Ribblestrop, Andy Mulligan

Ribblestrop tells the story of a new boarding school, which is set up by the idealistic Dr Giles Norcross-Webb, with the assistance of Captain Routon, the ex-military PE teacher, and Professor Clarissa Worthington, scientist-in-residence.

Action begins in the style of Harry Potter, with the main characters meeting on the train to school. Sam is eagerly anticipating his first term at Ribblestrop, and is happy to make his first friend on the train: Ruskin. Ruskin introduces Sam to the spirit of Ribblestrop: ‘Dr Norcross-Webb says we’re pioneers, like in the Wild West. We can do anything and everything, if we put our minds to it.’ He also introduces Sam to the real condition of the school: it has hardly any pupils and no roof, and there is a South American pupil called Sanchez who is in hiding from kidnappers and keeps a gun under his bed.

After an accident involving a flask of tea and Sam’s shorts and ‘tender regions’, the two boys run into Millie: the first Ribblestrop girl. Through a combination of Ruskin’s carelessness and Millie’s ill-advised advice, Sam ends up with no shorts, and all three children end up off the train and on the run. Millie’s resourcefulness and lack of aversion to mildly criminal activity is instrumental in getting them to Ribblestrop, and as an added bonus they run into Sanchez on the way, only causing one shoot-out, which is followed by a rather good meal with Champagne all round. Upon arrival at Ribblestrop, they discover that a group of orphan boys from overseas have been given scholarships, so now Ribblestrop has enough students to start its own football team, news which is greeted with much excitement.

The term begins with project to rebuild the school’s roof after the previous year’s fire, set by the now-expelled Miles. At the same time, Captain Routon assembles a football team for the first time in Ribblestrop’s short history, and invites the local High School for a match, which causes the headmaster to lead a prayer requesting guidance in ball-control. But while the children are busy learning about engineering and construction and practicing team-play in football, there is a nefarious plot unfolding in the underground tunnels under Ribblestrop Towers, and Lady Vyner is hatching a plot against the school.

This is unusually gritty for a children’s book. Characters get genuinely hurt, and the villains are genuinely dangerous. But it maintains one of the most significant elements of the genre of Children’s adventure story, in that the adults are only tangentially related to the resolution of the plot, if they have any connection to it at all. Dr Norcross-Webb sails through the term’s calamities on a sea of calm oblivion, armoured with the belief that if he trusts his pupils they will grow both academically and personally, and the school will be a great success. Oddly enough, his approach seems to work: although the children occasionally behave appallingly, and participate in activities that are not only against school rules, but also against the law, they share a deep love for Ribblestrop and for each other, which motivates them to work as a team and save their school and themselves.

This is a satire of the traditional boarding school novel with a warm heart and a great sense of humour. There is rather a lot of drinking and gun-toting for a school novel, but there is nevertheless a strong moral compass at its core, and the children are still credibly childlike. Ribblestrop may not be the sort of school you would want to send your child to, but you’ll definitely wish you had gone there yourself.