FOR A generation of post-war children they were the ultimate role-models - four teenage friends and their faithful dog.

Their crime-busting adventures, which found them patrolling the English coast, foiling the dastardly exploits of smugglers, spies and would-be kidnappers, was the must-read children's fiction of the 1950s.

The thrilling encounters of the Famous Five - Julian, Dick, Anne, George and the four-legged Timmy, were written by Enid Blyton, the JK Rowling of her day.

Blyton, a formidable figure who spent much of her time in the Swanage area, churned out 21 Famous Five books between 1942 and 1963.

The author, who was also responsible for the Noddy stories, would often write at a table set up in front of the clubhouse at the Isle of Purbeck Golf Club.

A keen player, she bought the club with part of her growing fortune in 1951.

Not surprisingly, the adventures were littered with thinly-disguised references to local landmarks like Brownsea Island, Corfe Castle and the local stone quarries.

Reputed to write up to 10,000 words a day, Blyton was known as "the sausage machine".

Amazingly, the Famous Five books have never been out of print.

Veteran Dorset journalist George Willey remembers as a young reporter regularly being summoned, by handwritten postcard, to attend Miss Blyton's book-signings.

"I remember her as a very autocratic woman with a long horsey face - all tweeds and pearls!" he says.

One wonders what Blyton would make of the current plans to give her Famous Five a new lease of life with the launch of a TV drama that paints them as middle-aged chums meeting again to solve a series of contemporary mysteries.

Fans of the original books will no doubt be fascinated to see how Julian, Dick, Anne, George and a canine descendant of the long-dead Timmy will be portrayed for a 21st century audience.

Will tomboy George - who Blyton always said she modelled on herself - be a tweedy, golf-playing millionaire?

There has been speculation in the past about the possible sexuality of this girl who cut her hair short and wore masculine clothes.

Perhaps she will have settled into a long-term lesbian relationship or embarked on a particularly masculine career?

Or maybe a yellowing copy of Joan Riviere's groundbreaking 1929 feminist essay Womanliness as a Masquerade will mean that she's turned all cloying and coquettish. Who knows? A dozen stereotypes beckon.

However things develop, the Enid Blyton Society says it hopes the portrayal of The Five in their 40s and 50s remains faithful to the concept of the original stories.

They definitely don't like the idea of George going all girly.

"A complete reversal of character would be too contrived," says the society's web forum moderator Anita Bensoussane, although she concedes that "a few surprises would be fine, as long as they seemed plausible".

The biggest change for the Famous Five, of course, is that their original adventures took place in far more innocent times.

An era when the idea of sending children out spying on dodgy-looking characters deep in the countryside carried none of the sinister overtones of today.

In 2007 Julian, Dick, Anne, George and their dog will be facing a far harsher world.

They may well have experienced divorces, redundancies, financial crises, perhaps even drink and drug problems.

They'll be paying a fortune to put their own children through university, worrying about pensions and probably dealing with the care of their own ageing parents.

I suspect that in reality they would be less interested in fighting crime than dreaming of the good old days when the biggest danger they were ever likely to face was running out of ginger beer.