I'd like to add the blatant benefit fraud/exploitation within that book.
Charley, we learn, lives with his mother and no less than four bedridden Grandparents.

Mother appears to work but also acts as a carer for the Grandparents. Father? There is passing reference to his premature death although this may be a contrived fiction to spare Charley from the truth that he absconded, thoroughly dismayed about a continual diet of cabbage soup.

Upon the introduction of a material inducement into the household, in the form of a "Golden Ticket", one of the hitherto bedridden grandparents - viz Grandpa Joe - miraculously regains ambulatary ability.

Quite clearly Grandpa Joe is actually a bone-idle scrounger who has spent the previous 20 years lying about in bed.

There are two possible options here:-

1 - Charley's Mother has been claiming benefits for this clearly physically able individual in collusion with him, but without the knowledge of her child.

2 - Grandpa Joe has been exploiting this poor woman by shamming his disability.

I think, in either event, Grandpa Joe is not an individual to be trusted with a small bag of rusty screws. Once his apparently unremarked Lazarus-esque reinvention occurs, however, he willingly undertakes a physically demanding tour of the premises of a confectionary manufacturer.

At the conclusion of this tour he suggests, without the presence of any responsible adult, that Charley ought to become the ward of the clearly unstable William Wonka. As above, William Wonka is an exploitative individual and I must question his intentions towards Charley.

There is more than one villain here, but I rather think that the so called "Grandpa Joe" may have some questions to answer.

We don't even know his surname for fuck's sake!
( The Disappointed Caravanner of the year, Sat 7 Jan 2012, 0:49, 2 replies)

Bucket?
Shirley?
( jakedamusss I understand, and dont care., Sat 7 Jan 2012, 2:28, closed)

Dead father?
You must have a different version of the book to me. in mine, Mr Bucket is alive and well and working for a pittance screwing lids on toothpaste at a factory...
(The Apeface Cherub is not a cunty-uber-cunt, Sat 7 Jan 2012, 9:00, closed)