PENGUIN BOOKS
WHIZZ FOR ATOMMS
Geoffrey Willans, author of Down With Skool!, How to be Topp, Whizz for Atomms and Back in the Jug Agane, was born and educated in England, and spent time not only as a tiny pupil but also as an extremely perceptive schoolmaster. After active service during the Second World War he joined the BBC as a feature writer. His writing appeared frequently in publications like Punch, Liliput and Blackwoods before his untimely death in 1958, at the age of forty-seven.
Ronald Searle was born in Cambridge in 1920 and was educated there at the Cambridge School of Art. On the outbreak of the Second World War he left his studies to serve in the Royal Engineers and in 1942 was captured by the Japanese at Singapore, then held by them for three and a half years. He is a hugely successful graphic artist and pictorial satirist. As well as his collaboration with Geoffrey Willans on the Molesworth books and his invention of St Trinians, his work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions across the world and appears in several major American and European collections. He moved to Paris in 1961 and then, in 1975, to a remote village in Haute-Provence, where he still lives.
PENGUIN BOOKS
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First published by Max Parrish and Co. Ltd 1956
Published in Penguin Books 2009
Copyright © Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle, 1956
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-14-193261-3
CONTENTS
Prefface
Perlice Notise
1 HOW TO BE A YOUNG ELIZABETHAN
Olde Times
Kristmas At Kurdling
Doctor Kurdling is convinced
An Act of Charitee
Meanwhile......
The Future or Oafs will be Oeufs
Plays from Hist
2 THE UGGLY TRUTH
Wot hav happened so far
Nearer and nearer crept the ghastly THING
A Grim Subjekt
Come on grab him by the neck
Six-gun Molesworth
The low, vulgar game – 10 mins 20 secs, later – 5 mins 6 secs later – 20000 years later
‘Yep, stranger, and he’s plenty light on the trigger’
More Culture and a Cleaner Brane
The Peason–Molesworth atommic pile – the things of the spirit – all books which boys have to read are wrong – first clots in the moon
3 HOW TO SURVIVE IN THE ATOMMIC AGE
Guide to Gurls
If we are to believe the books gurls read – real life in gurls’ skool – where all is luxury
How to be a Goody-Goody
A Few Tips from the Coarse
All there is to know about horses – how to put your money on – a stroll over to the padock – they’re off!
The Molesworth Master Meter
The needle sa cave when a master aproach – the masters’ comon room – masters’ commando course – sir petrovitch and sir hicken-hopper
A Wizard Wheeze (the Molesworth Report on Masters)
4 HO FOR THE HOLS
Goodby to Skool(for a bit.)
End of term marks – the maison molesworth – the Strong Man course – gloria and hyacinth At home
Hee-Hee for Tee-Vee
A New Deal for the Tinies
Dere Little Chaps
Sumer by the Sea
Beneath an orange umbrela
5 THE CRUEL HARD WORLD
Who Will Be Wot?
WORKER No. 12345/c NYE MOLESWORTH
Exams all through your life – a job in a factory – downing tools – strike tactics at skool – thortful work on labour relations
Produktivity in Skool
At speshul sacrifice!!
Prefface
Conoisuers of prose and luvers of literature hem-hem may recall that some of this hav apeared in that super smashing mag Young Elizabethan. [ADVERT]. In compiling the present volume it has been my intention insofar as it be within my poor ability – posh stuff this posh stuff go it molesworth – infarso as it be i.e. wot i want to sa is that i hav joly well tried to give others the fruits of my xperience at skool and also of the various chizzes which take place in the world outside the skool walls.
My thanks are due to grabber for the use of his blotch, peason whose pen i pinched and the skool gardener for cleaning out the ink wells – a task which only a man with iron nerve can perform. i gratefully acknowledge the kindly help and encouragement of gillibrand, a most lively source of material ha-ha the dere little wet. molesworth 2 was just about able to read the proofs and pass the speling. You hav to get in a lord or somebody to show you mix in the right company. may i therefore mention Crosby-kershaw-Parkinson, Hon. the A.P.R., who is the absolute dregs and hav had no conection with this book at all?
It is now my pleasure to introduce a few of the sordid felow workers who appere in this book.
Perlice Notise
The folowing weeds are known for their long records of crime. Many are completely desperate in every sense of the word, all the others are hopeless. All have been known to zoom along passages at speeds of mach number, to jab compasses, make aple pie beds, bomb the skool dog, call each other uncouth names, smoke cigs and rob the larder of skool cheese and sossages. If sighted dial 999 or run like blazes.
1 PEASON (know as the wet-weed, clot, darling timothy, that boy there ect.)
RECORD Known to be desperate during prep, particularly when he hav been looking at the “Charge of the Light Brigade” for nearly 2 hours. A dead shot with the ink dart. From time to time uters wolfish cries.
DISTINGUISHING MARKS Several beetles drawn in ink on the left knee.
REMARKS He is my grate frend so i hav let him off litely. He is much worse than this aktually as his mummy call him ‘darling’ and kiss his ickle-pritty face. The old gurl must be blind. Or bats. Or both.
2 MOLESWORTH 2, MY BRO.
RECORD His career read as a case-book for a loony-bin. He zoom about the place going ahahahahahah and pretending to be a jet bomber. Caried out the famous hit-and-run raid on the skool larder. Served sentence in sick wing. Adicted to the arts. His piece “Fairy Bells” on the skool piano will never be forgotten by those who hav heard it.
DISTINGUISHING MARKS He do no
t share the charm and good looks of his elder bro, molesworth 1, hem-hem. Strange that they could be related. One so fare, the other ugh!
REMARKS Nil.
3 HEADMASTER GRIMES (alias old Stinker, diamong jack, soho sammy and Cave, here he comes)
RECORD A monster of calous cruelty who fly into a bate at every oportunity. Known to consort with desperate carakters on the staff e.g. sigismund the mad maths master. They too hold him in fear.
DISTINGUISHING MARKS A livid scar across the face sometimes looking like a smile, or
REMARKS If anyone can give him 6 months the whole skool will cheer.
4 GRABBER
RECORD Born of very rich parents, and head of the skool. He hav won every prize, including the mrs joyful prize for rafia work. Brilliant at work. Will get a skol. Superb at games. Strikt but fare.
DISTINGUISHING MARKS A coutenance of rare charm.
REMARKS Received the sum of 5/– for writing above
1
HOW TO BE A YOUNG ELIZABETHAN
No one kno wot to do about anything at the moment so they sa the future is in the hands of YOUTH i.e. some of the weeds you hav just seen. As if they kno wot to do about it at their age. All the same we are young elizabethans and it can’t be altered – i expect drake felt the same way. Supose we had lived then, eh? i wave my ickle pritty fairy wand, slosh peason with it and the SCENE changes into something most wondrous fair hem-hem i don’t think.
Look at me coo er gosh posh eh? You wouldn’t hav thort a pair of bloomers would make all that diference. Fie fie – the grown ups canot kno what a privilege it is to be YOUTH in this splendid age of Queen Bess – when all are brave proud fearless etc and looking with clear eyes at the future. (Not so clear after some of those evenings at Court, i trow, when all drink BEER.) All the same it is up to us boys becos the grownups hav made such a MESS of it all. So here i am looking like a hem-hem fule but fearing absolutely O. no one could be so brave. Hist! Hist tho! – i hear the headmaster advancing clump-clump with his huge feet encased in gooloshes. I had better begone like a scalded cat. The headmaster is not a young elizabethan he is an old – conduct mark (swearing rude words general uncouth behaviour and letting down the tone of st. custard’s.)
OLDE TIMES
Drake, you kno Drake who singed the king of spane’s beard, he was the kind we ought to model ourselves on.With him he had a gay band of cut-throats who would make molesworth 2, peason, grabber gillibrand ect look like the weeds and wets they are. These cut-throats were very fond of Drake and when he was dead they kept calling to him.
Look at me coo er gosh posh eh? You wouldn’t hav thort a pair of bloomers would make all that diference
CUTTHROATS: Captin art tha sleeping there below?
DRAKE: HOW can i when you are making such an infernal din?
CUTTHROATS: Drake is in his hamock –
DRAKE: i am not in my hamock curse you. All there is down here is sea-weed and shells it is worse than a bed in the skool dorm.
CUTTHROATS: Captin—
DRAKE: Wot is it? if you’re going to sa ‘art tha sleeping’ i shall hav insomnia.
CUTTHROATS: Then you are not dreaming all the time of plymoth ho——?
DRAKE: if i could dream at all it would be of marilyn mun-ro oh-ho that is a good one twig?
(the cutthroats go home in disgust to fill in their foopball pools.)
Aktually Drake was pritty tuough and did more or less as he liked espueshully if there were spaniards about. Good Queen Bess was very keen on him in spite of the remonstrances of the king of spane who had a lisp like all spaniards.
THE KING OF SPANE: i tha, beth, that thcoundrel drake hath thinged my berd agane.
ELIZABETH: (wiping her fhoes on his cloke) La coz you furprise me you fimply fake me rigid.
THE KING OF SPANE: Tith twithe thith week. Ith abtholutely off-thide.
ELIZABETH: Off-fide? Where are your fectaclef? He was on-fide by fix yardf.
THE KING OF SPANE: Yar-boo. Thend him off.
ELIZABETH: Upon my foul tif clear you do not kno the rules of foccer.
(Raleigh, the earl of essex, john and sebastian cabot join in the brawl with vulgar cries. Which match are you looking at? Pla the game, ruff it up ha-ha etc.)
What would happen to Drake today?
DON SEBASTIAN ORSINO JERETH DE LA FRONTERA (a courtier): How common!
They were certainly swashbukling adventurers in those days and life in general was tuougher than an end of term rag at skool. But it is all very well it is not the same today – I mean what would happen to Drake if he wanted to singe the king of spane’s berd today?
LOUDSPEAKER: Passengers by Golden Hind for Cadiz please report to the customs.
OFICIAL: Hav you read this card? Hav you anything to declare?
DRAKE (trembling): No.
OFICIAL: NO buble gum no spangles no malteaser? nothing in the nature of a weapon –
DRAKE: Just this pike –
OFICIAL: Did you buy that pike in Britain, Mr Drake? Hav you an export license? Hav you filled in form 3 stroke D stroke 907? Are you Mr Mrs or miss? Do you possess a dog license?
DRAKE (on his knees): Hav mercie.
OFICIAL: Folow the blue lights to the place of execution.
(A gold ingot fall from Drake’s pocket and he crawls away blubbing. Oficial takes up the ingot. He is lawffing triumphantly the skool dog howls a skool sossage stands on its head.)
THE CURTAIN FALLS SLOWLY
KRISTMAS AT KURDLING
Of course Xmas was still going in those old times and you can imagin how excited the lusty skolars of Kurdling Kollege are as the end of term approaches. They are all in Big Skool becos there weren’t very many skolars in that century the boys used to get away with it.
Piktur the scene if you can – 1576 a.d.
molefworth 1 and molefworth 2 are sitting on an old bench staring with leaden eyes at lat. books. Up and down strides Doctor Kurdling and every few minutes he take up a boy and give him 6 with the kane. An ink dart heaved by peason scrape his august nose.
‘Quidem telum emmissit?’ he sa in voice of thunder.
‘Nemo,’ sa the whole skool, for they all speke lat.
Doctor Kurdling do not take their word for it and flog the lot. Boys noses are blue and ears drop off with cold chiz it might be almost like skool today. At last porter ring bell –
KLANG-PIP-KLANG-PIP. (The bell hav been cracked on one side.)
After 6 of the best each they dash out into quad where stand the ancient motto of the kol.
Quantum ille canis est in fenestra?
(How much is that doggie in the window?)
One of the super things about being an elizabethan skoolboy was that so much less had hapened then. I.E. in Hist you were doing that utter weed perkin warbeck in modern and advanced study tho let us face it he was just as big a weed then as he is today. As for Geog they had only just discovered america and were assimilating the fact for wot it was worth.
Franklyn come here bend over
All this could make a geog lession with Doctor Kurdling v. interesting:
KURDLING: it if sayde to be a fact, skolars, that Columbus hav sayled fo far to the westward that he hav discovered the americas. In my opinion, Franklyn come here bend over WHACK there if notte WHACK a word WHACK of truth in it –
MOLEFWORTH 1: fir.
KURDLING: The world of course if flatte – flatte as a pancake – and when you come to the edge any fule kno that you fall over.
MOLEFWORTH 1: fir please fir.
KURDLING: let us assume – Cranmer take that pious expresion off yore face, Wolsey stop scratching, let us assume purely as a suposition that there are such things as the americas.
MOLEFWORTH 1: fir fir fir fir please fir.
KURDLING: they can be hardly more than a group of islands small barren uninhabited –
MOLEFWORTH 1: fir, you are wrong. America is a continent a huge powerful nation live there and the pacific washes the western seab
oard.
DOCTOR KURDLING IS CONVINCED
KURDLING: Fie child you speak with conviction. Stand forth and bend over WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK ow gosh ow gosh that will teach you not to alter the ignorance of a lifetime (which all masters possess).
MOLEFWORTH 1 (rubbing his bloomers): Semper aliequid novum, fir, if i may fa fo.
Of course they had xmas then and wizard rags japes pranks wheezes chizzes when the skool brake up. grabber drive away in a gold coach fotherington-Tomas in a smart gig and Jan the Cowman come for molefworth 2 and me on an old cart horse.
Xmas day is the same and both get 69 copies of skoolboys diary for 1567 with spaces for personal details. The usual sort of xmas mail arive – Dere sir unless your account is payde. But it is a super day with wizard puding crackers larfter and song.
And so the new year with its resolutions. Noe smoking (which is easy becos sir w raleigh hav not discovered it yet). Decide also to give new xmas present to the poor boys –
An Act of Charitee
Meanwhile
Here we are at st custards poised between past and future. How far along the road hav we traveled? How far must we proceed? Wot of Livy and J. Caesar? Will Bluebell win the 2.30 at Kempton? Who cares? This is the present and it is up to us to make it as beauteous as possible.
THE FUTURE OR OAFS WILL BE OEUFS
Everyone kno wot we are like now you hav only to look around and see it is ghastley enuff. But wot of the future, eh? Wot are we all going to be like in a few centuries? Come on molesworth i have told you a 1000000000 times..…wot of the future?..…come along boy..…how many more times WAM hav i SOCKO got to tell you BIFF BAM that we must never resort to FORCE WAM BIFF BAM..…
Wot else? Wot hapens when we get beyond contemporary verse in the classroom e.g. it was the skooner hesperus that sailed the wintry sea and the skipper had taken his little hem-hem to bear him company etc. Well everyone use their branes so much that in the end they are all going to turn into eggs becos they will hav thort a way of getting along without walking. This will not be until 21066 a.d. (approx.) but it makes you think a bit.
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