Trivia / The Famous Five

• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: Nobody actually says "Lashings of ginger beer". The hilariously not-childsafe parody Five Go Mad in Dorset corrects this oversight.
• No Export for You: Six of Claude Voilier's officially licensed French-language books were never translated into English. The rough translations of these titles are The Five And the Rubies of Akbar, The Five on a Cruise, The Five Against the Ghosts, The Five in Amazonia, The Five and the Pirate's Treasure and The Five Against the Werewolf.
• Technology Marches On: Of course, many of the plots would not happen the same way nowadays because of the ubiquity of mobile phones. It is interesting to note which technologies mentioned in the Famous Five were modern at the time, and which ones might be baffling to a younger reader.
  • Telegrams are often used in the books. In Five Fall into Adventure, George's parents go on holiday in Spain (by plane), but do not tell anybody the address for a few days, then they'd telegraph it. This means that nobody can contact them until the adventure is all over.
  • In Five on Kirrin Island Again, the Five watch television in Martin's house, which appears to be a novelty to them, as George "seldom saw television."
  • Also in Five on Kirrin Island Again, one of the characters has a radio transmitter, as well as a receiver.
  • In Five Get into Trouble, the criminals' very isolated hideout Owl's Dene has no gas, water, electricity or telephone, but it has a "radiogram" (presumably battery-powered and hand cranked), and special machinery for operating the gates, which presumably does not use electricity.
  • In Five Fall into Adventure, the villain has a helicopter; such transport was (and still is) only available to the very wealthy.
  • In most of the books, traditional fireplaces are used for heating. This is important in Five Go Adventuring Again, when George chooses her father's study (strictly forbidden) as the only room which still had a nice fire burning, to treat Timmy's cough. Five Have Plenty of Fun mentions coke as a fuel.
  • In those days, the postal service (although not stated in the books) was considered by many to be reliable enough to be able to send a letter to invite somebody to afternoon tea, and to receive a reply the same day, with two deliveries a day. In Five Have a Wonderful Time, George's mother tells her to send a postcard to her cousins to tell them that she is arriving tomorrow, telling her that they will receive it in the morning. Nowadays, Snail Mail would not be the method of choice to communicate this.
    • Mind you, you probably couldn't do those things around Christmas.
  • The many secret passages never appeared to use electricity, all being purely mechanical.
    "It's like magic! Fancy the mechanism working so smoothly after years of not being used."
  • In Five Go To Demon's Rocks, the Five end up staying in a lighthouse because a letter arrives from Uncle Quentin's guest Professor Hayling, saying that he is arriving today, a week earlier than planned, and bringing his son Tinker. Uncle Quentin and Aunt Fanny try to telephone the Professor and the Five to tell them not to come, but in both cases, they have already left, and arrive before they could be stopped. Hilarity Ensues when they are all at the house at once; nowadays, mobile phones would have averted this.
  • With the roads being more primitive back then (and motor cars also; side valves, cable brakes and cross ply tyres), car journeys take a long time. In Five go to Demon's Rocks, the lighthouse is described as being ten miles along the coast from Kirrin, but it takes them a few hours to travel there by car.