What do you think?
Rate this book
Jennings #21
Speaking of Jennings
Jennings intended to sell his battered shoes, to buy a fishing pole. But when the fishing rod has been successfully purchased, can he fish for salmon with chewing gum baits that have been chewed?
There were no confusions at Linbury School without Jennings involvement in it. For example, the incident that occurred at the time of Jennings feeding the disgusting burned porridge to the birds in the schoolyard at the same time the Principal was delivering his guests around the school.
There were no confusions at Linbury School without Jennings involvement in it. For example, the incident that occurred at the time of Jennings feeding the disgusting burned porridge to the birds in the schoolyard at the same time the Principal was delivering his guests around the school.
148 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1973
About the author
Anthony Buckeridge
85 books47 followersAnthony Malcolm Buckeridge was born in London but following the death of his banker father in the First World War he moved with his mother to Ross-on-Wye to live with his grandparents.
At the end of the war they returned to London where he developed a taste for theatre and writing. A scholarship from the Bank Clerks' Orphanage fund permitted his mother to send him to Seaford College boarding school in Sussex. His experiences as a schoolboy there were instrumental in his later work, particularly in his famous Jennings series of novels.
Following the death of his grandfather, the family moved to Welwyn Garden City where his mother worked in promoting the new suburban utopia to Londoners. In 1930 Buckeridge began work at his late father's bank but soon tired of it. Instead he took to acting including an uncredited part in Anthony Asquith's 1931 film 'Tell England'.
After marrying his first wife, Sylvia Brown, he enrolled at University College London where he involved himself in Socialist and anti-war groups and he was later to become an active member of CND. Unfortunately at university he did not take a degree after failing Latin.
By then the couple had two children and, with a young family to support, he found himself teaching in Suffolk and Northamptonshire, which again provided further experiences for his later work. During the Second World War, he was called up as a fireman and wrote several plays for the stage before returning to teaching in Ramsgate.
He used to tell his pupils stories about the fictional character Jennings, who was based on an old school chum of his, Diarmid Jennings. Diarmid was a prep schoolboy boarding at Linbury Court Preparatory School, where the headmaster was Mr Pemberton-Oakes.
After World War II, he wrote a series of radio plays for the BBC's Children's Hour chronicling the exploits of Jennings and his rather more staid friend, Darbishire. 'Jennings Learns the Ropes', the first of his radio plays, was broadcast on 16 October 1948. And then in 1950, the first of 26 Jennings novels, 'Jennings Goes to School' was published.
'Jennings Follows a Clue' appeared in 1951 and then Jennings novels were published regularly through to 1977 before he reappeared in the 1990s with three books that ended with 'That's Jennings' in 1994. The books were as well known and as popular as Frank Richards' Billy Bunter books in their day and were translated into a number of other languages.
The stories of middle class English schoolboys were especially popular in Norway where several were filmed. The Norwegian books and films were rewritten completely for a Norwegian setting with Norwegian names and Jennings is called "Stompa". And in France Jennings was, rather oddly, known as Bennett!
He also wrote five novels featuring a north London Grammar School boy, Rex Milligan, one other novel, 'A Funny Thing Happened: The First [and only] Adventure of the Blighs' (1953), wrote a collection of short stories, 'Stories for Boys' (1957), his autobiography, 'While I Remember' (1999) and edited an anthology, 'In and Out of School' (1958).
In 1962 he met his second wife, Eileen Selby. They settled near Lewes where he continued to write and from where he also appeared in small (non-singing) roles at Glyndebourne.
He was awarded the OBE in 2003.
He died on 28 June 2004 after a spell of ill health with his second wife Eileen and three children, two from his first marriage, surviving him.
Gerry Wolstenholme
September 2010
At the end of the war they returned to London where he developed a taste for theatre and writing. A scholarship from the Bank Clerks' Orphanage fund permitted his mother to send him to Seaford College boarding school in Sussex. His experiences as a schoolboy there were instrumental in his later work, particularly in his famous Jennings series of novels.
Following the death of his grandfather, the family moved to Welwyn Garden City where his mother worked in promoting the new suburban utopia to Londoners. In 1930 Buckeridge began work at his late father's bank but soon tired of it. Instead he took to acting including an uncredited part in Anthony Asquith's 1931 film 'Tell England'.
After marrying his first wife, Sylvia Brown, he enrolled at University College London where he involved himself in Socialist and anti-war groups and he was later to become an active member of CND. Unfortunately at university he did not take a degree after failing Latin.
By then the couple had two children and, with a young family to support, he found himself teaching in Suffolk and Northamptonshire, which again provided further experiences for his later work. During the Second World War, he was called up as a fireman and wrote several plays for the stage before returning to teaching in Ramsgate.
He used to tell his pupils stories about the fictional character Jennings, who was based on an old school chum of his, Diarmid Jennings. Diarmid was a prep schoolboy boarding at Linbury Court Preparatory School, where the headmaster was Mr Pemberton-Oakes.
After World War II, he wrote a series of radio plays for the BBC's Children's Hour chronicling the exploits of Jennings and his rather more staid friend, Darbishire. 'Jennings Learns the Ropes', the first of his radio plays, was broadcast on 16 October 1948. And then in 1950, the first of 26 Jennings novels, 'Jennings Goes to School' was published.
'Jennings Follows a Clue' appeared in 1951 and then Jennings novels were published regularly through to 1977 before he reappeared in the 1990s with three books that ended with 'That's Jennings' in 1994. The books were as well known and as popular as Frank Richards' Billy Bunter books in their day and were translated into a number of other languages.
The stories of middle class English schoolboys were especially popular in Norway where several were filmed. The Norwegian books and films were rewritten completely for a Norwegian setting with Norwegian names and Jennings is called "Stompa". And in France Jennings was, rather oddly, known as Bennett!
He also wrote five novels featuring a north London Grammar School boy, Rex Milligan, one other novel, 'A Funny Thing Happened: The First [and only] Adventure of the Blighs' (1953), wrote a collection of short stories, 'Stories for Boys' (1957), his autobiography, 'While I Remember' (1999) and edited an anthology, 'In and Out of School' (1958).
In 1962 he met his second wife, Eileen Selby. They settled near Lewes where he continued to write and from where he also appeared in small (non-singing) roles at Glyndebourne.
He was awarded the OBE in 2003.
He died on 28 June 2004 after a spell of ill health with his second wife Eileen and three children, two from his first marriage, surviving him.
Gerry Wolstenholme
September 2010
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
August 17, 2015
Kali ini, Jennings cenderung lebih sial daripada di buku-buku sebelumnya. Setelah membeli joran dari pak Wally Pink yang ternyata joran curian, Jennings masih harus menerima kenyataan bahwa uang kuno sovereign yg dimaksudkan sebagai panjar malah dijual. Belum lagi ide memberikan bubur gosong dan buncis serta roti hangus bekas tujuh puluh sembilan siswa Linbury kepada burung-burung malah menyebabkan "banjir" menjijikkan di halaman belakang sekolah, tepat saat pak Pemberton-Oakes kedatangan tamu. Obrolan khas bocah-bocah ini yang serba tumpang tindih berhasil diterjemahkan dengan "renyah" sehingga sukses bikin ngakak (favorit gw percakapan Jenning-Darbi vs. Binns-Blotwell).
Kali ini aksi Darbi malah yang memorable buat gw, jarang membaca aksi nekat seorang Darbishire. Pokoknya petualangan Jennings tetep seseru yg sebelum-sebelumnya, meski gw ngerasa ada hal-hal yg agak kurang adil terhadap Pak Wilkins.
Tapi di sini, kita bicara tentang Jennings kan? :D
Kali ini aksi Darbi malah yang memorable buat gw, jarang membaca aksi nekat seorang Darbishire. Pokoknya petualangan Jennings tetep seseru yg sebelum-sebelumnya, meski gw ngerasa ada hal-hal yg agak kurang adil terhadap Pak Wilkins.
Tapi di sini, kita bicara tentang Jennings kan? :D
December 24, 2016
"Repotnya kalau minta izin, jangan-jangan nanti mereka bilang tidak boleh. Padahal jika kita tidak minta izin, kita masih bisa mengatakan bahwa kita sangka itu diperbolehkan."
"Peraturannya mengatakan anak-anak harus pergi jalan-jalan pada pagi hari Minggu siang, TAPI sedikit pun tidak disinggung apa yang boleh atau tidak boleh terjadi selama jalan-jalan itu."
....si Jennings ini kalau besar rasanya cocok jadi diplomat/pengacara/penipu. Anyway, buku yang ini sebagian besar menceritakan saat Jennings (tukang tepu-tepu kelas teri) dikadali oleh tukang tepu-tepu kelas kakap. Insiden dan kejadian sampingannya saya rasa tidak 'menyatu' sebagus buku-buku Jennings lainnya, dan plot utamanya juga bukan termasuk yang paling menarik. Namun tetap saja buku ini sangat enak dibaca, dan dialog Jen-Darbi pun selalu koplak seperti biasa.
"Peraturannya mengatakan anak-anak harus pergi jalan-jalan pada pagi hari Minggu siang, TAPI sedikit pun tidak disinggung apa yang boleh atau tidak boleh terjadi selama jalan-jalan itu."
....si Jennings ini kalau besar rasanya cocok jadi diplomat/pengacara/penipu. Anyway, buku yang ini sebagian besar menceritakan saat Jennings (tukang tepu-tepu kelas teri) dikadali oleh tukang tepu-tepu kelas kakap. Insiden dan kejadian sampingannya saya rasa tidak 'menyatu' sebagus buku-buku Jennings lainnya, dan plot utamanya juga bukan termasuk yang paling menarik. Namun tetap saja buku ini sangat enak dibaca, dan dialog Jen-Darbi pun selalu koplak seperti biasa.
August 26, 2025
Fossilized Fishhooks, Buckeridge has done it again !
March 22, 2026
Anthony Buckeridge never disappoints, and this is laugh aloud romp through the chaos created at Linbury Court by third former Jennings and his long suffering sidekick, Darbishire.❤️✒️📚🤣
September 30, 2017
Speaking of Jennings - There are lot of nice books. But only a few that fill you with paroxysms of delight. Those few moments you are totally lost to the rest of the world and floating in the air. Even after you finish the happiness remains with you. You have many of those moments in younger days. They become lesser as you grow older. You suspect if old age is making you cynical. Or that you have read so much that you have become too numb for books to impact you any longer. More so with children's book. Often you fear you have finally become a grown up who can not longer partake of the innocent pleasures of childhood any more. And then one book comes along that restores faith. This was one such book. Now I am repenting why I was miserly and did not buy and stock up more Jennings when Deal Star was selling them. At that time it seemed too expensive at 300 bucks a book for such a tiny one and a second hand one at that.
The thing about children's books is that while all of them are about children, very few actually make you feel like a child all over again. Not an adult looking down patronizingly at the world of children and finding it 'cute'. No. Getting lost in the world of the school, getting completely immersed, vicariously enjoying the things they would and taking their concerns seriously as the protagonists would and rooting for them to get out of their problems. I mean how can an adult be concerned about a silly coin you have to return to your uncle or trying to get a fishing rod in shape. But the skill of the author is in making you take these seriously. If you don't you probably are not back there as a child. You are still seeing it from a distance as an adult.
Comparing with some of the others I have read off late, Enid Blyton of course has this talent. While Enid Blyton's school stories focuses on a host of characters, here the camera lens is entirely on Jennings and Darbishire. Even Billy Bunter gives more screen space to secondary characters. Billy Bunter is funnier in terms of the comic narrative, but the reader is still at an arm's length away. Reader does not get fully into the shoes of Billy. Chalet school so far I have found is not strong in setting up a conflict. It feels more like an account of real school life describing the various events. While the details of the settings are delightful, it does not really have the reader at the edge of their seat rooting for the protagonists. Molesworth of course is not at all a story. It is more like a funny fictional essay on British school life.
The thing about children's books is that while all of them are about children, very few actually make you feel like a child all over again. Not an adult looking down patronizingly at the world of children and finding it 'cute'. No. Getting lost in the world of the school, getting completely immersed, vicariously enjoying the things they would and taking their concerns seriously as the protagonists would and rooting for them to get out of their problems. I mean how can an adult be concerned about a silly coin you have to return to your uncle or trying to get a fishing rod in shape. But the skill of the author is in making you take these seriously. If you don't you probably are not back there as a child. You are still seeing it from a distance as an adult.
Comparing with some of the others I have read off late, Enid Blyton of course has this talent. While Enid Blyton's school stories focuses on a host of characters, here the camera lens is entirely on Jennings and Darbishire. Even Billy Bunter gives more screen space to secondary characters. Billy Bunter is funnier in terms of the comic narrative, but the reader is still at an arm's length away. Reader does not get fully into the shoes of Billy. Chalet school so far I have found is not strong in setting up a conflict. It feels more like an account of real school life describing the various events. While the details of the settings are delightful, it does not really have the reader at the edge of their seat rooting for the protagonists. Molesworth of course is not at all a story. It is more like a funny fictional essay on British school life.
June 4, 2013
Linbury Court School adalah sekolah berasrama khusus laki-laki. Sekolah tersebut dipenuhi dengan siswa-siswa yang kreatif dan banyak akal. Salah satu diantara mereka yang juga paling sial adalah siswa bernama Jennings. Jennings si banyak akal, Jennings si iseng dan Jennings yang selalu sial. Begitulah Jennings selalu disebut.
Pada buku kali ini ini diceritakan Jennings membeli tangkai pancing dari salah seorang warga Desa Linbury bernama Wally Pink. Sayangnya setelah ia berhasil mendapatkan benda idamannya tsb, memancing tidak semudah yang ia bayangkan. Kegiatan yang dilakukannya bersama Darbishire secara sembunyi-sembunyi itu membuatnya harus berurusan dengan Pengawas Perairan dan (lagi-lagi) pak Wally Pink yang telah menipunya.
Well, itu ringkasan dari buku kecil serial Jennings. Tanpa ampun buku itu membuat saya tertawa terus-terusan sambil memegangi perut dan geleng-geleng kepala. Namun diluar kelucuan cerita Jennings, Darbishire dan juga murid-murid di Linbury School, Buckeridge menyisipkan banyak pelajaran. Seperti halnya kelakuan Pak Pink yang tidak jujur, sang pengarang pada akhirnya membuat Pak Pink kena batunya akan hal tidak baik yang sering dilakukannya itu.
Pada buku kali ini ini diceritakan Jennings membeli tangkai pancing dari salah seorang warga Desa Linbury bernama Wally Pink. Sayangnya setelah ia berhasil mendapatkan benda idamannya tsb, memancing tidak semudah yang ia bayangkan. Kegiatan yang dilakukannya bersama Darbishire secara sembunyi-sembunyi itu membuatnya harus berurusan dengan Pengawas Perairan dan (lagi-lagi) pak Wally Pink yang telah menipunya.
Well, itu ringkasan dari buku kecil serial Jennings. Tanpa ampun buku itu membuat saya tertawa terus-terusan sambil memegangi perut dan geleng-geleng kepala. Namun diluar kelucuan cerita Jennings, Darbishire dan juga murid-murid di Linbury School, Buckeridge menyisipkan banyak pelajaran. Seperti halnya kelakuan Pak Pink yang tidak jujur, sang pengarang pada akhirnya membuat Pak Pink kena batunya akan hal tidak baik yang sering dilakukannya itu.
July 26, 2015
Better than some other instalments from the '70s, but still a bit too reliant on events in the world outside the school. Wally Pink (Linbury's very own Artful Dodger) is not as annoying a character as Miss Thorpe, but I think the series could have done without him.
Highlight: Mr Pemberton-Oaks assures a pair of prospective parents that meals at Linbury Court are both nutritious and delicious, just before he leads them into a quagmire of burnt breakfast that Jennings and Darbishire have spread all over the path outside the dining room.
Highlight: Mr Pemberton-Oaks assures a pair of prospective parents that meals at Linbury Court are both nutritious and delicious, just before he leads them into a quagmire of burnt breakfast that Jennings and Darbishire have spread all over the path outside the dining room.
February 8, 2017
I have always loved these books (though I can't seem to summon the English language edition here) and this one was no exception.
April 20, 2020
I find this one very contrived and a bit boring, with Jennings' good qualities more or less totally gone by now, but there is one laugh-out-loud moment.
Highlight: Jennings reads Darbishire's veiled references to their highly illegal fishing expedition.
Lowlight: an entire chapter is given to Venables' escaped gerbils and Binns and Blotwell's purloined toadstools.
Highlight: Jennings reads Darbishire's veiled references to their highly illegal fishing expedition.
Lowlight: an entire chapter is given to Venables' escaped gerbils and Binns and Blotwell's purloined toadstools.
March 20, 2016
A Jennings book I had NEVER read! :-O I laughed all the way through it, it's full of immortal Jennings lines. It's one of these Jennings where they get out of Linbury Court a lot and mingle with the locals, which is always absolutely hilarious.
August 1, 2011
Pinjam dari Iyut, terima lewat Mute.
------------------------------------
------------------------------------
October 8, 2011
993rd - 2011
June 18, 2013
Funny, quite funny. Perfect book for getting kids interested in reading.
July 1, 2015
finally! so much refreshing I chuckled many times :))
October 5, 2015
Not one of the top Jennings books out there, but definitely got more than a few chuckles out of me!
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews