Quote of the Day

The Junior Common Room was the usual seething mob, everybody yelling at the tops of their voices, so we didn't bother much to introduce Lisa around, only grabbed as much tea as we could - it's rather special on the first day, sandwiches and cake, so that the poor victims think that's how they're going to eat every day and feel quite cheered, little do they know. Prune was stuffing away quietly in a corner, so we took Lisa over to talk to her.

From A GIRL WITH IDEAS, Chapter 1, Dotty Has An Idea. This book was written under the pen name Jean Bell and was clearly intended for the Collins Spitfire series in the late sixties. However, it was only published in 2002 in Susan and Friends.

Quote of the Day

The Forrest parents came back full of praise for the house. This was just as well, for by this time the family were wild to go. William said that if it couldn't be Greenland's icy mountains or India's corral strand, Cornwall would be better than nothing; Vivian said that she'd always wanted to live by the sea. As for Jane, who practically always had her nose in a book, she knew from her reading that Cornwall was a very romantic and desirable place to live. "Piskies, you know," she said to Vivian, "and mermaid and ogres and dragons and smugglers and things that go bump in the night-"

"What d'you mean?" asked Vivian suspiciously.

"There's a Cornish rhyme about ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night," said Jane in an eerie whisper.

"Now look here," said Vivian. "Just don't start any of your nonsense."

From THE PENHALLOW MYSTERY, Chapter 1, 

Paddy Turns Detective

In 1967, under the pen name of Jean Bell, Jane Shaw published two books for the Collins Spitfire series. Here is the cover of Paddy Turns Detective. The other book was The Penhallow Mystery, which you can read about in an earlier post by clicking here. The author also wrote A Girl With Ideas as Jean Bell, although this story was only published in 2002 in Susan and Friends. Both A Girl With Ideas and the two Spitfire books were aimed at younger readers and it may be that Collins was planning to relaunch her career. However, she continued to publish as Jane Shaw too, writing the last Susan books and Brer Rabbit before retiring in 1969.

Penhallow Mystery

In the 1960s, Jane Shaw began to use the pen name Jean Bell. Under this name, she wrote the unpublished novella A Girl with Ideas the only books of hers that were ever published in paperback for the Collins Spitfire series. These two books were for younger readers. One was called Paddy Turns Detective, and here we can see The Penhallow Mystery. As the name suggests, it is set in Cornwall. Other stories set in Cornwall are the short story Family Troubles and the two Moochers books.