William the Fiihrer

Paul Webb

WHAT'S WRONG WITH CIVILIZASHUN by Richmal Crompton

Macmillan, f7.95, pp.112

THE WILLIAM COMPANION by Mary Cadogan

Macmillan, f14.95, pp.242

f the 38 William books that Richmal Crompton wrote between 1922 and her death in 1969, 26 are still in print. Macmil- lan are celebrating the enduring popularity of her eternal 11-year-old (who has also starred on radio, film and television), as well as the centenary of her birth, with the publication of two more.

What's Wrong with Civilizashun is a collection of articles, originally published in magazines in the 1920s, gathered together for the first time. Together with The William Companion they provide ex- amples of Crompton's brilliantly accurate portrayal of English boyhood, and a well- researched and entertainingly written guide to the characters, plots and ephemera of William's world.

The classic stories are set in the 1920s and 30s, which explains why William's family — comfortably middle-class — can maintain a cook, maids, a charwoman and gardener. He attends the local grammar school with reluctance, feeling that a prac- tical education would be more useful: When the enemy lands upon our shore what use is it to us to know that two sides of a triangle are together less than the third, or what particular battle Henry the Fifth con- quered Napoleon in?

Mr Brown assures his son that education is good for the soul, enabling one to spend one's leisure on scholarly and rewarding pursuits, but his son is pleased that he does not practise what he preaches: I should be deeply ashamed if my father spent his leisure hours solving geometry problems and translating Caesar. I cannot imagine anyone except a loony doing it.

William's relations with the adult world tend to be strained: neither side grasps the other's logic, and William's attempts to improve things, or arrange entertaining surprises tend, inexplicably, to be met with less than enthusiasm by Ethel and Robert (his older siblings) and his parents. Two Christmas events demonstrate this:

Came home and found Robert making an awful fuss, because he's found his hair oil in my room with bits of burnt cork floating in it . . . mother says hush hush dear. I know he's very trying, but remember it's Christmas Day ....

Put on a mask and open Ethel's door and pounce in on her to wake her up. She seems to think it's a jolly good joke and screams with laughter, then they all come running with smelling salts and things and it turns out that she's in something called hysterics, and they all go on at me and say it might have turned her brain ....

With the exception of a girl called Joan, who is allowed to join The Outlaws (Wil- liam, Ginger, Henry and Douglas), Wil- liam tries to steer clear of females, particu- larly the appalling Violet Elizabeth Bott, with her familiar threats to `thcream an' thcream till I'm thick' when thwarted. Aunts are a special bete noire:

I think that all these relations are wrong. The animals don't have them and I think we ought to try to live natchural like the animals. You'd never find a lion going to stay with its aunt,,,.

The yearning for a return to a simpler 'My youngest is in a shoe-box on the South Bank.' life is a recurrent theme in William's thinking, and there are shades of Jonathan Porritt in his assertion that

If I were king I'd make everyone stop bein' civilized an' start bein' savages again an' I bet we'd all be a jolly sight happier.

The Outlaws are cosily protected from the unpleasant aspects of the adult world, but Mary Cadogan has unearthed an extra- ordinary chapter (from William the Detect- ive), dropped from the current edition, which directly reflects contemporary poli- tical developments. Written in 1935, the chapter concerns the Outlaws' decision to become Nasties, largely because they've heard that Nasties chase Jews out of Germany and take what they've left — a particularly tempting prospect, as old Mr Isaacs owns the sweet shop.

This episode makes fascinating reading today, not least because of the contrast between the world of the Outlaws and the activities in Nazi Germany, and the way in which Crompton makes the action entirely believable and in character. When they form their new group, for example, Wil- liam's sense of masculinity is challenged:

'I'll be the chief one. What's he called in Germany?'

'Herr Hitler', said Henry.

`Her', echoed William in disgust. 'Is it a woman?'

Having insisted on the appellation of 'Him Hitler', William leads his band, waving a swastika banner, but they fail to intimidate the old man, who boxes their ears. Re- grouping, Henry argues that they are at a disadvantage, because in Germany they `have people called storm troopers an' when these Jews don't run away they knock them about till they do'.

Douglas has his doubts, but William insists that they carry on:

It's not stealin' when you're Nasties . . . it's by lor.

Crompton seems to have regretted starting the story and quickly ties it up when the Nasties accidentally capture a burglar in the sweet shop, earn Mr Isaacs' friendship, and decide to give up being Nasties and go back to being Outlaws. Given the ideological thought-police who seem to run the children's sections of public libraries, it is just as well that this chapter has been dropped (apart from in the Hebrew edition sold in Israel), for William is already a high-risk case, being white, English, male and middle-class, with anti-socialist attitudes: Conservatives want to make the world better by keeping everything just the same as what it is now . . . Liberals want to make it better by making everything different . . . Bolshe- viks want to make it better by killing everybody....

Children respond to talent, not 'rele- vance', and these two books, one an example of Richmal Crompton's skill, the other an analysis of it, remind us why she has been a bestseller for nearly 70 years.