Being an 11 year-old boy anytime in history


I like audiobooks, and I just discovered a series narrated by one of my favorite voice actors, Martin Jarvis, called "Just William", which is about an 11 year-old boy who does ordinary stuff. And after listening to many episodes I noticed that while the world changes around him, he's always 11.

I'm a background watcher, and just am realizing that this character lives through the 1920s, and (according to Wikipedia) makes it all of the way to 1970. Of course he's always 11, but his background, which happens to be a small town in England, changes.

Apparently these stories were written to show how real boys acted, as opposed to the idealized versions that were popular in fiction. And I can attest to the accuracy of the boys, because I used to be eleven at one time, and I did the same thing that William does, such as playing with bugs, not wanting to wash my hands before dinner, that sort of thing. Boys will be boys, and they never change! If you've never been a little boy, or have forgotten how you acted when you were 11, these stories can help with a very clear picture of that age.

But that's not what really fascinates me about these stories, it's the world he lives in, the technology he uses, what the grownups do and say, that sort of thing. One of my favorite episodes is when the concept of "television" is discussed by his group of friends (assuming the story was from the 50s), and William describes it as "just heads talking in a box". Well, that makes sense!

I'm sure that the author never set out to describe things from a historical perspective, she just needed a background for the character, the same way that movies are shot that show a background that many years later people like me find so fascinating. So to me these stories aren't just about William.

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