Information
This was the best-known of the many pseudonyms of Charles Hamilton, one of the most prolific of children’s writers, who for more than 30 years before the Second World War contributed stories to the boys’ weeklies ‘The Gem’ and ‘The Magnet’. His most popular creation was Billy Bunter, one of the ‘Famous Five’of The Remove of Greyfriars School, which first appeared in ‘The Magnet’. Although the weekly was not published after the war, Billy Bunter’s popularity was undiminished and he continued to appear in books, a television series and Christmas shows, with Richards keeping up an enormous volume of words on this and his other children’s stories. In 1926 he bought a house at 131 Percy Avenue, Kingsgate, which became his main residence until his death there on Christmas Eve 1961. He enjoyed brisk daily walks to the sea at the end of the road and some of his devoted readers believed they could see local features in his stories. There is now a plaque on the house to commemorate his connection with it and to many of the admirers of Billy Bunter’s all-male public school world of archaic slang and jolly japes it has become a shrine.
Quotations
Place | Extract |
| Kingsgate | In 1926 he bought a house at 131 Percy Avenue, Kingsgate, which became his main residence until his death there on Christmas Eve 1961... |
