On this date, 1876 Frank Richards, (Charles Hamilton), English writer, author of the Billy Bunter stories, was born. 10 things you might not know about Billy Bunter.
His full name is William George Bunter.
He attends Greyfriars School, a fictional English public school in Kent, and is in the Lower Fourth form, also known as the Remove. The form master is Mr Quelch. Although the stories cover many holiday seasons, the characters never age. Bunter is perpetually 15 years and one month of age.
His height is 4 ft 9 ins (145 cm); and his weight is 14 stone 121⁄2 lb (94.6 kg).
He is said to have been based on three people. One: the author’s sister, Una, who was short sighted and peered at people “like an owl” Billy wears big round glasses and is nicknamed “The Owl of the Remove”. Two: the author’s brother, Alex, described as "generally anxious to borrow a pound or two" on the strength of the anticipated arrival of a cheque that never materialised. Bunter, similarly, is always borrowing Money against the promised arrival of a cheque from a wealthy relative. Three: a fat editor. Which might be Lewis Ross Higgins, editor of a number of comic papers and who is described as resembling the author G. K. Chesterton; or Percy Griffith, the original editor of The Magnet.
Billy Bunter is fat, greedy, lazy, a nosy gossip, deceitful, conceited and racist. Yet he’s completely unaware of his faults and believes himself to be a handsome and talented boy surrounded by uncouth "beasts".
Not a lot to like, you may think. However, on occasion he does display courage and generosity and he loves his mother.
His father’s name is Mr William Samuel Bunter, a not very successful stockbroker who is always complaining about income tax and school fees. He’s quite brusque with his children and prone to being “hangry”: "like many middle-aged gentlemen, Mr. Bunter was better tempered after breakfast." His mother is called Amelia Bunter and he has a brother and a sister, Sammy and Bessie. Sammy is in the second form at Greyfriars and Bessie attends the nearby Cliff House School, and was a comic character in her own right, appearing as a regular character in the School Friend comic aimed at girls. The three siblings do not get on. There’s also a cousin called Wally who looks very similar to Billy only without the spectacles.
Bunter boasts that he lives at Bunter Court, a stately home with servants and a fleet of chauffeured Rolls-Royces. In fact, this home is a modest Villa in Surrey, with a maid, a cook and a single Ford car.
Billy has two talents: for cooking, and an uncanny ability to imitate voices.
To begin with, Billy was a minor character who was intended to provide comic relief and to drive plots along, because of his habit of eavesdropping secret conversations and then gossiping about them. He was introduced in Magnet No. 1 The Making of Harry Wharton (1908) as a minor character, but developed into a principal character over time.
The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.
The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.
Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.
No comments:
Post a Comment