Cricket Witness No 6 - His Captain's Hand on His Shoulder Smote

75 the ideal, as Tom Brown’s ‘young master’ described it, of the individual within the team. They are the chief protagonists of almost all the stories either leading or supporting the main plot. They are clearly identified as a distinct group but each person has his own part to play. Harry Wharton was the dauntless, cheerful leader; Bob Cherry was the loyal lieutenant; Johnny Bull was the stalwart, slightly déclassé figure; Hurree Jamset Ram Singh, the mysterious, silky oriental, a prototype attractive to schoolboy story authors in the fashion that Ranjitsinhji had an allure for cricket lovers; and the non-assertive and unassuming Frank Nugent is Frank Richards’ modest self-portrait. ‘Our Gang’, led by Spanky McFarlane and with the likes of Alfalfa Switzer and Buckwheat Thomas in support, is another example of this device, borrowed from their American film existence and transferred to The Dandy. The Beano , perhaps even more memorably, opted for Lord Snooty and his Pals, located at Bunkerton Castle, while Richmal Crompton’s Just William had Henry, Douglas and Ginger in tow. Most schoolchildren at one time or another wished or felt obliged to be in a gang and here were some literary alternatives. Enid Blyton, of course, created her own Famous Five, with lashings of ginger beer, in 1942. An instructive sideline on that tendency was the Victorian take on Robin Hood, who became something of a Harry Wharton doppelganger under the greenwood tree, alongside Little John (the faithful deputy, Bob Cherry) Alan-a-Dale (the more exotic, music-loving Hurree Jamset lookalike) Much the Miller’s Son (the down-to-earth, bluff Johnny Bull) and Will Scarlett (reputed to be Robin’s kinsman, a bit of an under-stated hanger on like Frank Nugent). As they enjoy their poached venison, their equivalent of the midnight feast in the dorm, they may discuss the villinous Sheriff of Nottingham cast in the character of the icily sardonic Mr Queltch, master of the Remove, of which the Famous Five were eternally members, or even King Richard Lionheart in the role of the dignified, aloof head master Dr Locke, himself a copy of the great Dr Arnold. Occasionally at The Flood (1) Greyfriars For Ever..And Ever