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ACTIVITY PLANNER

FEATURE FOCUS

Say huzzah for Billy Bunter, a man for our time

By Jim White

Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 18/02/2008

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your say      Read
comments

Gadzooks, yaroo, huzzah! No, it is not an extract
from Boris Johnson's London mayoral election manifesto; it is but a
few words in celebration of a hugely important cultural centenary:
Billy Bunter is 100 this week. Or rather, he would have been had the
type-two diabetes, the furred arteries, the heart disease, the
osteoarthritis, the liver condition, the circulation issues, the
gout, the breathing problems and the sleep apnoea not caught up with
him long ago.

Frank Richards's notorious tubby, the comedy
lard-bucket of Greyfriars School, first appeared in cartoon form in
the Magnet comic in February 1908.

Initially he was just one of the lads, a foil to the
famous five of Harry Wharton, Bob Cherry, Frank Nugent, Johnny Bull
and Hurree Jamset Ram Singh (known, in those
pre-culturally-sensitive times by the nickname of "Inky"). When it
came to these lads' jokes, Bunter was invariably the butt (and he
had a substantial one, forever framed in his over-tight Prince of
Wales check trousers, about to be addressed by Mr Quelch's
cane).

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A sneak thief constantly slipping into Coker's study
to pinch biscuits, or being caught, stuck in the attempt to break
into the tuck shop, his podgy legs protruding out of the hatch,
frantically flapping, the comedy came from the pitifulness of his
greed. His laughable habit was to own up long before anyone accused
him of anything.

"If it's about the cake, Sir, it wasn't me, Sir. I
didn't know Mrs Keble was even baking a cake, Sir. And it very
definitely isn't in my desk, Sir, so there's really no point looking
in it," he would say, when summoned to Mr Quelch's study for an
altogether different reason, perhaps to take a long-distance phone
call from his father.

Soon, his snivelling, deceitful, venal behaviour
became the main purpose of the strip.

By 1940, when Magnet ceased publication due to the
wartime paper shortage and he was obliged to blob on first to
Knockout then to Valiant, he was the nation's favourite anti-hero, a
schoolboy institution, described by George Orwell as "a real
creation".

In the late 1960s, the BBC made a television star
out of him. They ran seven series of his adventures, featuring young
adult actors such as Anthony Valentine, Melvyn Hayes and Michael
Crawford squeezed into ill-fitting blazers and caps as his
Greyfriars chums.

Gerald Campion, who played Bunter, was 29 when the
first series aired. Which rather fitted with Bunter's character: he
was so lazy that he probably would have still been at school as he
entered his thirties. You could certainly never imagine him staying
awake long enough in Mr Quelch's interminable, droning Latin classes
to get the grades to leave.

Looking back at those shows - all of them available
on YouTube - you soon realise that these days Bunter could never be
invented.

For a start, the Fat Owl of the Remove would be
known as the Morbidly Obese Individual of the Year 11 Special
Measures Media Studies Opt Out Set. And it would be difficult to
single him out for identification because at least half the class
would be spilling over the belts of their trousers.

Besides, you couldn't laugh at him. Fat isn't funny
any more. Any drama associated with him would involve the arrival of
a government educational task force charged with helping him and his
family to make informed choices on dietary selection and Jamie
Oliver telling Mrs Keble that Bunter's health problems were her
fault for baking too many cakes in the first place, and she needed
to switch to organic, locally sourced vegetable stir-fry pronto.

Meanwhile, his father would be poised to sue Quelch
and Greyfriars for turning his poor William into a barrage balloon.
After all, someone must be responsible for the hopelessness of the
lad's condition and it couldn't possibly be the boy himself. Or his
parents.

Yet, despite their apparently archaic nature, the
adventures of Bunter still have a telling resonance.

Take the lad's character. Instead of cutting his
coat according to his cloth, he is forever living beyond his means.
He is on a constant search for more than he needs, more than is
available. He does not have the wherewithal to gain such booty
legitimately, as he is always waiting for a postal order from his
father that never seems to arrive.

In his mind, as he purloins other people's tuck, or
slips his mates' sweets into his already crammed pockets, he is just
borrowing. He will pay them back when the funds come through. And
when his boat does come in there will be a blow-out to end all
blow-outs.

In short, as a gloss on the way the British economy
is operated, a century after Bunter first wobbled into life, it
could not be more astute.

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Comments

Good sub-editors are evidently hard to find. It was
"Yaroo!"
Posted by frank mccallister on February 18, 2008 8:37
PM
Report
this comment

You could buy re-prints in the '80s and my Squeeze of the
time and I used to buy them as students from Bargain Books.
Marvellous.
Posted by Sir Hangem-Hyghe on February 18, 2008 1:38
PM
Report
this comment

The length of Bunter's ejaculations depended on the pain
being inflicted:from Yaroo! to Yahoohooharoooop! Occasionally
he would
say "Oh scissors!"
Posted by beaky on February 18, 2008 1:17
PM
Report
this comment

People are living too long and this is causing
pension fund managers to worry that there won't be enough funds in the pot
to pay everyone.

Added to this we are constantly being told that
the cost of keeping old people in residential homes is so high that the
government cannot afford to pay the bills and that old people or their
families must do so instead.

In view of these things surely it is
grossly irresponsible of the government to try and make people live even
longer by interfering with their eating and smoking habits?

Thin
non-smokers have a vested interest in this: the more that other people
smoke and are fat the more likely that the nicotine free skinnies will
have full pensions and a government that can afford their nursing home
fees when they are old.

The problem is that thin no smokers are
often so vindictive and sanctimonious that they cannot resist the
temptation of criticising those less perfect than themselves! They do this
with great relish seeming to be blissfully unaware that it is so clearly
against their own long term self-interest.

Posted by Rastus
C. Tastey on February 18, 2008 1:10 PM
Report
this comment

"The postal order's in the post"
Now we can't get
postal orders and you can't rely on the post.
Bring back the good old
Bunter days.
Posted by alan madox on February 18, 2008 1:05
PM
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this comment

I think the series must have been in the 50`s as I
certainly watched them as a child.I loved them.
Posted by Sue on
February 18, 2008 12:25 PM
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this comment

As a child I remember buying each weekly copy of the Magnet
and reading the new Grayfriers episode with a torch under my bedclothes.

My school also had a remove form.
Posted by Pat Tweedy on
February 18, 2008 12:11 PM
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this comment

Crikey it's Welch!!!
Sorry David, couldn't resist
it.
Posted by Vandiemen on February 18, 2008 11:51 AM
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this comment

I remember as being given a (then) very old annual in which
there were Billy Bunter stories when I had mumps as a child back in the
'60s.

In the '70s at my school we most certainly had a Remove
between the 5th and 6th forms - the class where rumour had it you could
stay for years.

In the '80s two large chaps in my office were
already known as Bunter and Harry Wharton when I arrived.

To me
Billy and chums have always been a part of life. More so than perhaps Jim
White's - judging by the number of comments picking up on errors in this
piece.

The one thing we should not do is diminish the joy of the
age old comedy fiction by seeking to find its parallel in the grimly
unfunny realities of Labour Britain today.
Posted by simon coulter
on February 18, 2008 11:08 AM
Report
this comment

I say you rotter! Gadzooks, Huzzah; more Flashman than me.
Yaroo is the one you're looking for. And we never had "mates" at
Greyfriars; we were chums, chaps, genrtlemen and fellows.
Posted by
Fritz Baker on February 18, 2008 11:00 AM
Report
this comment

It was Mrs. Kebble not Mrs. Keble she was not an Oxford
college.

Ouch OOOOh ouch stoppit leggo you rotter yelled Billy el
Gordo as the boots of Harry Cameron and the Famous Five Shadow Cabinet
Ministers landed on the tighest trousers in Parliament.

That'll
teach you to go snooping policies from senior studies grunted Harry
Cameron.

'Ouch oooch stoppit iI'm expecting a postal order any day
now and I'll pay off what Northern Crock owes the taxpayers' wailed Billy
el Gordo.

'The bankruptfulness of the esteemed Fat Owl is really
terrific' grunted Greyfriars' latest illegal immigrant as he implemented
Sharia law on the thief's right hand.

(to be
continued)
Posted by Peter Croft on February 18, 2008 9:11
AM
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this comment

The BBC's Billy Bunter series ran from 1953 to 1961, not
the late sixties- I can just remember them. I was very excited a number of
years later when our vicar pointed out that a little old fellow- a member
of our church's congregation illustrated the series either in books or
comics- I can't remember which exactly.
Posted by Nick R on February
18, 2008 8:46 AM
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this comment

Can't help loving Billy Bunter! However, the TV series was
made in the 1950s, NOT the 1960s as you suggest, and the young stars such
as Anthony Valentine, Michael Crawford et al were not 'squeezed into ill
fitting blazers and caps'- they were only about 14 years old at the time
and a quick look at Youtube reveals that Anthony Valentine's voice hadn't
even broken!
Posted by Stephen Holmes on February 18, 2008 8:44
AM
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this comment

How very astute!

And thanks for the link to YouTube
... will be delighted if I can in fact access those episodes.
Posted
by Ian Price on February 18, 2008 6:02 AM
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this comment

As a boy I remember reading the Greyfriars Annuals,
previously having belonged to my father, which although starring Frank
Richards' anti hero and chums/antagonists also (as I recall) retailed the
adventures of Tom Merry & Co of St Jims, and Jimmy Silver of ..??

Posted by Michael Askew on February 18, 2008 3:52 AM
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this comment

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