On how she decided to become a writer:

 I always wanted to write for children, but it never occurred to me as a child that I would ever be famous. I had two brothers who were younger than I was, and I used to tell them stories, which I enjoyed very much indeed, and I suppose possibly it was from that beginning that the idea first came to me I would like to write stories when I was able to. 

As I grew older and went to school, of course the interest of the lessons, and playing with other children rather took my mind away from any thought of the future, but my father always wanted me to be a musician - music is in my family. I had a very clever aunt who used to give concerts and things like that, and my father rather visualised that I would do the same. Well, therefore at six years old, I had to begin to learn to play the piano, and all through my childhood, there was practise, practise, practise, till I was in my teens and I was doing four hours a day. 

Now if you have to work at something that you have really no desire to achieve anything great in, it becomes a terrible bore. And all the time, I still wanted to write, not necessarily all the time did I want to write for children, but I wanted to write, and that was the only thing that I was really very - any good at in my school work, I think, writing - essay writing, story writing.

Well, then it happened that I went to stay with a friend of mine in the country on a farm. I suppose I was about seventeen then - sixteen or seventeen - and this friend ran a Sunday school, and she said to me: Would you like to come with me to Sunday school? I said: What would I do? She said: Well perhaps you could tell the children stories. I said: Bible stories? She said: Yes. I said: Yes, I'd love to do that. So off I went to Sunday school, and I don't think I've ever been so happy in my life as I was that afternoon, telling stories to these small children. 

On how she went about it:

 I knew that I ought to be a children's writer more than anything else. But I also knew I didn't know nearly enough about children to be able to put over things like good morals, education and information of all sorts and so on. So I decided that I would run my own school. I ran it for four or five years, and in that time, I wrote absolutely everything for the children - all the stories, all the songs - there my music came in useful, because I could put them to tunes - all the songs, all the poetry they learnt. That doesn't mean I didn't teach them classical poetry that was (?????), because I did, but I wanted to try my own gift out on them, and it was the happiest five years there, I think, that I could ever wish for. Then I left the school - my little school, and I started writing in earnest. Of course, later on I married. I had children of my own to practise on. But that was the beginning of how I wanted to write for children, and how I managed to get my wish. 

On her favourite character: 

Interviewer: Probably her most famous character is Noddy, but her own favourite is someone quite different. 

Enid: And that's George, the girl who wanted to be a boy, who is one of the heroines in The Famous Five books. George was a real girl whom I once knew long ago. She had a dog, who is also in the books, called Timmy. Those are real characters, but as a rule, my characters are imaginary. Why is George my favourite character? Because she was a very strong personality, and made an impression on me, and because she was a kind, good, generous, brave child whom I thought would be a splendid character for any child's book.