It's 1938 and the skies are darkening. On the playing fields of Faysgarth School, battle is about to commence. Skimpton, popular Deputy Head Boy, all-round good egg and sports supremo, needs a miracle if he's to beat arch rivals Rainingham with a first eleven still drunk from the previous night's debauchery.

Further obstacles include mercurial school scoundrel Marcus Dent, Constable Stubbs, the irredeemably dim local bobby, a cricketing vicar with a unique taste in flannels, and the lethally myopic Colonel Coombes, menace of the chemistry laboratory. A motley assortment of grubby dimwits, suspicious outsiders and sinister socialists means more trouble ahead for our heroic House Captain and his irrepressible fag Piggot.

In this juicy collection of humorous stories Skimpton finds that, in a world beset by colonial conundrums, sexual tension, political skulduggery and the occasional stinky third-former, the immutable values of King and country don't always win the prize. For, whether the challenge is a chafing jockstrap or an infuriating history master, one thing's for certain: at Faysgarth nothing is ever quite what it seems.

A Skimpton Compendium takes up where Michael Palin's Ripping Yarns left off. If you like Lindsay Anderson's If and the stories of Richmal Crompton and PG Wodehouse, you'll love A Skimpton Compendium.

John Biggins

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