Blyton lived at her cottage, Old Thatch, near the Thames at Bourne End, then at Green Hedges, a mock-Tudor house in Beaconsfield. Bonham Carter told a UK tabloid, "Enid's self-awareness was brilliant and she was incredibly controlling, too. I was attracted to the role because she was bonkers. She was an emotional mess and quite barking mad. What I found extraordinary, bordering on insane, was the way that Enid reinvented her own life. She was allergic to reality -- if there was something she didn't like then she either ignored it or re-wrote her life."

"She didn't like her mother, so let her colleagues assume she was dead. When her mother died, she refused to attend the funeral. Then the first husband didn't work out, so she scrubbed him out. There's also a scene in the film where her dog dies, but she carries on pretending he's still alive because she can't bear the truth."

*****

However, she was unable to relate as a normal mother with her two daughters Gillian and Imogen, with her first husband, Hugh Pollock. She is said to be distant and unkind to her younger daughter Imogen. Imogen Smallwood, 74, told the tabloid: "My mother was arrogant, insecure and without a trace of maternal instinct. Her approach to life was childlike, and she could be spiteful, like a teenager."

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