Richmal Crompton was, and remains, rightly famous for her “Just William” stories about an eleven-year-old boy navigating with some perplexity the challenges of life. He remained eleven for nearly fifty years. I chose this story almost at random – I would be happy with almost any of the hundreds of William stories Crompton wrote. They are mostly still in print.
William – a goodhearted boy – muddles his way through each story, causing increasing chaos as he goes. There is not a hint of condescension in her portrayal of William, or of any of the characters. They are drawn with sympathy in their foibles and misunderstandings. Each story gives us insights into the world of the time, from the early 1920s right up to the late 1960s. In the 1920s William comes from a well-off middle-class family (with a maid, cook, and gardener), somewhere in the Home Counties. Children had lots of freedom, and could be out all day without any adult supervision, just coming home for meals.
In this story, published 100 years ago, William attempts to become the good boy that his family longs for, with comic results.
Crompton wrote about 40 William books, and described them as potboilers, writing an additional forty or so adult novels which she took more seriously. One day I shall read some of them.
There have been TV and film adaptations of some of the William stories, but I don’t think any of them really capture the humour and energy of the originals, although the BBC radio adaptation with Martin Jarvis narrating was brilliant. I have often laughed out loud when reading them, and my delight was unbounded some years ago when I spotted about 10 volumes in a charity shop and bought them all – bedtime reading with my children for the next few months (and they carried on reading them themselves well into their teens). One of the great things about these stories is that they can be appreciated by readers of any age. Sheer genius.
First published in Still – William!, MacMillan, 1925
A Personal Anthology 