Just the start for these stars
The Just William stories of Bury author Richmal Crompton have launched some surprising showbiz careers down the years
IT’S hard to believe that Minder star Dennis Waterman got his first TV break playing William Brown at the age of 14 in 1962. Or that international movie star Roddy McDowall portrayed William’s best friend Ginger in the 1940 film Just William when he was 12.
And who could forget how young Opportunity Knocks winner Bonnie Langford made the part of Violet Elizabeth Bott her own in the 1970s TV series Just William?
All owe a great debt to Bury author Richmal Crompton whose William stories have entertained youngsters for nearly a century.
First published in 1922, the Just William books have become international blockbusters. More than 12 million copies have been sold in the UK alone.
As well as the films from the 1940s, TV series were broadcast in the 1960s, 70s and 90s. There have also been numerous stage and radio plays about the spirited schoolboy and his many escapades.
It’s not just child actors who’ve found success with William. Joan Hickson played Mrs Lane in the 1948 film Just William’s Luck and
Doctor Who actor Jon Pertwee appeared in the movie William Comes to Town the same year.
Richmal Crompton Lamburn was born in Bury in November 1890. She was the second child of the Rev. Edward John Sewell Lamburn, a classics teacher at Bury Grammar School, and his wife Clara (nee Crompton).
She attended St Elphin’s Boarding School for daughters of the clergy in Warrington before winning a scholarship to Royal Holloway College.
After graduating with a Classics degree in 1914, Crompton returned to St Elphin’s as a teacher. She then taught at Bromley High School.
Crompton only started writing full time at the age of 33 when she was confined to a wheelchair after contracting polio. The year was 1923 and the first collection of Just William stories had just been published.
She’d been knocking on publishers’ doors since 1917, but no one was interested in William Brown and his gang the Outlaws. The first William story to make it into print was Rice Mould Pudding, published in Home Magazine in 1919. In all, Crompton wrote 42 collections of William stories from 1922 to 1970. Readers just could not get enough of the mischievous scamp and his friends Ginger, Henry and Douglas.
Perhaps the most famous character outside the Outlaws gang was Violet Elizabeth Bott, the lisping daughter of nouveau riche parents. She repeatedly taunted William with her trademark threat: “I’ll thcream and thcream ‘till I’m thick.”
The other girl to feature in William’s adventures was the darkhaired Joan Clive, who was considered a member of the Outlaws because she had taken a special oath.
Crompton published a new William book almost every year, even during World War II when she served as a volunteer for the Fire Service.
The first time William appeared on TV was in 1962-3 when Dennis Waterman played him in a BBC adaptation.
The most well-known William TV series was probably the 1977-8 ITV version starring Adrian Dannat in the title role and Bonnie Langford as Violet Elizabeth Bott.
She had just won the TV talent show Opportunity Knocks and was brilliantly over the top. Diana Dors and John Stratton played her parents.
Stacy Dorning, who had previously starred as Jenny Gordon in the children’s TV series The Adventures of Black Beauty, played William’s sister Ethel Brown.
Another TV series based on the William books was broadcast by the BBC in 1994-5. Oliver Rokison played William and Tiffany Griffiths was Violet Elizabeth Bott.
Actress Polly Adams played Mrs Brown. She starred alongside Felicity Kendall in the stage production of Tom Stoppard’s play The Real Thing in 1982. The two were later replaced by Judy Geeson and Susan Penhaligon.
In spite of the success of her William books, Crompton yearned to be recognised for her adult fiction. She wrote 40 novels and nine collections of short stories.
She could never understand why her adult books failed to sell. Critics maintained it was because they were too narrowly focused on the Home Counties and lacked universal appeal.
The success of her children’s books allowed Crompton to buy a house in the south of England where she could live with her mother.
She died in January 1969 in Farnborough Hospital, Kent, at the age of 78.
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