Just William: the cheekiest child in fiction
Just William and his gang of outlaws got up to all sorts of mischief, always with hilarious consequences… We look back on nearly 100 years of the cheekiest boy in children’s fiction
It may be surprising that a female author – and a classics teacher with no children of her own – created 11-year-old William Brown, one of the most enduring characters in fiction over the last 100 years. Richmal Crompton conceived the unforgettable star of the Just William stories about the adventures of a mischievous boy and his band of outlaws, who are beset by the loathsome Violet and always, somehow, come out on top.
Richmal didn’t fit any kind of mould. Unmarried, but aunt and great-aunt to an extended family, she delighted in the company of the younger generation, attending school plays, hosting performances in her front room and even, in later life, playing cowboys and indians with them in Chislehurst woods, close to her home.
The author’s enthusiasm for games knew no bounds and this absorption in the lives of children must certainly have helped her in creating such a fully rounded character as the mischievous
William, who is said to be based on Richmal’s own brother Jack.
Giving up her teaching career at just 33 due to a disability, Richmal turned to writing. Home magazine published the first Just William story in 1919 and 37 William books followed, all collections of short stories (except one), and the tales continued to be published in magazines.
She also wrote 41 books for adults, but as her contemporary AA Milne also found, these later works, while well-received, were often overshadowed by her earlier creations.
The first Just William book of short stories was published in 1922, when we were properly introduced to the Brown family – 11-yearold William, his older brother Robert and sister Ethel. They may have been well-to-do, but Richmal’s language is very down-to-earth – their father, Mr Brown, often has a headache owing to one tipple too many, and is described as having ‘a touch of the liver’… William always means well but his imagination regularly gets him into trouble. Inspired by a romantic film at the cinema, he tries to unite Ethel with the boy he thinks she loves… except that she doesn’t! Then he tries to impress Joan next door with his husky film star voice and ends up convincing her he’s ill ‘with lungs’ because he sounds odd. As his mother says, ‘boys are such funny things’. We agree!
FROm bOOk TO scREEn
Just William has seen many incarnations away from the page, with a popular radio series in the Nineties narrated by actor Martin Jarvis and, most recently, a BBC series in 2010 starring Outnumbered’s Daniel Roche as the lovable rogue, William.
In the Sixties, Dennis Waterman (of Minder fame) played William on screen for the first time, but the stories found most success on TV in the Seventies, with Adrian Dannatt as William, Bonnie Langford as the obnoxious Violet Elizabeth Bott and Hollywood icon Diana Dors as Violet’s mother. Julian Fellowes and Freddie Jones also appeared in the series. For the young Adrian it all began when he spotted a London Weekend Television advertisement, looking for a boy to play the lead role. It’s reported that he contacted LWT without his parents’ permission (or knowledge!) and the first his mum knew of it was when she found herself surrounded by LWT casting directors and producers at a school play in which he played Hitler…
The series catapulted Adrian and his co-stars into the spotlight and during his time working on the series he got to know Diana Dors, even meeting her husband, actor Alan Lake, at a show party. Adrian went on to work in the States, criss-crossing the country in a bus for TV rock show On Tour. He now divides his time between New York and Paris.