That air of innocence...

I have just read sadly of the death of the artist and illustrator, Ronald Searle. The obituaries testify to a long, rich and prolific life that also included the horrors of war and the Burmese death railway (I have a book of his sketches, secretly done at the time, of that ghastly experience). Forget St Trinians; my older brother and I were weaned on a series of essential books for schoolboys in the early 1960s – the wonderful 1066 and All That, and Down With Skool!: A Guide to School Life for Tiny Pupils and Their Parents; How to be Topp: A Guide to Sukcess for Tiny Pupils, Including All There is to Kno About Space; Whizz for Atomms: A Guide to Survival in the 20th Century for Fellow Pupils, their Doting Maters, Pompous Paters and Any Others who are Interested; and Back in the Jug Agane, the last four all written by Geoffrey Willans and all brilliantly illustrated by Searle. They described a world that was still, just, relevant to us. There were still china inkpots in the schooldesks, though I only remember filling them once. When they and quill pens and blotters went, so did the warfare of inkblots (rolled-up bits of blotting paper, soaked in ink) launched with wooden rulers (another disappeared species). Gaze at Searle’s noble Nigel Molesworth in the illustration, ‘the curse of St Custard’s’ and the ‘gorila of 3b’  and reflect solemnly on his observation that, ‘as any fule kno’; ‘History started badly and hav been geting steadily worse.’