Geoffrey Willans

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Herbert Geoffrey Willans,

St. Custard's", as in the four books with illustrations by Ronald Searle
.

Willans was born in Smyrna (now İzmir) in Turkey, where his father was a superintendent of the Ottoman Aidan Railway.[1]

He was educated at

Greek campaign and the Battle of Crete in the Eastern Mediterranean, serving on the corvette HMS Peony. He later joined the carrier HMS Formidable.[2]

Molesworth first appeared in Punch[3] in 1939, and later became the protagonist and narrator of four books: Down with Skool! (1953), How to be Topp (1954), Wizz for Atomms (1956) and, after Willans's death, Back in the Jug Agane (1959). All four were collected in The Compleet Molesworth. Comic misspellings, erratic capitalisation and schoolboy slang are threads running through all the books.

According to Ronald Searle in his obituary of Willans in The Times: "His cunning was more refined than Bunter ... Willans was delighted that schoolmasters, far from feeling publicly disrobed, were in fact giving away his books as end of school prizes."[4]

Willans wrote other books. A review in The Times described his novel The Whistling Arrow (1957) as having a futuristic aeroplane as the 'heroine'; "It is his apparent strength in writing about planes and the people that flew them." The reviewer compared it with one of

The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952), starring Richard Todd, where arrows that whistled were used as signals between Robin Hood
and his outlaw band.

Willans also co-wrote the screenplay for the film

gentlemen's club), Fasten Your Lapstraps! (an account of the early days of intercontinental flight) and Admiral on Horseback (a more serious one about the Royal Navy
).

Bibliography

Molesworth

Other titles

References

  1. ^ Wendy Cope, Introduction to The Compleet Molesworth, Folio Society edition, London, 2007, citing Willans' nephew, Robin Gilbert
  2. ^ Obituary, The Times, 9 August 1958
  3. ^ Jones, Thomas (17 February 2000). "Swete lavender". London Review of Books. 22 (4).
  4. ^ Obituary, The Times, 9 August 1958
  5. ^ The Times, 12 September 1957
  6. ^ "Geoffrey Willans, 1911–1958: As Any Ful Kno | A History Blog by Bruce Ware Allen". Archived from the original on 23 September 2019. Retrieved 23 September 2019.
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