A P.G. Wodehouse query

It’s ages since I read any of the William books, except in a very few cases. I must either have missed, or completely forgotten, the Stalin / Bolsheviks one. Not doubting you at all – but, not a stunt that I’d have expected from William’s older brother: who struck me as a bit of a Bertie Wooster-ish type himself – very much into mild middle-class fun and extremely innocent relationships with girls, not at all one for striving to make a better world; but maybe I mis-remember.

I seem to recall several stories in which, in assorted ways, the Outlaws conclude that the era’s right-wing dictators are cool, and set about aping their antics. I think I did read the Nasties story once; but long, long ago, and I don’t recall details. It must have come about that Richmal’s face was very red, with regard to that one; but hindsight is 20/20 – in the late 1930s, almost no-one dreamt that Nazi Germany’s mistreatment of the Jews would escalate to murder on an industrial scale. And, folk are “people of their times”: eighty-odd years ago, certain things which we now regard as obscenely and vilely wicked, were just part of the general scene and nothing to get het-up about. At various points in Dorothy L. Sayers’s works, there come up “in passing”, what we would now see as hair-raisingly contemptuous / mocking comments about Jewish characters in the books, or black ones on the rare occasions when those feature. I get the picture that Sayers was personally a kindly soul, and a serious Christian – she did not “do” blanket hatred of any category of mankind – she’d have seen what strikes us here as appalling racial / religious bigotry, just as robust fun, not meant in an unkind way.

I find myself wondering whether there’s an on-line “Just William” fan group / message board…

This one wasn’t – it was a perfectly decorous offering in the setting of a house-party where the two were guests. However; among the participants on that board, were several keen Slash-fiction exponents – so I’ll bet that there is a Slash version of the tale, by now.

:eek: