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

[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.