Molesworth

by Geoffrey Willans

  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.

  Look at me coo er gosh posh eh? You wouldn’t hav thort a pair of bloomers would make all that diference

  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.

  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 I: fir.

  KURDLING: The world of course if flatte – flatte as a pancake – and when you come to the edge any fule kno that you fell over.

  MOLEFWORTH I: 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 I: fir fir fir fir please fir.

  KURDLING: they can be hardly more than a group of islands small barren uninhabited –

  MOLEFWORTH I: fir, you are wrong. America is a continent a huge powerful nation live there and the pacific washes the western seaboard.

  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 I (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

  Inspiration

  The gift

  Doubt

  Exploration.

  Despair

  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 p
ossible.

  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 SOC KO 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.

  And where will the sports comentaries be?

  Here come the eggs of 761 st. custardhuss . . . . . they look tremendously fit . . . . . they all hav their log books . . . . . brown and shiny, curled up at the edges . . . . . i see that one of the players hav writen ‘if my name you wish to see turn to p. 103 – ha–ha – that used to be done hundreds of years ago . . . . . and now there’s a tremendous cheer as of porridge court 979. . . . . . THIS should be a grate match . . . . . now they re kicking a few logarithms about and at the other end they’re runing over the reactions involving the recombination of ions before the whistle go for the start . . . . .

  As a mater of fact it is all quite pappy becos all thinking is done with a machine e.g. the molesworth-peason electronick brane Mark VI which any fule kno was invented by those 2 grate pioneers to do multiplication and long div for them and thus fool sigismund the mad maths master and others of his kind. The early Mark I brane that these intreppid inventors achieved was just a simple digital computor working with electric pulses. (I won’t explane further as the masters sa when they don’t kno the answer.) The brane soon became involved in the study of super-sonic flite and all went well until molesworth 2 creep up and ask it a cunning question e.g. brane, wot is 2+2 eh? At this the brane larff so much that it bust into a trilion pieces.

  The œufs of the future, however, are fitted with the much superior Mark VI electronick brane and you can imagine wot it is like in skool.

  Scene. A classroom of the future. Twelve branes sit at there desks sploshing infra-red ink at each other. The head eggs helicopter is heard approaching despite its speshul silencing device.

  AN OEUF NEAR THE DOOR: Cave! Hear comes the Pukon!

  All. look keen and inocent.

  HEAD BRANE: Today we will do a little comon computing. 8765 MOLEGRUB I: It’s relativity sir not. . . . .

  (The automatick kaning machine deliver 6)

  HEAD BRANE: As i was saing. Now wot is the polynomial equation of degree n in one variable or unknown.…?

  LES OEUFS: (in chorus)

  HEAD BRANE: A very nice little rational integral equation – 8765 MOLEGRUB I: Sir please sir it really is relativity – HEAD BRANE: Write out the law of electromagnetic induction 5000000000 times.

  8765 MOLEGRUB I: (thinks) .

  molesworth 2 zoom down with his rotors whirring

  The head brane drone on until brake when cocoa and buns are fed in on a conveyor belt and we are allowed to pla around on big field with our helicopters.

  ‘Lets go to mars,’ sa fotherington-Tomas. ‘Come on molesworth o you mite. We can go up there and hav a lovely think.’

  ‘No,’ i sa, ‘i hav thort myself stupid already.’

  molesworth 2 zoom down with his rotors whirring.

  silly sossage can’t think for toofee, he sa and zoom away. If only it were like the old days when the tuougher you were the more you were respected chiz! Now it is the opposite and if you can’t think they all buly you espeshully fotherington-Tomas who hav a huge brane. But there is no hope. It is 200000 years ahead and I am still learning ‘amo’.

  ‘You are a dot-faced wet,’ sa fotherington-Tomas, aiming a thort at me. ‘Thou canst not hurt an insecta siphonaptra or comon flea.’

  No wonder i sigh for the old days as we oeufs hav it in our spechul hist, broadcasts and telyfilms. e.g.

  PLAYS FROM HIST

  This illustrates a well-known incident in the uranium age of the 20th century.

  Musick: The Gondoliers. Scene: A dorm at st. custards. Enter molesworth the gorila of 3B cursing.

  MOLES WORTH: who are these weedy ticks who lay their golden locks upon their pilows? I will uterly bash them up until their own maters whose fotos grace these sordid shelves will not kno them. Charge!

  (Comentator: Observe the low beetling brow the hair which hang over the eyes, the knees with noughts and croses scribled on them in ink. What a short step is this specimen from the ape chiz chiz chiz. What progress hav we made.)

  In the dorm pilows fly about in clouds of feathers.

  A SKOLAR: Cave! As they all rush back to bed the HEADMASTER GRIMES enter.

  (Comentator: This horid creature is no beter than the boys. Look at him if you can bare it. It make you think do it not? To think that an objeckt like that could hav thort to teach boys cheers cheers cheers. In his right hand he grasp wot was known in those days as a kane or swish, his face is contorted in fury. Such barbarism o woe o woe it is enuff to bring tears to the eyes.)

  The HEADMASTER GRIMES look around the dorm and sa: ‘Any boy who was out of bed to own up.’ Silence. ‘Curses’ sa headmaster ‘i could hav sworn i heard something perhaps it was the matron plaing darts againe.’ A well-aimed tomato hit him in the face. . . . .

  (Comentator: Do you see that, eggs eh? In those dark days skools were full of mutiny and disorder. The pupils ran wild with wizard wheezes jokes and pranks. They aktually throw a tomato at the headmaster . . . . . PING . . . . . Wot egg did that? . . . . . Own up or i shall kepe the whole clutch in . . . . . CRASH WAM BONK . . . . . i saw you oeuf 8765 molegrub . . . . . do not deny it . . . . . you shall hav half an hour in the automatick kaning machine . . . . . as i was saing it make you sigh to think of the misery and injustice of those prehistorick times ect. ect.)

  The next part of the film show a game of criket but as this is still going on all cheer. There may be a result by 15678 a.d.

  ‘Curses’ sa headmaster ‘i could hav sworn i heard something’

  2

  THE UGGLY TRUTH

  WOT HAV HAPPENED SO FAR

  The scene is still the dark, doom-haunted skool of st. custards chiz chiz moan drone where the tiny pupils live a life of friteful sufering at the hands of the headmaster GRIMES and his hand of thugs who hav the impertnence to call themselves masters.

  GRABBER, dark, dashing debonair (compliment hem-hem he is perfectly weedstruck actually) is head of the skool. He is approached one day by a foul-looking specimen called PEASON who is my best friend.

  ‘Look at ickle pritty baby,’ sa peason in mocking tones. He run away and not before it is time becos the skool is on fire.

  Terible cries come from the roof where MOLESWORTH 2, and FOTHERINGTON-TOMAS, the skool gurly are traped on the roof with the matron and a string of skool sossages. Who will save them? The crowd parts for a mysterious figure which zoom headlong into the fire on his erand of mercy – it is me MOLESWORTH I, the gorila of 3 B, the masked clot, (wot is the use of writing a book if you don’t give yourself a good part, eh?) In 5 minits he hav saved the LOT which is pritty good work. Begrimed and exorsted he is aproached by the headmaster. ‘Your face and hands are filthy,’ he sa. ‘Go and wash, boy. Do also 500 lines.’ Smarting under a sense of injustice MOLESWORTH I decide to run away but, before he can turn, a voice sa ‘Stop! Stop him!’ It is SIGISMUND THE MAD MATHS

  MASTER who point an acusing finger. ‘There,’ he sa, ‘is the boy who start the fire. I saw him do same.’ Wot will hapen to MOLESWORTH? Is the can of petrol inflammable? Who hav tampered with the headmasters protractors?

  (Now read on.)

  ‘Nearer and nearer crept the g
hastly THING’

  For story turn to p. 1096b, col. 2.

  A Grim Subjekt

  CLANG-PIP. CLANG-Pip.

  The craked tones of the skool bell sumon all weeds and skolars to xsemble in big skool. This is most unusual just before brake and in the middle of lessons. ‘Wot can it mean?’ ask grabber.

  ‘It mean,’ sa molesworth 2 litely, ‘that 99 sparrows hav fallen from their nest in the bell, the masters are interupted doing their foopball pools, the skool dog will eat the buns and – and –”

  ‘Yes? Yes?’

  ‘It mean that thou, o weedy clot, are the biggest wet of them all.’

  With this riposte molesworth 2 ignite the fuse and zoom vertically up in rocket flite to safety as HEADMASTER enter. Silence you can hear a pin drop.

  ‘molesworth 2, were you the boy who sai ZOOSH as i entered with the staff?’

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘Can my ears hav deceived me when i heard you calling up mars?’

  ‘Yessir – nosir – yessir.’

  ‘A remarkable feat, molesworth 2. You should be congratulated. Kindly do fifty lines.’