Molesworth

[winterbadger]

I made a reference in passing to the quintessential English schoolboy (or skool-boy), Nigel Molesworth, to someone and realised with sadness that this is probably one of those things that are part of my childhood and therefore intimately familiar to me but elicit blank stares from others. It's a wrench for me to think that not everyone was treated to the adventures of Molesworth, his friend Peason, their nemesis Grabber, and the appallingly precious Fotherington-Thomas at an early age. But, then most people didn't memorise the entire recorded works of the musical comedians Michael Flanders and Donald Swann before the age of 12 or have a family stash of the works of P.G. Wodehouse and Dorothy Sayers... Anglophile? My parents? :-)

Comments

[pisica.livejournal.com]

When *I* was 12, my dad handed me the complete Sherlock Holmes and said, 'read this'. Which I did, when I wasn't watching WTTW's reruns of Monty Python, Dave Allen at Large, Doctor Who, and The Two Ronnies. Ha! :)

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Heh, aware of Molesworth, cannot stand however. Flanders & Swann are marvellous though, yay for anglophile parents (this explains a lot, btw :) )

[winterbadger]

Heh, aware of Molesworth, cannot stand however.

Wel, no wonder, yu are a GURL, chiz, chiz, chiz! ;-)

Flanders & Swann are marvellous though,

Someone at work was describing a long, drawn-out series of meetings with home repairmen that other day; I started singing "The Gasman Cometh" (but quietly, under my breath :-)

yay for anglophile parents (this explains a lot, btw :) )

redactrice can probably recount its effect on the uninitiated and unwary, but the front room at my parents' house is lined, floor to ceiling, with bookshelves in a rather intimidating manner. I can't really do it justice, but off the top of my head I can recall: Walter de la Mare, John Cowper Powys, JRR Tolkien, Jane Austen, the Brontes, Gerald Durrell, Alastair Reid, Christoher Fry, all of the Sitwells, Neil M. Gunn, John Buchan, Wilkie Collins, Dickens, Thackeray, Gerald Durrell, Hesketh Pearson... plus, of course, a number of American authors. And that's not even mentioning the history and botany books...

And then there were the bedrooms, each with their bookshelves, and the weekly trips to the local library, the library in the next town over, and the college library in Williamsburg.

[magaidhbhan.livejournal.com]

I can recite you all of At the Drop of a Hat, backwards, forwards, upside-down or inside-out or whatever way you'd like it. It's the only one of their albums I've ever heard, but that's basically my childhood in a nutshell. That record (and yes, we have the record, not a tape or CD). *sigh*

"Or for a bonnie army lorry, they'd lay them doon and dee ..."

[winterbadger]

Why does that not surprise me, a ruin? You are such a wonderfully brought-up yooung woman. Email your snail-mail address one of these days and I'll make sure you get the other recordings; the delight of hearing a new monologue by Michael Flanders after 30 years of listening to the ones I knew was wonderful.

[magaidhbhan.livejournal.com]

That'd be lovely! I'll do that :) They are some kind of pair - I think you're the only person I know who knows of them outside of my family!

[winterbadger]

I knew one other person, in college, from Seattle, who knew them.

redactrice knew the madeira song, but because the Limelighters sang it--she thought THEY had written it! *horror*

[winterbadger]

...now look what you've done. I'm sitting here in my cubicle singing (softly) "These means of locomotion seem rather dull to us, the driver--and conductor--of a London omnibus! Hold very tight, please, ting ting, hold very tight, please, ting ting..."

[magaidhbhan.livejournal.com]

Mwahahahahaha! It's all part of my evil plot, you see.

Earth has not anything to show more fair (mind the stairs, mind the stairs!) ...

[winterbadger]

*skips a bit*

...When cabbies try to pass me,
before they overtakes,
I sticks me bloomin' hand out,
and I jams on all me brakes,!
Then jackal taxi drivers
can only scream and cuss,
behind that monarch of the road...
observer of the Highway Code...
*veryfast*That big six-wheeler, scarlet-painted, London Transport, diesel-engined...
*pause*
...97-horsepower omnibus!

[magaidhbhan.livejournal.com]

hold very tight, please! *ting ting*

[nickys.livejournal.com]

I remember Molesworth. :-)