Jennings and Darbishire

I have just bought the fantastic 'Jennings Goes to School' by Anthony Buckeridge to read to my children at bed time. I can distinctly remember reading these books from Didsbury Library as a child and wanting to be at Linbury Court School with Jennings, Darbishire and co.



In a similar vein to Just William Jennings always seemed to be getting into scrapes quite by accident and avoiding detection and punishment by the skin of his teeth. The books have been republished and are easily available, although it seems rather harder to get hold of the Audio books voiced by Stephen Fry.

The series starts with Jennings heading off to boarding school at the age of 10 and trying to learn the ropes and keep out of trouble both with older boys and teachers. Buckeridge obviously got well inside the heads of children during his stint as a teacher and gives some lovely insight into their chaotic minds.

Whilst some of the language feels a little archaic and the obviously upper class background of these boarding boys has caused the books to fall a little out of favour it is the way the reader gets invited into the world of Jennings that gives so much pleasure here. We logically we know he is makes little if any sense, but from the story we learn to empathise with him and are completely with him during his many confrontations with the world around him.

Descriptions of why all school food is muck but some is Wizard Muck whilst the rest is Ozard muck will have you smiling inwardly. And if the explanation of why Templeton is called Bod does not make you laugh out loud then you have no sense of humour whatsoever.