Everyone knows Julian, Dick, George, Anne and Timmy of the Famous Five series by Enid Blyton, but have you heard about the ‘original’ Famous Five? They were Harry Wharton, Bob Cherry, Frank Nugent, Johhny Bull and Hurree Jamset Ram Singh (Inky) from India.

These fine lads belonged to Greyfriars, a fictional school created by Charles Hamilton who wrote under the pen name— Frank Richards. Together the five are the most popular and also the most adventurous of the ‘Remove’ (Lower Fourth Form) in Greyfriars school.

Greyfriars is supposed to be located in picturesque Kent in South-Eastern England. The school is said to be constructed over the remains of a monastery and has hidden passages and hidey holes which make for wonderful hideouts for the occasional crook, as seen in the book— ‘Billy Bunter’s Convict’.

Which brings us to the main character in the Greyfriars books which, incidentally, is not the Famous Five but a most unlikely classmate of theirs who goes by the name of William George Bunter. ‘Billy’ Bunter is not your typical schoolboy hero. To begin with he is fat, cunning (or so he thinks!) and unscrupulous to the bone. To top it all he is vain, conceited and woefully short-sighted.

Bunter is in constant need of money to satisfy his ravenous longing for ‘tuck’ (eatables, especially sweets) for which he will raid other people’s studies or bamboozle funds from unwary passerbys. A running joke in all the Bunter books is Billy’s postal order which never arrives. The fat junior is  perennially short of funds and is forever getting into scrapes because of his huge appetite.

He is also much too foolish to cover up the plundering he carries out. A sample of Bunter’s defence, when caught, would be, “Oh lor! It wasn’t me. I didn’t know Coker had a hamper sent to him by his aunt. I didn’t wait for Coker to go for footer practice and sneak into his study. I didn’t eat Coker’s plum pudding and I know nothing of the delicious sultana cake in the tin box.” Bunter gives everything away without being asked; In some ways he is his own worst enemy!

Another sample of his vainglorious prattle is— “Talk about Pontius Pilate fiddling while Constantinople was burning...” Of course it was ‘Nero’ fiddling while ‘Rome’ was burning but Bunter wouldn’t know that. He is the biggest duffer in the form barring Alonzo Todd, another Removite. 

Charles Hamilton, who wrote the Billy Bunter books is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most prolific boy’s fiction author of all time. His literary output was an astonishing 72-75 million words! He started writing the Bunter series for a weekly story paper called the Magnet from 1908 to the year 1940, when paper shortage during World War II brought the publication to an end.

Billy Bunter is the most famous character he has ever created and, really, it is not so surprising considering that Bunter, with all multifarious flaws, is a most interesting fellow; check out his election notice below—