DOWN WITH SKOOL!’ read my father with glee. ‘A guide to school life for tiny pupils and their parents.’ I know it was 1965, because he paused for a moment and said in a rather dreamy voice: ‘I was exactly your age [six] when I was first sent to boarding school. After I’d overcome my initial shock, I loved it.’
Which may explain why his favourite reading matter and the only books he ever read aloud to me were novels about boarding-school life: Tom Brown’s School Days and Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School, The Complete Stalky & Co and Mike and Psmith. Nor, as you might expect, was his collection confined to books purchased when he was still a pupil. It included the ‘Jennings’ series, for example, and even Enid Blyton’s The Naughtiest Girl in the School (although, in fairness, this might have been his idea of a joke).
But the book to which my father returned time and again was the first of the Molesworth tetralogy, DOWN WITH SKOOL!, written by Geoffrey Willans and illustrated by Ronald Searle. Before he ever finished reading me the title page (Contanes FULL LOWDOWN ON SKOOLS, SWOTS, SNEKES, CADS, PRIGS BULIES HEADMASTERS CRIKET FOOPBALL, DIRTY ROTERS FUNKS, PARENTS, MASTERS WIZARD WHEEZES, WEEDS APLE PIE BEDS AND VARIOUS OTHER CHIZZES—IN FACT THE LOT) he was holding back his laughter and so, although only dimly understanding why it was funny, was I.
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