FOREWORD
An eleven-year-old boy called William Brown taught me to read when I was eight and a half. I had tried to learn since I was five years old, but a combination of a terrifying
teacher and a strong dislike of school meant that I never quite learned to make sense of the letters of the alphabet. Then one glorious day I was diagnosed with mumps and told by the doctor that I
must stay at home in quarantine for three whole weeks. Early in the first week of my holiday from school my mother went to a rummage sale and brought back a pile of William books, including Just
William. I leafed through this book and came across Thomas Henry’s delightful scratchy pen and ink illustrations. Under each of these funny drawings was a caption written in capital
letters. I asked my mother what these captions said and she read them aloud to me and we both laughed. After she had trawled through all the dozen or so books, found the illustrations and read all
the captions, I wanted more. I wanted to read the stories, so, covered in a blanket on the sofa next to the fire, I started learning to read. With my mother’s help the letters turned into
words, the words into sentences, the sentences into paragraphs. And then one wonderful day I was able to immerse myself in the gloriously funny subversive world of William Brown and that of his
long-suffering parents; his snobbish grown-up siblings, Robert and Ethel; his gang, called collectively The Outlaws (consisting of Henry, Douglas and Ginger, and occasionally Joan, the only girl
that William has a soft spot for); his sworn enemy Hubert Lane and the Laneite gang, and Violet Elizabeth Bott, daughter of the nouveau-riche Botts.
William falls into the path of many authoritarian figures: policeman, clergymen, aunts, shopkeepers, spinsters, gardeners and servants. For this is 1922. But new readers need not fear.
William’s world may not be familiar to them, but William certainly will be. He is that scruffy boy with the screwed-up face and with his own logic, who pedantically questions every rule and
sets out to break most of them. His sins include burglary, kidnapping, arson, theft, stalking, deceit and slovenliness. But most of his intentions are good and he is always kind to white rats,
babies and stray dogs. The situations he gets himself – and The Outlaws – into are funny, but the true genius of his author, Richmal Crompton, is in her richly comic dialogue. In
particular William’s poor diction, grammar and mordant observations, which still make me laugh today.
Richmal Crompton did not write Just William for children. She uses a sophisticated vocabulary and has a satirical view of the society in which she and William lived. In 1922 Richmal
Crompton was teaching classics in a girls’ school. Although she was a suffragette who campaigned for women’s right to vote, she must have felt horribly constrained by the limitations
imposed on women in the late-Edwardian period, when she was writing. William Brown is the wild child within her whose free spirit has endured triumphant for ninety years.
Sue Townsend
WILLIAM’S NEW YEAR’S DAY
W illiam went whistling down the street, his hands in his pockets. William’s whistle was more penetrating than melodious. Sensitive people
fled shuddering at the sound. The proprietor of the sweet shop, however, was not sensitive. He nodded affably as William passed. William was a regular customer of his – as regular, that is,
as a wholly inadequate allowance would permit. Encouraged, William paused at the doorway and ceased to whistle.
‘’Ullo, Mr Moss!’ he said.
‘’Ullo, William!’ said Mr Moss.
‘Anythin’ cheap today?’ went on William hopefully.
Mr Moss shook his head.
‘Twopence an ounce cheapest,’ he said.
William sighed.
‘That’s awful dear ,’ he said.
‘What isn’t dear? Tell me that. What isn’t dear?’ said Mr Moss lugubriously.
‘Well, gimme two ounces. I’ll pay you tomorrow,’
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