Most everyone survives intact, though I imagine some home repairs were required. Join the fun as William charges admission to listen to his snoring aunt, uses blackmail to score two white rats, shows a baby the best day of his life and uses some of that crap they teach in school, otherwise known as grammar, to trick his father into allowing him to throw a party for 30 while his parents are away. Not much at all, if you enjoy laughing at the antics of clever, impish children doing what comes naturally. From playing cupid for his older sister to stealing flowers to give to his teacher, William's got a good heart. It was also fascinating to walk in mud, scraping it along with one's boots.Īh, boys will be boys, but there's probably never been a boy like William. The ditch was full and there was the thrill of seeing how often one could jump across it without going in. The hedges, when shaken, sent quite a shower bath down upon the shaker, which also is a pleasant sensation. In the road there were puddles, and the sensation of walking through a puddle, as every boy knows, is a very pleasant one. There were some quite interesting things to do outside. But I can sew just enough for essentials (buttons and hems). Knit!”Īttempts were made to teach me to knit.

“ The sort of things I want to do they don’t want me to do an’ the sort of things I don’t want to do they want me to do. I read some of these stories to my kid, but we also had Martin Jarvis reading on tapes and CDs for car journeys. “ William, goaded to desperation, burst into a flood of eloquence.” Some aspects of the books are, of course, very dated, but there's plenty of charm, fun, good writing: Image: It turns out 'grain entrapment' is a thing.

Walking across open topped grain silos, balancing on a narrow plank of wood, was the riskiest. There were things I got up to that were quite dangerous, but my family never knew at the time. I read and reread the Just William books as a child - some were my mother’s copies.Īs a tomboy, who spent a lot of time on my grandparents’ farm, I identified firmly with the Outlaws, including their attitude to Violet Elizabeth Bott.

Richmal crompton author