This one's a corker. I'll have to set the scene. Aily is about 7 or 8. She's the youngest child in a hard-working farming family. She wanders off from her shepherd father, often accompanied by her small dog and a lamb. She's been missing from home and her mother spots her with Julian, Dick, George, Anne and Timmy the dog, who have just learned she's been sleeping rough in a barn.


Her mother stormed into the hut and dragged Aily out, shaking her well. Timmy growled, but Aily's little dog was as frightened as she was, and the lamb bleated pitifully in the child's arms.
"I take Aily home!" said her angry mother, glaring at the four children as if she thought they were responsible for the child's keeping away from home. "I whip her well!"

Clearly Blyton wasn't a fan of helicopter parenting. Nor, would she have held much store in making smacking a crime.