Rereading Anthony Buckeridge's Jennings stories is much like slipping on that once favourite jacket from the back of the wardrobe you know will never be fashionable again; but a. you're not bothered and b. it feels just the same as it did the first time you wore it.
I found The Best of Jennings going for a song in a local bookshop and it immediately went straight to the top of my incoming pile. Sorry John Harvey, Pete Townshend et al - I'm not taking calls right now.I mean, where else would you get lines like: "Yes, rather, said Atkinson ghoulishly. "He made me write out the passive of 'Audio' twenty five times once; it nearly killed me."
To borrow the strap-line from the slip jacket - with 'four utterly wizard adventures all jolly well complete and unabridged' to get through, I'm hunkering down for a blinking good read. There is one thing puzzling me though: why, when translated into French, did our favourite schoolboy prankster transmogrify into Bennett? But, hey, that's a question for another day. Maybe his best friend CEJ Darbishire would know?
Loved the Jennings books when I was a kid. We were introduced to them by our teacher in primary school as he used to read them to us. Why he thought a load of oiks form a council estate would enjoy them I don't know but we did. Wizard!
ReplyDeleteI seem to recall them at school but they were never personal favourites. Now, Arthur Ransome and the Swallows and Amazons series is another matter. Just as unfashionable today but best sellers in their time. Heck, it was only last week we went for a visit to Pin Mill where two of the books start from...
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