Feature: Just William

Published: 10 March, 2011
by AMANDA BLINKHORN 

His naughtiness was shocking 90 years ago, but how would Richmal Compton’s tearaway be seen today? 

JUST how much havoc would William Brown, hero of Just William which was first published in 1922, have created with a mobile phone? And how long would he and his gang of Outlaws have been allowed to roam the gardens of Hampstead in 2011 before they were slapped with an Asbo?

Ken Ellis, actor, raconteur and, despite his Billy Bunter glasses, the ultimate Just William fan, posed these and other questions last week at a talk in Swiss Cottage Library to celebrate the life of Just William, Richmal Crompton’s scuff-kneed schoolboy who was forever in a pickle.

Mr Ellis, an active member of the Just William Society as well as a staunch supporter of Swiss Cottage Library User’s Group, attracted a small, but attentive audience to his talk last week, entitled “Just William – how do today’s kids compare?”.

“When Richmal Compton first created William he was considered so badly behaved that he was first introduced as a story for adults,” explained Ellis, wondering out loud how William’s elaborate but relatively harmless pranks would go down in today’s London.

Running through William’s list of crimes and misdemeanours, Ellis explained that he wasn’t always so harmless. “He wasn’t above blackmail,” he said. “He once blackmailed a businessman by taking photographs of him doing his exercises and then threatened to make them public if he didn’t rehire his gardener – it worked.”

“He’d probably do that with a mobile phone today,” suggested Jorge PIna from the audience, a newcomer to William but who identified strongly with his irresistible temptation to make faces in church. “I used to do the same,” he confessed. “It was impos­sible not to.”

William’s ward­robe is trad­itionally seen as retro but Ellis wasn’t so sure. “Anyone walked down Eton Avenue recently? You still see those prep school boys in their blazers and caps – not so many shorts nowadays, but no shortage of Just William caps.” And he said William’s hair would be the envy of today’s version of the Outlaws: “William didn’t really think about his spiky hair, but today it would be considered very fashionable – today’s boys would probably pay a fortune to get it to stick up like that!”

But although Ellis agreed that William could possibly pass for a typical Hampstead schoolboy today, what would set him apart was his internal moral code. William Brown may well have been happy to walk off with someone else’s bike, said Ellis, “but he was always just ‘borrowing’ it – he would never have considered it stealing. But these days there doesn’t seem to be the same sense of shame about stealing – gangs are seen to be proud about being seen to steal.”

Equally, William always tried to do the right thing, even if it ended up in disaster. “The vicar told him he must always tell the truth, and so he did,” said Ellis, even if that meant pointing out how fat someone looked. 

The one undeniably modern trait in William which rarely gets mentioned is that despite growing up in a world of rigid social hierarchies, William was the ultimate Hampstead Liberal. “He wasn’t class conscious at all,” explained Ellis, pointing out that he was as likely to be put in his place by the local tramp as he was the vicar. “He mixes with his social inferiors,” said Ellis.  “His brother and sister were completely class conscious, but not William.” 

He was also completely fearless and hopelessly naive when it came to the consequences of manipulating adults. “He wanted to get sweets from an old lady, so to get her sympathy he tells her that his parents drink and mistreat him. I think today’s kids would be far more canny.” His audience agreed. “They’d probably lie to get the booze themselves,” one woman said wearily.

Sadly, Ellis had to agree that however much William Brown was still loved he was probably better off kept safely between the covers of Richmal Crompton’s books. In fact if he tried to get sweets out of old ladies by accusing his parents of drinking it wouldn’t be too long before social services came a-knocking, he observed. “He’d certainly be considered to have attention deficit disorder,” he said. “He’d probably be put on Ritalin.” 

Mr Ellis is planning a second Just William-inspired talk later in the spring, this time on the subject of his creator, the indefatigable writer Richmal Crompton who battled breast cancer and polio to complete her 38 stories.

• Just William Society, c/o Black Cat Bookshop, PO Box 8662, Wigston, Leicester LE18 9BB. 0116 2512756, email: blackcatuk@aol.com