![]() S’not fair to blame a person fr’only tryin’ to help.’Įthel, his snooty elder sister, does her very best to pretend William does not exist. The disasters that dog him are never his own fault. A born leader steeped in unfailing optimism, William hurls himself wholeheartedly into every mad endeavour, amusement or new ‘career’. She had a gift for bringing to William’s village, on one pretext after another, a host of extraordinary characters, all of whom somehow end up tangling with William and his motley gang of ‘Outlaws’. Richmal Crompton’s stories are rich, inventive and oh, so very funny. But I do know that he at once became my own imaginary brother, my closest secret friend. I don’t remember when I stole the book from her, and every other William book she ever had. On its brick-red cover was the emblem of a cheery-looking William wearing his school cap awry. Susan was given her first set of William stories for Christmas in 1953. But no one told me, so I learned to read along with the others, and have spent most of my waking hours since with my head in a book. The health visitor thought of it merely as the simplest form of babysitting. Possibly to save my mother’s sanity, I was sent to the local infant school well before time. ![]() ![]() When my sister Susan was six and I was three, my parents tried for a son and had, instead, triplet girls. ![]()
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