About The Greyfriars Boys

FOREWORD

As with many of my contemporaries of “a certain age” the figure of Billy Bunter, the “Fat Owl” of Greyfriars Remove is a familiar one. I was introduced to the world created by Frank Richards in the Armada and Cassel series’ books all of which featured the name Bunter in the title. George Orwell, in his 1940 essay ‘Boys Weeklies’ described him as one of the best known characters in English fiction. The term Bunter as a synonym for a fat boy was regularly, if cruelly, applied to overweight juveniles. I played rugby with someone who was always referred to as Bunter and even so addressed “Bunter” well into adulthood. He did however play prop and was suitably well built. Until about 2000 a local café and bakery was called Bunters when it was changed by the owners presumably because term had become a meaningless anachronism to many of their customers.

Later in life I came across the Magnet reissues in the excellent Howard Baker Series renewing my interest in Greyfriars and its miscellaneous characters. I started to wonder what would have happened to them once they left the confines of the school. In the self-contained world of Greyfriars no one ever grew older nor, apart from minor characters, ever left the school. They continued from 1908 to 1965 exactly the same age and having the same sort of adventures never progressing, never changing. Horace Coker of the fifth, for instance, railed constantly about the privileges of sixth formers, especially those of the prefects, never seeming to consider that in a matter of months he himself would be in the 6th and, in his view at any rate, certain to be appointed a prefect if not head of the school. Every summer Greyfriars would break up and, after various adventures, the boys would return again to start the academic year in exactly the same form with the same teacher and classmates as the previous year.

What follows is my take on what might have happened to the boys once they left to make their way in the world as young men. In this book the central characters in the Frank Richards’ stories have progressed from the Remove through the Fifth and Sixth forms leaving Greyfriars in 1934.

Inevitably they will have adapted and changed as they enter a rather more realistic world than that set by Frank Richards. The “joke” characters, in particular, Bunter and Coker could hardly have existed in real life immersed in their self-obsessed stupidity and therefore I have toned down the more absurd aspects of their personalities. Consequently, the characters, as they appear in these pages are loosely based on, but do not replicate the originals. I have not endeavoured to emulate the style of writing employed by Richards, apart from one passage for a particular reason that will become clear, but readers may note some anachronisms, words and phrases from the Magnet. There may also some references and words that sit ill with a modern reader but remember they reflect, to some degree at least, the mind and speech of a very different era.

Inevitably the story lines and format will be considerably different to the those of life in Greyfriars. The boys will have dispersed to make their way in the world with no necessary reference or contact with their former school colleagues. Therefore, there will be a series of stories following the fortunes of individuals without some artificial construct bringing them all back together again. There will, however, be a number of stories in which some of the characters come across each other.

If you decide to read what follows it will probably be because you are already a fan of the Greyfriars stories and will be tolerably familiar with the characters as they appear. If so, I apologise in advance if you feel that I have been too cavalier in adapting their personalities to fit a story line.

The first person to review a portion of the incomplete manuscript gave the sole comment “It’s an easy read”. Damned with faint praise? I think, whatever its demerits, it is an easy read.

Patrick T. Lynch June 2021