From the archive, 13 January 1969: The Peter Pan world of William
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Originally published in the Guardian on 13 January 1969
MISS Richmal Crompton Lamburn, author of „Just William” and about forty other stories on the same engaging 11-year-old boy, died on Saturday at Farnborough Hospital, aged 78.
So in the end they all died within a year, the three writers whose books for children sold by the million and went on selling in an age when many thought them venerable anachronisms. I don’t come to bury Miss Blyton or Captain Johns, still less to praise them. They knew how to get the easy response, and got it. Richmal Crompton wasn’t quite the same. True, she was with the other two in the best-sellers’ league. But Noddy, the Famous Five, and Biggles were characters one was sorry to see a child engrossed with – characters to be recalled in adult life with mild distaste or, preferably, forgotten. William is a character to be remembered [...]