It's a very large epidemic

OPINION:  "Ow, gosh, yarrooo, leggo, you rotters.", writes Joe Bennett this week.

If you can identify the speaker then you are probably past your prime. It is, of course, Billy Bunter. Frank Richards created Bunter in the 1890s and continued to write stories about him right up till his death in 1961. I've just read one of those stories for the first time in 40 years and everything was exactly as I remembered. Bunter, the fat Owl of the Remove, was a gluttonous schoolboy and a permanent comic victim. On the rare occasions that his teachers weren't caning him, his classmates were booting him.

"The fat Owl, yelling, fled as if for his fat life. After him rushed Horace Coker dribbling Billy Bunter across the quad like a fat football; leaving Harry Wharton and Co laughing."

But what has changed is the modern world. If Frank Richards wanted to publish a Bunter story today he'd need to change his style a bit, perhaps as follows:

"I say," said Horace Coker catching up with Bunter in the quad, "the beak wants to see you in his study double quick."

"Oh lor," exclaimed the fat Owl, "I expect he's going to whop me again. But he can't prove it was me that swiped the sponge cake from Hurree Jamset Ram Singh's study. I didn't even know that he had a jolly sponge cake, and I certainly didn't know that the inky rotter had hidden it in his."

"Don't you think that's a bit racist, Bunter," said Horace Coker gently. "But you'd better cut along. Quelch doesn't like to be kept waiting."

"Come in, Bunter," exclaimed Mr Quelch the beak in response to Bunter's fat knock.

"It wasn't me, sir," began Bunter, "I didn't even jolly well know that our dusky friend had –"

"What are you blathering about, Bunter? I've brought you here to meet the latest additions to the Greyfriars staff. Bunter, meet the school counsellor.'

"O lor," exclaimed Bunter, as a man in a cardigan proffered a soft handshake.

"Nice to meet you, William," said the counsellor.

"Who?"

"William."

"Lumme, only the mater calls me William. Most of the chaps call me a fat slug or a blithering ass."

"I'm here to help you, William."

"Well, seeing as you're offering," said Bunter, "I'm expecting a postal order from my Auntie any day now. If you could see your way to standing a chap a couple of bob, say, just to tide him over, so that he could get a little tuck."

"I'm concerned about your self-esteem, William."

"What the dickens is that?" exclaimed Bunter, blinking fatly behind his owlish glasses. "Is it like steamed pudding, with jam and cream and sugar and – "

But before the counsellor could answer, the door flew open and a woman cycled in wearing a leotard that caused Mr Quelch to remove his spectacles and wipe them with the sleeve of his gown. "Sorry, I'm late,' said the woman dismounting, "just finished a triathlon. Ah, you must be William. Gosh, you are challenged, aren't you? Your BMI must be through the roof."

Bunter gulped fatly in incomprehension.

"I'm the school nutritionist," explained the woman cheerfully, "we'll soon have you sorted out, don't you worry. It's not your fault. You're the victim of an epidemic. And we'll make you better. We'll get you onto grey low-fat milk, lots of leafy green vegetables and –"

Bunter fainted. When he came to, he was lying on the table in Quelch's study stretched out under a sheet. A surgeon was bending over Bunter's enormously fat stomach. A ventilation tube down Bunter's fat throat prevented him from speaking.

"What I don't understand is who's going to pay for all this," said the counsellor.

"Oh haven't you heard," exclaimed the nutritionist, "Mrs Turia was a victim of the obesity epidemic as well, you see, so she got her stomach stapled and thought it such a topping thing that she's decided the operation should be free for everyone."

"Yes, but who's going to pay for it?"

"That's the brilliant part," said the nutritionist. "She wants the tax raised on cigarettes. Can't you see the neatness of it? Two sets of victims that we can bully for their own good, both of them too cowed to resist, and we use one to pay for the other. Oh it's a wonderful world. Though I do sometimes wonder who we're going to pick on when we've run out of smokers and fatties. But I expect we'll find someone."

"Excuse me," said the surgeon, "the patient seems to have woken up."

Bunter was writhing on the table and hauling the ventilation tube from his throat.

"Quick, hold him down," said the surgeon, and strong arms pinned Bunter's fat frame to the beak's desk. "Listen William, we're doing this for your own –"

"Ow, gosh, yarrooo, leggo, you rotters," screamed Billy Bunter. How his tormenters laughed.

» Joe Bennett is an English-born travel writer and columnist who lives in New Zealand with dogs. His columns are syndicated in newspapers throughout New Zealand.

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