Nigel Molesworth

Nigel Molesworth is a fictional character, the supposed author of a series of books about life in an English prep school named St Custard's.

Searle had grown disillusioned with his highly popular St Trinian's School series but had promised his publisher Max Parrish another Christmas best-seller.

Between the initial publication in 1953 and Willans' death in 1958 at the age of 47 three books were completed and most of a fourth (Back in the Jug Agane) written; the Compleet Molesworth anthology was also under way.

The first book, Down with Skool!, was published in October 1953 and by that Christmas had sold, according to Searle, 53,848 copies,[1] surpassing the performance of the previous year's The Terror of St Trinian's.

It is ruled with an iron fist by Headmaster "GRIMES" (BA, Stoke-on-Trent), who is constantly in search of cash to supplement his income and has a part-time business running a whelk stall.

Television (then still relatively novel to British households), the start of space travel and the atomic age, the Davy Crockett craze and "How to be a young Elizabethan" all feature, as well as more timeless topics such as Christmas, the French, journalism (with "N. Molesworth, Ace Reporter") and "Gurls".