Your favourite character as a child?

Yes, Rupert for me too. I can still remember his Nutwood friends’ names. My older cousin bought me an annual every year, but when his daughter was born in ‘69, I gave them back for her.

When I was in my pre-teens I used to read a comic called School Friend with a character called Princess Anita who had all kinds of adventures in her Ruritanian kingdom. That was at my romantic phase when I was into glamorous "big" dresses and tiaras.

Later on I developed into SF and read the Eagle and the adventures in space of Dan Dare and his crew. I have never lost my love of SF.

I used to read all the chalet school stories,Jo Bettaney was my heroine,I wanted to go the chalet school so badly and get into endlass scrapes with her.

Georgina from Famous Five.

She was a tomboy like me. I would have done anything to have a name which could be shortened to a boys one!

Also very jealous they had Timmy the dog. I wanted one of those too!

Heidi was my favourite. I loved where she lived on a mountain side in Switzerland. Maybe that's why I now live in the hills!

Velvet Brown in National Velvet. It was such a disappointment to find that I have no sense of balance and can’t even sit on a horse without falling off.

Another vote for Velvet Brown.

One of the happiest days of my life was when I purchased my first horse after years of loaning and riding other folks horses and ponies.

Heidi and Mary Lennox (from The Secret Garden ) and, later, Jo March in Little Women.

I had a book about Heidi and I read it over and over, it was far removed from my life I loved it.

GrannyGravy13

Another vote for Velvet Brown.

One of the happiest days of my life was when I purchased my first horse after years of loaning and riding other folks horses and ponies.

I still well up when I think of lines from the book. ‘The glorious ancestress Pocahontas whose blood ran down like time into her flying children’. It’s an underrated book imo. Explores what happens to ordinary people who become famous overnight and how the media gobble them up and spit them out. Also what it was like to be a woman competing in a man’s world, the other storyline being about her mother swimming the channel. And how the press were desperate to create some sort of love affair between Velvet and Mi. I still wish someone would make another more gritty adaptation of it.

Rupert Bear for me too!

Laura from Little House on the Praire,I loved the way they tracked across America and that there were quite a few books in the series also Pippi Longstockings.

Miss Virginia Bell from ‘TheBell Family’ by Noel Streatfeild Not as well known as her other characters the three ‘Ps’ in ‘Ballet Shoes’. She was naughty and misunderstood like me!

Heidi
Then later on Tamzin from Wish for a Pony by Monica Edwards
Marjorie from the series of books by Lorna Hill

And Susan in the books by Jane Shaw. Susan was clumsy always getting scrapes and I could identify with her. 😀

Susan was clumsy and always getting into scrapes

Georgina from Famous Five for me too.

Juliet27

Georgina from Famous Five for me too.

Oh yes, I used to eagerly await a new Famous Five book!

I wanted to be Ann (with an E) of Green Gables, still do to be honest!

Gin

Miss Virginia Bell from ‘TheBell Family’ by Noel Streatfeild Not as well known as her other characters the three ‘Ps’ in ‘Ballet Shoes’. She was naughty and misunderstood like me!

All Noel Streatfeild’s characters are good, but I think I like Petrova Fossil from Ballet Shoes best. She’s clever, a bit difficult, not a conventional girl.. There is a character rather like her in most of Streatfeild’s books, based on herself, I think.

Torchy the Battery Boy and Ma King Ping who had a show on Sundays late in the afternoons with scissor characters called Snip and Snap; she used to make things out of paper

I had a number of favourites. George from the Famous Five. She was her own person. Katie from What Katie Did. Jo from the Chalet School and Jo March from Little Women. The Four Mary's from The Bunty comic.

I thought that it was incredible that Rupert had a friend called Tiger Lily and even more exciting -her father was a Chinese conjurer and they lived in a pagoda .
This was so much more exciting than my family .

Then Velvet Brown rode horses and very well - access to any horses was thrilling to me .

And Georgina was a tomboy with a dog .
I was a tomboy with dog .

Swallows and Amazons was appealing too .

So all I need to be - a Chinese pagoda dwelling girl with a magician father ,who rode horses and was a tomboy with a dog and we could have adventures in a boat !

When Dr Who came on screen - I was the new Doctor's assistant and fought intrepidly against the Daleks .

In adulthood I've yearned to be part of the Borg Collective .

Chinky from the Magic Wishing Chair for me.

Samantha from Bewitched, loved that as a kid. Wanted to be able to wiggle my nose, magic!