posted on 14 Jan 2017

Ordinary Jack by Helen Cresswell

Helen Cresswell who died at the age of 71 in 2005 was a prolific author of children’s stories and her work remains popular today. I would guess that she is most famous for the Lizzie Dripping series of books which were also popularised by a television serialisation in the 1970s. However, there will be readers who think that it is her ten book saga of the Bagthorpe family that is her masterpiece – Ordinary Jack (1977) being the first in the sequence.

Creswell’s idea here is very simple – create a family of eccentric geniuses and include one child, Jack, who has no stand-out talents and who is just an ‘ordinary’ boy, someone all your readers will be able to identify with. Jack’s best friend is his scruffy, untrainable dog, Zero and his only adult confederate is his Uncle Parker who is married to his father’s beautiful sister.

Jack is very conscious of his ordinary-ness and desperately wants ‘more strings to his bow’ – a talent that will make his family take him seriously. But he doesn’t seem to have one and has no real prospect of developing anything that will bring him the admiration he craves.

However, Uncle Parker has a plan – he will make Jack a great prophet and someone able to predict future events. By the use of a cunning plan or two, Jack and Uncle Parker set about trying to convince the family that he has a hidden talent that should be admired and revered. All this would be well and good if it wasn’t for the fact that this is the Bagthorpe family and various forms of chaos surround everything they do.

Needless to say Jack and Uncle Parker’s plan is eventually rumbled but not before there are problems with house fires, emotional but beautiful Danish au pairs, broken arms, lavender suits and hot air balloons. In the end Jack has to go back to being normal – but, in truth, normal here is an entirely relative concept.

For young readers of a certain age, the chance to imagine themselves into a family like the Bagthorpes must be irresistible. Much of the humour is slapstick and essentially good natured but this is very certainly not a sentimental family – their travails don’t end in group hugs. They are self-centred, self-deluding and self-regarding but in an entirely delightful way and while living with them might get a bit much, paying them a visit for the duration of a book is something to look forward to.

What Helen Cresswell does here is to channel some of the very best parts of the William books – the relationship between William and the rest of the Brown family isn’t replicated here but the spirit of Richmal Compton’s creation pervades the atmosphere. I’m also pretty sure I see the influence of Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals in the creation of the eccentric and self-centred family held together by unspoken bonds.

Oddly enough, hardback copies of Ordinary Jack are pretty hard to find now and first editions seem particularly rare. However, paperback reprints are easy to come by and pretty cheap too – start the Saga here and see where it takes you.

 

Terry Potter

January 2017