Just William: A BBC Radio Collection: Classic Readings from the BBC Archive - Richmal Crompton Audiobook

Written by Richmal Crompton
Read by Martin Jarvis
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
Radio/TV Program
Release date: 12-07-17
Publisher: BBC Digital Audio

I have no children but I love children’s books. They are straightforward and wonderfully fumy. I know most of the US authors so a PM friend introduced me to William and his Outlaws. They are too good to keep to myself so I am uploading, in m4b and mp3 so all can enjoy them.

Richmal Crompton’s stories featuring irrepressible schoolboy William Brown have been firm favourites with both young and old for decades. Perpetually scruffy, mud-stained and mischievous, he is a lovable scamp whose pranks usually end in disaster – for his harassed elders at least.

With friends Ginger, Douglas and Henry (the Outlaws) and the angelic thorn-in-his-side, the lisping Violet Elizabeth Bott, William has rightly joined the literary, and radio, immortals.

An Excerpt I came across: …panting, shouting, laughing, and all just got what they could. Ginger seized the remnants of a cold ham and picked the bone, George with great gusto drank a whole jar of cream, William and Douglas between them ate a gooseberry pie, Henry ate a whole currant cake. Each foraged for himself. They ate two bowls of cold vegetables, a joint of cold beef, two pots of honey, three dozen oranges, three loaves and two pots of dripping. They experimented upon lard, onions, and raw sausages. They left the larder a place of gaping emptiness. Meanwhile cook…

Richmal Crompton, who wrote the original Just William stories, was born in Lancashire in 1890. In all, thirty-eight William books were published, the last one in 1970, after Richmal Crompton’s death. Martin Jarvis, who has adapted the stories in this book for younger readers, first discovered Just William when he was nine years old. He made his first adaptation of a William story for BBC radio in 1973 and since then his broadcast readings have become classics in their own right. Martin is an award-winning actor who has appeared in numerous stage plays, television series and films.

Martin Jarvis, who has been hailed as ‘the wizard of the talking book’ by The Daily Telegraph, has made the voice of William his own, and this collection of 54 laugh-out-loud stories will delight long-standing fans and first-time listeners alike.

Also included are two bonus interviews with Richmal Crompton, recorded in 1965 and 1968.

The stories included in this collection are:
‘The Christmas Truce’
‘Only Just in Time’
‘The Midnight Adventure of Miss Montague’
‘William and the Musician’
‘William Leads a Better Life’
‘William and the Twins’
‘William’s Birthday’
‘William and the Little Girl’
‘The Outlaws and Cousin Percy’
‘William and the Princess Goldilocks’
‘The Sweet Little Girl in White’
‘A Birthday Treat’
‘The Outlaws and the Triplets’
‘A Bit of Blackmail’
‘William Makes a Night of It’
‘William and the Lost Tourist’
‘The Leopard Hunter’
‘The New Neighbour’
‘William the Philanthropist’
‘William and the Prize Cat’
‘William Holds the Stage’
‘William and the School Report’
‘All the News’
‘Aunt Arabelle in Charge’
‘William’s Goodbye Present’
‘William the Salvage Collector’
‘William’s Day Off’
‘Entertainment Provided’
‘William and the Brains Trust’
‘William and the Bomb’
‘William Goes Shopping’
‘Violet Elizabeth Runs Away’
‘William and the Real Laurence’
‘The Outlaws and the Hidden Treasure’
‘William and the Fairy Daffodil’
‘The Best Laid Plans’
‘Mrs Bott’s Hat’
‘William Starts the Holidays’
‘William Plays Santa Claus’
‘William and the Snowman’
‘Revenge is Sweet’
‘William and the Black Cat’
‘William and the Russian Prince’
‘William’s Busy Day’
‘William – The Great Actor’
‘William and the White Elephants’
‘Finding a School for William’
‘William’s Birthday’
‘William Clears the Slums’
‘Parrots for Ethel’
‘William’s Truthful Christmas’
‘Boys will be Boys’
‘William and the Ebony Hair-Brush’
‘William and the Old Man in the Fog ‘