Willy Simeon
The undertaker's son, half-witted and willing to believe anything he was told, and therefore the boy the gang bullied. Their favourite trick was sending him to shops to buy things that did not exist, or putting him in a tub and telling him to lift himself up by the handles. He ended in an asylum.
The book
At a glance
- The undertaker's son, and a schoolfellow of George Bowling
- An asylum
- Part Two, Chapter 4, in one paragraph
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeWilly Simeon was the son of an undertaker and a boy at the grammar school George Bowling attended, four miles from home at Walton. Bowling narrates Coming Up for Air as a man of forty-five in 1938, and he names Willy once, in a paragraph about the ordinary business of being at school before the First World War. The paragraph lists carving your name on a desk and getting the cane for it, inky fingers, bitten nails, darts made out of penholders, conkers, dirty stories, and cheeking the English master. In the middle of that list is a clause about bullying the life out of little Willy Simeon.
The reason given is short. Willy was half-witted and believed everything you told him. The favourite trick was to send him into shops to buy things that do not exist. The ones Bowling lists are a rubber hammer, a left-handed screwdriver, a pot of striped paint, and a ha'porth of penny stamps, which is impossible because a halfpenny will not buy a penny stamp. Willy fell for all of them. One afternoon the boys put him in a tub and told him to lift himself up by the handles, and Bowling calls that grand sport.
Then the book says what became of him, in one clause: he ended up in an asylum. Bowling calls him poor Willy twice, offers no excuse for what he and the other boys did, and moves straight on to the next paragraph, which is about the summer holidays.
How the book draws them
- Who he wasThe undertaker's son, and a boy at the same school as George Bowling. The book gives no age, no face, no clothes, and nothing he ever said.
- Why the boys picked himHe was half-witted and believed everything he was told.
- The shop errandsThe favourite trick was to send him out for goods that do not exist: a rubber hammer, a left-handed screwdriver, a pot of striped paint, and a halfpennyworth of penny stamps, which no shop can sell because a halfpenny will not buy a penny stamp. He fell for all of them.
- The tubOne afternoon the boys put him in a tub and told him to lift himself up by the handles. Bowling's phrase for the afternoon is grand sport.
- What became of himHe ended up in an asylum.
- How the book mentions himBowling's whole account of him is one clause in a list of ordinary schoolboy activities, between cheeking the English master and going home for the holidays. He calls him poor Willy twice and does not soften what he did to him.