Making Plans for Nigel Trivia Quiz

Answer: Peason

Peason - thought to be a corruption of 'Pearson' - is Molesworth's 'grate frend', and a budding inventor. The two have something of a love-hate relationship; they will often argue and smoke behind the potting shed (though smoking actually makes them feel sick) before going on to beat up younger boys. Peason regularly features in Molesworth's daydreams during class.

It is implied that his first name is Timothy, 'darling Timothy' being listed as one of his nicknames.

Answer: The Mrs Joyful Prize for Raffia Work

Grabber comes from a rich background (his father has a Rolls Royce and owns a company, Grabber & Grabber, that sells dangerous children's toys) and his father is implied to bribe the teachers into giving him prizes, as well as gifting the Matron a bottle of beer at Christmas. Molesworth suspects that the Grabbers may be a crime family. Grabber himself bribes Molesworth to write a nice description of him for five shillings.

He is regularly awarded the Mrs Joyful Prize for Raffia Work - indeed, he is the only person who ever wins it - and is also captain of all sports teams, although his sporting and academic abilities are questionable.

Answer: Maths

Sigismund Arbuthnot is dubbed the 'Mad Maths Master' by Molesworth and is a somewhat vampiric-looking bald man with sharp teeth and long fingernails. Molesworth imagines him leading an army of rhomboids in one of his space adventures. Sigismund and Grimes - whose name is always written in capitals - are usually the only St Custard's masters mentioned by name, although various generic masters appear throughout the books.

Answer: Fotherington-Thomas

Basil Fotherington-Thomas is a cheerful, sensitive boy with curly blond hair who often says 'hullo clouds, hullo sky', and is impervious to Molesworth's insults. He has a sister called Arabella and is a fan of skipping and 'Little Lord Fauntleroy'. He is the goalkeeper of the school football team, but is completely useless.

Ern is a school bully, Gillibrand is a general's son (which makes him very good at knowing when masters are lying about their war experience), and Armand is a character who appears in Molesworth's French text book.

Answer: The Pukon

Molesworth's space-age alter-ego Captain Molesworth regularly does battle, or attempts to do battle, with the Pukon and his minions, the Treens. The Treens were a race of green-skinned aliens in the 'Dan Dare' comic strip, which appeared in 'Eagle'. The Mekon was their leader, and had a large, round head due to his extreme intelligence. When Molesworth is caught smoking on one occasion, he says that he has been caught 'like a Treen in a disabled spaceship'.

Molesworth also imagines himself as a cowboy (he's a big fan of 'Davy Crockett', like many young boys in the fifties, my dad among them), a fashion designer (to his horror), an Elizabethan schoolboy, a Russian called Molesvitch, and a detective, amongst other things.

Answer: Fairy Bells

Molesworth 2, Molesworth's younger brother, is a notoriously terrible pianist and once destroyed the school piano by massacring 'Fairy Bells' on it. The piano - or what is left of it - is filled with dead goldfish, toy soldiers, marbles and cigarette cards, and has no loud pedal after Molesworth 2's performance. Molesworth also claims that the music mistress disappeared after the piano exploded.

Answer: An automatic caning machine

The 'Molesworth' books being set in the '50s, when corporal punishment was legal in British schools, the cane gets a regular workout at St Custard's. Molesworth is initially delighted when Peason shows him the automatic caning machine, but less so when Peason informs him that he is going to be its first test subject. Luckily, the school pig comes to his rescue. Although Molesworth and Peason have never invented a homework-copying machine, they have invented a machine that does lines for boys in detention, and a prototype 'electric brain'.

Molesworth is inspired to be good after reading a story in one of his grandmother's Victorian magazines about a boy called Wee Tim who gets a fortune from an old woman after being kind to her. His attempt to be good fails miserably when, despite all his efforts, the masters and Matron refuse to believe him, he alienates his friends and Grabber (inevitably) ends up winning the Character Cup instead.

Answer: Quantum ille canis est in finestra

'Quantum ille canis est in finestra' is Latin for 'How much is that doggy in the window?' St Custard's does indeed have a school dog, Wandsworth, who has a habit of stealing sausages (and eating pretty much anything), as well as a school pig, who Molesworth befriends in 'I Am Going to Be Good'.

'Alea iacta est', or 'the die is cast', is a phrase attributed to Julius Caesar. 'Nil satis nisi optimum' ('only the best will do') is the Latin motto of Everton Football Club. 'Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus' ('never tickle a sleeping dragon') is the motto of Hogwarts in the 'Harry Potter' books; JK Rowling, incidentally, is a 'Molesworth' fan herself, saying that she learned the word 'cave' ('beware') from the books.

Answer: Poor spelling and grammar

Molesworth's bad spelling is a trademark of the books; he does use capitals from time to time, although he writes most people's names in small letters, unless they happen to be someone he fears. One of his trademark phrases is 'as any fule kno' ('as any fool knows').

His grammar is also very chaotic and he has a habit of using the first person singular instead of the third ('he pla' instead of 'he plays'). He portrays Spanish people as speaking with a lisp ('thipping therry' for 'sipping sherry') and Elizabethans as using the letter f in place of an s (e.g. 'fir please fir' for 'sir please sir').

Answer: O You Juggins

'O you juggins' is a phrase that Molesworth attributes to girls, but is not the title of an actual book. The full titles of the books are, in chronological order: 'Down with Skool! A Guide to School Life for Tiny Pupils and their Parents' (1953); 'How to be Topp: A Guide to Sukcess for Tiny Pupils, Including All There is to Kno about Space' (1954, and the book which introduced me to Molesworth, incidentally), and 'Whizz for Atomms: A Guide to Survival in the 20th Century for Fellow Pupils, their Doting Maters, Pompous Paters and Any Others who are Interested' (1956). The latter was published in the US as 'Molesworth's Guide to the Atommic Age'. Another book in the original series is 'Back in the Jug Agane' (1959, after Geoffrey Willans' death).

Molesworth originally appeared in 'The Young Elizabethan', a children's literature magazine in the 1950s. Geoffrey Willans based the books on a column he had been writing for the satirical magazine 'Punch' and asked Ronald Searle, the man behind 'St Trinian's', to do the illustrations. Searle was reluctant at first, having tired of 'St Trinian's', but warmed to the idea after reading Willans' work.