Whilst my wife was pregnant, we decided to purchase a selection of our favourite childhood books to read to the bump. Both of us recalled the works of Janet and Allan Ahlberg with great fondness and so, along with Funnybones, we decided to make Burglar Bill one of our first purchases. As a child I was fortunate enough to have both the picture book version of this story and an audio book read by Bernard Cribbins, and for a long time both ranked amongst my favourite things - more often than not in tandem. “When you hear this sound, turn the page...”
Far from being a tale that glamourises burglary, Burglar Bill is a gentle and amusing tale about a criminal’s redemption; one that only gets funnier as you get older. I don’t ever recall asking my parents why Bill pilfers only the most ludicrous of items - who steals used toothbrushes and big brown boxes with little holes in them? - or laughing when Burglar Betty doesn’t recognise Burglar Bill until he puts his burgling mask on, yet every time we read the story to our baby daughter, we seem to discover some new absurd aspect that makes us smile too.
For someone who starts out the tale as a swarthy criminal, Burglar Bill makes for a surprisingly genial protagonist. Grossly negligent and flighty widow lady Burglar Betty is a little harder to warm to - by her own admission, she’s been a terrible woman - but she more than makes up for her misdemeanours by helping Burglar Bill to see the error of his ways. Bill’s epiphany does feel rather sudden though, and the grown-up in me can’t help but wonder how he and Betty could have returned everything that they’d half-inched when the preponderance of their ill-gotten gains were consumables. If a reformed burglar showed up on my doorstep proffering a half-eaten packet of out of date arrowroot biscuits and a bedraggled toothbrush, I’d say keep ’em - and then promptly call the fuzz.
Fortunately such wry cynicism has yet to infect my daughter, and every time I read Burglar Bill to her, her face lights up - and I’m not even a patch on Bernard Cribbins.
