Billy Bunter's Birthday Bash

The irrepressible and greedy trouble maker, Billy Bunter was a character created by Charles Hamilton under the pen name of Frank Richards.

Billy's school Greyfriars, was an escapist fantasy for hundreds of thousands of mainly working-class children, who read the stories, or watched them dramatised on BBC TV in the 1950s.

Gyles Brandreth raised a toast to the 'Fat Owl of the Remove' in 2008, to mark the 100th anniversary of publication.

Contributors include actor Martin Jarvis, Greyfriars memorabilia collector Laurie Mansfield, Brett Kahr psychoanalyst and children's literature expert, biographer Mary Cadogan and Jeffrey Richards, professor of popular culture at Lancaster University.

Producer Libby Cross

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in February 2008.