Boy in Boarding School

[Blytonfan]

There is a series about a boy in a boarding school. He is not a very "good" person. There is another boy called Hurree Jamshed I think, who is a Prince. I can't recollect any other details I know this is terribly vague but if someone can figure it out, that would be really great.

[Lucky Star]

The boy should be Billy Bunter who was a fat kid who went to Greyfriars School and had all sorts of misadventures. There's a whole series of the books. Just Google Billy Bunter. The author was Frank Richards.

[John Pickup]

Hurree Jamset Ram Singh was one of the "Famous Five" in Frank Richard's Billy Bunter series of books. The others were Harry Wharton, Bob Cherry, Frank Nugent and Johnny Bull. Bunter was indeed a fat kid, due to his prodigious appetite.

[Blytonfan]

Thank you John and Lucky Star. Yes it is Billy Bunter I was looking for.

[Barnard]

Of course, Frank Richards was using the expression ‘Famous Five’, to refer to five Greyfriars schoolboys, in The Magnet comic, before the First World War, decades before Enid Blyton used it. In the 1930s he also used the expression ‘Secret Seven’.

[Courtenay]

So Enid was plagiarising...

[Lenoir]

I think The Adventurous Four was all her own work.

[Courtenay]

Ah, good to know some of it was.

[Anita Bensoussane]

If both authors liked writing about groups of children and were fond of alliteration, that's all it would take!

[Barnard]

About 20 years ago, a daily newspaper printed a children’s literature quiz. One of the questions was ‘what are the names of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five’? The answer given was Julian, George, Dick, Anne and Quentin.

[Courtenay]

If both authors liked writing about groups of children and were fond of alliteration, that's all it would take!

I'm joking, don't worry, Anita.

About 20 years ago, a daily newspaper printed a children’s literature quiz. One of the questions was ‘what are the names of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five’? The answer given was Julian, George, Dick, Anne and Quentin.