I highly recommend this whenever you are in need of some pain-killer, mood-booster or zygomatics exercising. In that equally imaginary world, my first heroine Aurelia’s child is home-schooled in the 1960s with a tutor although she did attend a private girls’ school in London when Aurelia was posted there.

Her predecessor, who features most prominently in 'Jennings Goes To School', is also kind-hearted, but less popular with the boys, as she is rather more brisk and no-nonsense in her approach and has, in Buckeridge's words, 'little sympathy with junk-filled pockets and hair that will not stay parted'.Under the patronage of Miss Thorpe, Linbury is going green - collecting of rubbish, recycling, distribution of leaflets to raise awareness. Teething troubles fail to deter the tenacious Jennings, and his next scoop involves digging into Mr Wilkins past – what will he uncover this time? Darbishire makes his one and only appearance in an inter-house cricket match and makes a memorable last wicket stand. Mind you, it did make me look up an English flapjack recipe and make some, but how could even a ten-year-old boy eat a plate of super-heavy solid-rolled-oat-and-sugar squares?

With catchphrases and nicknames which will become part of your vocabulary and a host of beautifully drawn, irrepressible characters who become your firm friends, these books are treasures. Nostalgia Central covers the period 1950 to 1999 and contains some words and references which reflect the attitudes of those times and which may be considered culturally sensitive, offensive or inappropriate today. Jennings is certain that Mr Wilkins will forget all about the Form Three maths test if they butter him up a bit by welcoming him back with a nice pot plant and a get-well-soon card. It's an innocent world of 11-year-old boys at a boarding school on the south coast of England and the things they get up to are never malicious or underhand. When Jennings arrives at Linbury Court Preparatory School as a new boy, he soon discovers how much he has to learn, especially when the other boys seem to be talking in a different language!

The humour was unsurpassed in any other children’s books of this kind that I read, and I just adored spending time in the company of Jennings and friends. A significant amount of the humour in the book comes from Jennings’ tendency to take things literally, and this continues throughout the series. Buckeridge wrote twenty-five Jennings books, and this title collects the first four of his adventures.