What about book 4? It must be after this one.
• A big gorse bush in this book also has a few yellow blooms on it still - a strange thing to say when it's early June.

17. Five Get Into a Fix

• Christmas holidays, winter, one week before school is due to start again.
• Must be after book 16, as Timmy spontaneously offers his paw to Mrs Jones (page 28).
• It really stretches credibility to think that the Five (Julian in particular) would think that Morgan was a baddie after their lesson from misjudging Mr Penruthlan in book 12. Since they had evidence that Mr Penruthlan really wasn't on the level (eg, going through pockets, lying to his wife, etc) it's probable that this story is before that one.

18. Five on Finniston Farm

• Summer, hot.
• It's twice mentioned (in separate locations) that there are fields of corn waving in the breeze - mid to late summer?
• Timmy apparently doesn't know what on earth a black poodle is (page 28), which would place this story before book 14 where Timmy is great friends with that black poodle straight away (page 51), but it cannot be in the first half of the same summer holiday as that adventure.
• The twins (described as "children" on page 17) must be quite pre-adolescent to look remotely like each other since they are fraternal, boy-girl twins. Yet even their mother can't tell them apart at times (page 21).
• The four human Five seem to be given the OK to drive the tractor and the Land Rover (page 33), so they must be reasonably old and mature.
• Update 4 March 2009: Janie, the ten year old girl in the shop, is "small" (page 12) and "little" (page 14). These sizes are possibly compared to the four Five.
• Janie's mother says [Great] Grandad [Finniston] is "over 80" (page 15).

19. Five Go To Demon's Rocks

• Beginning of April.
• George doesn't know if Timmy will be able to climb the spiral staircase in the lighthouse. This would either mean the story is set before book 6, or George was concerned because of Timmy's age.

20. Five Have A Mystery To Solve

• Starts on first day of one month long April holiday.
• End with "Good-bye, Five - it was fun sharing in your grand adventure." It obviously refers to just this book, but unlike many, it doesn't end with any mention of waiting for their next adventure.

21. Five Are Together Again

• Starts on first day of Easter holiday.
• "'Tinker - do you mean to say you're still being fat-headed enough to pretend to be cars and bicycles and tractors and lorries,' demanded Julian." (Page 36.)
• If there has been a circus in the field every ten years since 1648 the present year must end in an 8. 1948? 1958?
• Finishes with "Hurry up and fall into another adventure... Good-bye for now..." Makes it sound very much like it's not the last adventure.

Timeline | Optimised Timeline | Timeline References

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