The Famous Five

He had joined the Conservative Party in his 20s, and worked hard to gain pre-selection for three safe Labour seats in London's tough docks area. When Jeffrey Archer proposed him for a safe Tory seat in Norfolk, Mrs Thatcher drew herself up to her full height, and intoned in Churchillian fashion, 'That will be over my dead body, your Lordship'. There the matter rested.

Julian briefly resurfaced with the Channel 4 1982 screening of the The Comic Strip Crew's parody, Five Go Mad in Dorset, which he claimed, had brought his character into disrepute. The judge hearing the case heard evidence from hundreds of witnesses that Julian was quite devoid of any character, so the case was dismissed, much to Julian's chagrin.

Today, greying, moustached, and bitter, Julian lives with a 'friend' in a small flat in Highgate.

Dick worked for many years at Barclays Bank, and was quite a ladies' man. His flashy lifestyle was brought to a sudden end when he was arrested for embezzlement on a very grand scale. He is still serving time in prison, and although I sympathise with his plight, I always thought he looked a bit shifty.

Anne has done best of the Five in worldly terms. She was very bright, but did not let it show too much, as readers will remember how passive and shy she was compared with the other children. She gained entry to University College, London to study psychology and political science, and was radicalised in the late 1960s, as were so many girls from stable and prosperous middle class backgrounds. Today, she is the Professor of Comparative Third World Gender Studies at the University of Essex. Her recent book, Sexism and Class Distinction in Post-War British Children's Fiction was enthusiastically reviewed by the Guardian..

Georgina (George) is, perhaps, the happiest. She married a North Country doctor, and today they live in a rambling old manor house in Yorkshire, their happy and well-balanced children having all grown up. George is very active in the local Anglican church, and her robust tomboyishness, which is still evident (although it has assumed a rather tweedy and horsey quality in middle age) has earned her local notoriety as 'The Real Vicar of Dibley'. She even made a rosy-cheeked, boisterous, and, I might add, positively hilarious appearance on a well known 'lifestyle' television program in that role. I had no idea that any of the Five possessed a sense of humour, but, if any did, I suppose it would have to be George. 

His greatest roles were in Shakespearean comedy, and he gave new life, and fresh interpretation, to such gamey parts as Sir Anthony Aguecheek and Sir Toby Belch. However, like many comedy actors, his tragic roles, when he essayed them, were extraordinary, and his 60s interpretations of Richard III, and Othello, for the Royal Shakespeare Company are now regarded as definitive.

Readers who recall the period will remember his very public love affair with Violet Elisabeth Bott, who herself had found a place in the youthful limelight of the swinging sixties as a leading fashion model, and a rival of the equally lovely Jean Shrimpton.  Their very overheated amour rocked Britain to its foundations, and caused William's unspeakably dull older brother to complain about 'falling moral standards' in an angry letter to the Times. William, of course, took absolutely no notice.

Today he is the director of Britain's National Theatre Company Board, and often appears on the Michael Parkinson Show, reminiscing about days gone by. Violet Elisabeth has found a stable and fulfilling middle age as the proprietor of a very comfortable and fashionable hotel in one of the pretty fishing villages along the coast of Cornwall. I visited her in the course of researching this article, and there are pictures of her in the palmy, heady days of her youth displayed along the bar and dining room walls.

Little Black Sambo, weary of carrying around his umbrella and being chased by tigers around palm trees, joined the Black Panthers as bodyguard to H. Rap Brown. He adapted Islam, and changed his name to Abdullah Q'staffa. A few years later he was involved in a daring Panthers bank heist with the Robinsons Jam Golliwog, and had to flee to Algeria to escape retribution from the F.B.I.

He was a self-styled 'ambassador' for the Symbionese Liberation Army in the 1970s, but was finally allowed a pardon, and re-entered the United States in 1988. Today he too has entered the comfortable   and unfettered groves of academe, and can often be seen sharing a coffee and conversation with Noam Chomsky and Peter Singer at Harvard University.

Thomas the Tank Engine was to be scrapped and broken up in the early 1970s, but a massive public outcry, accompanied by the financial support of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, saw Thomas saved at the last minute. Today he can be seen at the York Railway Museum, resting, retired, and free from the troublesome trucks that were such a nuisance to him in the past. The rather superior and condescending Edward the Blue Engine has taken a seat in the House of Lords, and must surely be one of Prime Minister Tony Blair's more bizarre appointments. Henry the Green Engine, as cranky as ever, is still working on a steam revival line in the Lakes District, and is reported to be in good health, sound of crankshaft and boiler.

Dick and Jane have had diverse lives. Spot, their devoted dog, had to be destroyed during a rabies scare in their great little home town in the American Midwest, a scare which turned out to be unfounded, much to the two teenagers' dismay.

Jane was especially horrified when, two years later, she discovered that the books in which she had played such an important role were to be dropped from American schools' reading lists. Sensing a connection between Spot's death and the decision of the education authorities, she announced that America was falling victim to the world domination program of international communism, and joined the John Birch Society, and the Daughters of the American Revolution.

She made several unsuccessful forays into politics as an independent candidate in Congressional elections, but her reputation was ruined after she denounced Ronald Reagan as a 'crypto-communist' and a 'fellow traveller'. Former conservative friends turned their backs on her, and now she does no more than write a column in the Evening Shades Picayune, a local Mississippi newspaper, as a member of the Moral Majority.

Her only daughter, as American readers probably know, is one of the anchor women on the Fox Television Network. It was probably this daughter who enticed Mom out of retirement as it were, to appear on the morning news show, red-lipsticked and overly made up, mutton dressed up as lamb, to be interviewed by Sean Hannity about what it was like to be a children's book character in the 1950s and 1960s. This has been her last public appearance to date.

Dick was deeply affected by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which, even as a boy, he felt spelt the end of certainty in America. At first he believed the findings of Warren Report - he was, after all, just into his teens at the time, but as he grew up doubts began to appear in his mind. He has devoted his life to assassination research, living on royalties from the Dick and Jane books. Politically he is a liberal Democrat, and has been estranged from his sister for many, many years.

Today he sports a grizzled beard and glasses, and is the editor of the Dealey Plaza Inquirer, a journal of assassination research. He believes that there was not one Lee Harvey Oswald, but seventy seven - and he has the pictures to prove it, as I discovered during my brief visit to his home earlier this year. Touching the fingertips of his brown-speckled hands, he postulates that Kennedy was killed by 'dark forces in the American psyche', and mentions the C.I.A., the F.B.I., the Mafia, the oil industry, the Vice President, the steel industry, the Pepsi-Cola company, the Teamsters' Union, the American Milk Board, the Secret Service, and Boris and Natasha as 'just a few' who had a hand in planning the assassination.

It was at that point that I rose, thanked him very much, and left.

Do American readers know that plump, jolly Italian Mom who has her own cooking program on CBS? She always has a twinkle in her eye, wears a big flowery apron, and splashes around the olive oil like nobody's business. Well, believe it or not, that is Little Lulu. She is going to be absolutely furious when she reads this, because she wants to put her comic book past behind her, but what can I do? I think my readers have a right to know.
Susan MacDonald