I read the William books in 1950s Leeds. Leeds was grey, grim and far, far away from William’s world. There were no Vicar’s wives calling round for tea. No maidservants, no summer house, barns or fields. And there definitely weren’t any hedgerows to hide in and emerge screaming and shouting.

But! I read them avidly allowing that world to embrace me. They were like the Frank Richards series Greyfriars featuring Billy Bunter. And I didn’t even really know what a boarding school was. It didn’t matter. What mattered, just as with P G Wodehouse, was the zany implausible world that was coherent.

Everyone knows about William but what about six-years old Violet Elizabeth Bott?

Try this:

“She carried feminine variability and inconsistency to extremes….She could sob in a most realistic heart-broken manner at a moment’s notice, and her proudest boast was that she could be sick at will.”

So here I am. A grown man enjoying a quintessential children’s  book and I can’t even claim I’ve been reading to my grandson. Absolutely terrific – if you like that sort of thing. I do.

Note

The vocabulary is an impediment if you’re tempted to read to your children/grand-children.

The very first sentence includes the word ‘disconsolately’ and that isn’t a one off.