1
00:00:12,500 --> 00:00:14,700
This is the story

2
00:00:14,700 --> 00:00:16,580
of a story.

3
00:00:16,580 --> 00:00:21,140
One which has exercised a powerful
grip on millions of readers.

4
00:00:21,140 --> 00:00:23,820
Mythical and beautifully-written,

5
00:00:23,820 --> 00:00:26,460
it also happens to be
continuously funny.

6
00:00:26,460 --> 00:00:29,380
It's about four animals
and their adventures,

7
00:00:29,380 --> 00:00:32,780
written for children
but worshipped by adults.

8
00:00:32,780 --> 00:00:35,820
And it fascinates me
because once upon a time,

9
00:00:35,820 --> 00:00:38,340
I was lucky enough to be in it.

10
00:00:40,300 --> 00:00:43,380
Well, here we are. It's a photograph

11
00:00:43,380 --> 00:00:48,100
of me, playing the part of Toad
in the Wind in the Willows

12
00:00:48,100 --> 00:00:50,660
at the National Theatre,
about 20 years ago.

13
00:00:52,100 --> 00:00:54,380
The play was a huge hit

14
00:00:54,380 --> 00:00:56,980
and I loved everything about it.

15
00:00:56,980 --> 00:00:59,780
It was an adaptation
of Kenneth Grahame's

16
00:00:59,780 --> 00:01:04,580
monumentally successful children's
book, first published in 1908

17
00:01:04,580 --> 00:01:08,660
and it proved once again
that Mr Toad and his friends,

18
00:01:08,660 --> 00:01:10,500
Mole, Ratty and Badger,

19
00:01:10,500 --> 00:01:14,460
have become some of the most loved
characters in all of literature.

20
00:01:15,300 --> 00:01:17,220
So I'm off into their world

21
00:01:17,220 --> 00:01:20,300
of riverbanks, wild woods...

22
00:01:21,020 --> 00:01:23,060
..and fast cars!

23
00:01:23,060 --> 00:01:27,740
Because I want to tell you about
the making of this masterpiece...

24
00:01:28,420 --> 00:01:32,700
..and the enigmatic, complex
personality of its creator.

25
00:01:34,220 --> 00:01:36,460
Hold on tight!

26
00:01:36,460 --> 00:01:39,180
Mr Toad is back in town.

27
00:01:45,820 --> 00:01:47,460
(OWL HOOTS)

28
00:01:47,460 --> 00:01:50,020
Just over 100 years ago,

29
00:01:50,020 --> 00:01:51,980
much like today,

30
00:01:51,980 --> 00:01:55,220
this street in Kensington was home to
the rich and successful.

31
00:01:55,220 --> 00:01:57,820
And in one of these houses
lived a writer

32
00:01:57,820 --> 00:02:00,300
and his somewhat wayward child.

33
00:02:00,300 --> 00:02:02,100
The Wind in the Willows

34
00:02:02,100 --> 00:02:05,460
began life as a bedtime story.

35
00:02:05,460 --> 00:02:07,500
Right here.

36
00:02:07,500 --> 00:02:11,500
And it started with
the bumptious Mr Toad,

37
00:02:11,500 --> 00:02:13,500
a character Grahame made up

38
00:02:13,500 --> 00:02:16,780
to entertain his bumptious
seven-year-old son, Alastair.

39
00:02:16,780 --> 00:02:21,220
'As he tramped along gaily, he
thought of his adventures and escapes

40
00:02:21,220 --> 00:02:23,940
and how, when things
seemed at their worst,

41
00:02:23,940 --> 00:02:26,300
he always managed to find a way out.

42
00:02:26,300 --> 00:02:28,540
"Ho, ho!" he said to himself,

43
00:02:28,540 --> 00:02:31,300
as he marched along
with his chin in the air.

44
00:02:31,300 --> 00:02:33,980
"What a clever toad I am!

45
00:02:33,980 --> 00:02:37,340
"There is surely no animal
equal to me..."'

46
00:02:37,340 --> 00:02:41,580
Without really being aware of it,
Grahame was creating a classic.

47
00:02:41,580 --> 00:02:44,540
It was my favourite book as a kid.

48
00:02:44,540 --> 00:02:49,340
I think I found,
as show-offy kids do,

49
00:02:49,340 --> 00:02:52,420
the character of Toad
completely irresistible.

50
00:02:52,420 --> 00:02:55,420
My mother gave me a copy of
The Wind in the Willows

51
00:02:55,420 --> 00:02:59,500
with the EH Shepherd illustrations
in 1953, when I was seven.

52
00:02:59,500 --> 00:03:02,260
It's been a huge part of my life
ever since, and to this day,

53
00:03:02,260 --> 00:03:04,940
I don't think more than
six months have ever gone by

54
00:03:04,940 --> 00:03:06,860
without me re-reading the book.

55
00:03:14,900 --> 00:03:19,380
The Wind in the Willows
continues to entrance young readers,

56
00:03:19,380 --> 00:03:21,180
even today.

57
00:03:21,180 --> 00:03:25,500
The book begins with shy little mole,

58
00:03:25,500 --> 00:03:28,340
who ventures out from his burrow

59
00:03:28,340 --> 00:03:31,980
and meets cultured,
poetic but tetchy Ratty.

60
00:03:31,980 --> 00:03:36,860
Ratty takes Mole under his wing,
introducing him to a life of leisure:

61
00:03:36,860 --> 00:03:40,900
to walks, to messing about on boats
and to great feasts.

62
00:03:40,900 --> 00:03:44,780
And then he takes him to meet
wise patrician, Mr Badger.

63
00:03:44,780 --> 00:03:50,660
And all of them worry about
rich, impetuous, naughty Mr Toad.

64
00:03:51,740 --> 00:03:54,940
And of course, he's my real hero.

65
00:03:54,940 --> 00:03:58,060
Toad is a conceited, cowardly rogue

66
00:03:58,060 --> 00:04:00,220
who has an adventure
with a gypsy wagon,

67
00:04:00,220 --> 00:04:02,060
steals a car,

68
00:04:02,060 --> 00:04:06,860
gets thrown into prison,
then escapes on a barge and a train.

69
00:04:06,860 --> 00:04:10,260
It all seems a simple enough story.

70
00:04:10,260 --> 00:04:14,500
But should it be recognised
as a much deeper symbolic book,

71
00:04:14,500 --> 00:04:17,180
shot through with
classical allusion and allegory,

72
00:04:17,180 --> 00:04:21,220
and the philosophian values
of the author himself?

73
00:04:21,220 --> 00:04:23,260
Many think so.

74
00:04:23,260 --> 00:04:27,740
The Wind in the Willows is a classic
not just of children's literature,

75
00:04:27,740 --> 00:04:29,900
but also of English literature.

76
00:04:29,900 --> 00:04:34,060
And I want to find out
how it came to be made,

77
00:04:34,060 --> 00:04:36,980
how it reflects the life of
Kenneth Grahame

78
00:04:36,980 --> 00:04:40,300
and also his relationship
with his son.

79
00:04:40,300 --> 00:04:43,020
It's a fascinating story

80
00:04:43,020 --> 00:04:45,620
and ultimately, a sad one.

81
00:04:48,700 --> 00:04:53,380
Kenneth Grahame was born
in Edinburgh in 1859.

82
00:04:53,380 --> 00:04:55,740
His prosperous mid-Victorian family

83
00:04:55,740 --> 00:04:58,380
was descended from Robert the Bruce.

84
00:04:58,380 --> 00:05:01,380
But he spent most of his childhood

85
00:05:01,380 --> 00:05:03,500
here in the English countryside,

86
00:05:03,500 --> 00:05:05,820
close to the River Thames.

87
00:05:08,420 --> 00:05:11,340
He arrived in the Berkshire village
of Cookham Dean,

88
00:05:11,340 --> 00:05:15,100
after a series of dramatic changes
in his young life.

89
00:05:22,380 --> 00:05:24,660
This is the house called the Mount,

90
00:05:24,660 --> 00:05:27,260
where Kenneth Grahame was brought up.

91
00:05:27,260 --> 00:05:30,860
He had effectively,
at the age of five,

92
00:05:30,860 --> 00:05:32,660
become an orphan

93
00:05:32,660 --> 00:05:35,580
because his mother had died

94
00:05:35,580 --> 00:05:37,980
giving birth to Kenneth's brother

95
00:05:37,980 --> 00:05:44,340
and his father had become,
by all accounts, an alcoholic

96
00:05:44,340 --> 00:05:50,500
and had then escaped from life,
bolted away to France

97
00:05:50,500 --> 00:05:53,420
and was never heard of again
by the family.

98
00:05:53,420 --> 00:05:56,860
Escape and security
were to become central

99
00:05:56,860 --> 00:05:59,820
to Kenneth's mental landscape.

100
00:05:59,820 --> 00:06:05,420
The children were brought up here by
their grandmother, Granny Ingles,

101
00:06:05,420 --> 00:06:10,380
under the watchful eye of a not
entirely unsympathetic Uncle John.

102
00:06:15,260 --> 00:06:18,900
Yet Grahame later claimed that
the ages of four to seven

103
00:06:18,900 --> 00:06:22,420
were the time he had felt
most imaginatively alive.

104
00:06:22,420 --> 00:06:25,500
Granny Ingles left him free
to roam the countryside

105
00:06:25,500 --> 00:06:27,580
and it became his playground.

106
00:06:28,300 --> 00:06:30,620
Perhaps he was escaping from sadness

107
00:06:30,620 --> 00:06:33,100
into a world of fantasy
and invention.

108
00:06:33,100 --> 00:06:35,540
This time at The Mount would go on

109
00:06:35,540 --> 00:06:38,500
to inspire everything
he wrote as an adult.

110
00:06:38,500 --> 00:06:41,100
He idealised, almost envied,

111
00:06:41,100 --> 00:06:44,940
the freedoms of his childhood
for the rest of his life,

112
00:06:44,940 --> 00:06:48,100
as if he'd never wanted it to end.

113
00:06:53,220 --> 00:06:55,260
But at the age of 17,

114
00:06:55,260 --> 00:06:58,860
Grahame found himself thrown into
the heart of Victorian London.

115
00:06:58,860 --> 00:07:01,460
He'd dreamed of studying at Oxford

116
00:07:01,460 --> 00:07:05,740
but strict Uncle John
insisted his nephew get a proper job.

117
00:07:05,740 --> 00:07:09,820
And finally, on New Year's Day, 1879,

118
00:07:09,820 --> 00:07:13,020
Grahame came to work here,
at the Bank of England.

119
00:07:15,660 --> 00:07:18,780
He started at the bottom as a clerk.

120
00:07:18,780 --> 00:07:22,380
But eventually rose to the important
position of Secretary of the Bank.

121
00:07:24,060 --> 00:07:26,900
To find out what sort of place
this shy young man joined,

122
00:07:26,900 --> 00:07:30,700
I'm meeting the current
deputy governor, Charles Bean.

123
00:07:31,540 --> 00:07:35,060
The Bank was a much more relaxed
place than it is today.

124
00:07:35,060 --> 00:07:37,700
You can imagine, since
the financial crisis came along,

125
00:07:37,700 --> 00:07:39,500
we've all been working flat out.

126
00:07:39,500 --> 00:07:42,620
But in those days,
the hours were relatively short.

127
00:07:42,620 --> 00:07:45,060
Certainly some pretty
liquid lunches.

128
00:07:45,060 --> 00:07:48,260
So it's difficult to know
how much good work was done

129
00:07:48,260 --> 00:07:50,580
after sinking a couple of quarts
of Porto

130
00:07:50,580 --> 00:07:52,740
or whatever the local drink was.

131
00:07:52,740 --> 00:07:56,620
So a sort of fairly conscientious,
quiet person might have found

132
00:07:56,620 --> 00:08:00,620
a niche for themselves in terms of
working their way up the ladder?

133
00:08:00,620 --> 00:08:03,540
Well, at first glance,
you might think this surely wouldn't

134
00:08:03,540 --> 00:08:07,340
have suited Kenneth Grahame, who was
a fairly shy intelligent individual.

135
00:08:07,340 --> 00:08:11,060
But he clearly enjoyed the ambience
at the bank and thrived in it

136
00:08:11,060 --> 00:08:17,620
and it was an environment where his
intelligence was allowed to succeed

137
00:08:17,620 --> 00:08:20,660
and he rose to
the Secretary of the bank

138
00:08:20,660 --> 00:08:23,020
at a relatively early age, at 39.

139
00:08:23,020 --> 00:08:25,420
The Secretary was,
to all intents and purposes,

140
00:08:25,420 --> 00:08:27,340
the Chief Operating Officer
of the bank.

141
00:08:27,340 --> 00:08:30,380
So it was a very influential
and very important position.

142
00:08:32,820 --> 00:08:37,060
Did Grahame's soul really
belong to high finance?

143
00:08:37,060 --> 00:08:41,700
Like Mole, he was quiet and retiring
and a bit of a dreamer.

144
00:08:41,700 --> 00:08:44,620
He kept to himself
amidst the grandeur of the bank.

145
00:08:45,700 --> 00:08:49,220
Then, just a few years before
he wrote The Wind in the Willows,

146
00:08:49,220 --> 00:08:51,220
a dramatic incident occurred

147
00:08:51,220 --> 00:08:53,660
in these hushed corridors.

148
00:08:56,740 --> 00:08:59,420
One morning, in November 1903,

149
00:08:59,420 --> 00:09:03,980
a man arrived at the bank and
he asked to speak to the Governor.

150
00:09:03,980 --> 00:09:06,340
The Governor wasn't available
so they wondered

151
00:09:06,340 --> 00:09:09,020
whether he would like to speak to
the Secretary instead

152
00:09:09,020 --> 00:09:11,420
and he said yes.
Kenneth was summoned.

153
00:09:11,420 --> 00:09:16,180
When he arrived,
the man handed Kenneth a document.

154
00:09:16,180 --> 00:09:20,700
It had a black ribbon at one end
and a white ribbon at the other end.

155
00:09:20,700 --> 00:09:27,620
He later said it was because
Mr Grahame took the black ribbon

156
00:09:27,620 --> 00:09:31,940
that he felt obliged to pull out
a gun and start shooting at him.

157
00:09:31,940 --> 00:09:34,220
Kenneth, for his own safety,

158
00:09:34,220 --> 00:09:36,300
popped quickly behind a door.

159
00:09:39,060 --> 00:09:40,820
Later the man went to Broadmoor

160
00:09:40,820 --> 00:09:42,860
and Kenneth went home
on the commuter train.

161
00:09:50,900 --> 00:09:55,460
Did the shooting incident at the bank
have a profound impact on Grahame?

162
00:09:55,460 --> 00:09:57,980
It certainly must have
confirmed his belief

163
00:09:57,980 --> 00:10:00,740
that the real world was
full of menace and danger.

164
00:10:02,340 --> 00:10:04,500
He disliked modern city life,

165
00:10:04,500 --> 00:10:06,420
the speed and the noise.

166
00:10:06,420 --> 00:10:10,580
He always longed to escape
to the romantic paradise

167
00:10:10,580 --> 00:10:12,460
of that lost childhood.

168
00:10:14,100 --> 00:10:17,020
And with the spread of the railway
across Victorian Britain,

169
00:10:17,020 --> 00:10:18,740
he could.

170
00:10:23,380 --> 00:10:28,340
It's ironic, given that the bank
had financed the railways

171
00:10:28,340 --> 00:10:31,380
that Grahame himself was
battling against

172
00:10:31,380 --> 00:10:34,020
the encroachment of the modern world.

173
00:10:35,060 --> 00:10:41,380
He called the railway 'an iron fetter
that scurfs the face of this island,

174
00:10:41,380 --> 00:10:44,660
banishing the pleasant life
of the road.'

175
00:10:46,100 --> 00:10:49,980
Yet the train was his gateway
to that pleasant life.

176
00:10:54,580 --> 00:10:56,780
To villages, fields,

177
00:10:56,780 --> 00:10:59,340
copses and lanes.

178
00:10:59,340 --> 00:11:03,740
The golden world of his boyhood
by the Thames.

179
00:11:04,900 --> 00:11:08,420
The Wind in the Willows
is Grahame's love letter

180
00:11:08,420 --> 00:11:11,740
to a very circumscribed
English pastoral.

181
00:11:11,740 --> 00:11:15,500
Its subtitle is,
'Tales of the Riverbank,'

182
00:11:15,500 --> 00:11:18,380
and the river flows
throughout the story,

183
00:11:18,380 --> 00:11:21,660
right from the beginning
as Mole leaves his burrow,

184
00:11:21,660 --> 00:11:24,140
and confronts it for the first time.

185
00:11:25,700 --> 00:11:29,740
'Never in his life
had he seen a river before.

186
00:11:29,740 --> 00:11:33,700
This sleek, sinuous,
full-bodied animal,

187
00:11:33,700 --> 00:11:35,900
chasing and chuckling,

188
00:11:35,900 --> 00:11:39,620
gripping things with a gurgle
and leaving them with a laugh.

189
00:11:39,620 --> 00:11:42,060
All was a shake and a shiver.

190
00:11:42,060 --> 00:11:45,100
Glints and gleams and sparkles.

191
00:11:45,100 --> 00:11:48,100
Rustle and swirl,
chatter and bubble.

192
00:11:49,900 --> 00:11:54,580
The mole was bewitched,
entranced, fascinated."

193
00:11:59,740 --> 00:12:04,860
It isn't long before Mole encounters
the story's second major character:

194
00:12:04,860 --> 00:12:06,100
Ratty.

195
00:12:06,100 --> 00:12:08,700
Ratty takes Mole into his boat,

196
00:12:08,700 --> 00:12:11,900
and introduces him to
the loafer's life.

197
00:12:11,900 --> 00:12:16,100
Together they explore the delights of
another of the book's great themes:

198
00:12:16,100 --> 00:12:17,860
boating.

199
00:12:18,620 --> 00:12:21,460
Quite difficult to find
a quiet spot on the Thames now,

200
00:12:21,460 --> 00:12:23,460
what with all the stinkpots

201
00:12:23,460 --> 00:12:26,980
and the aeroplanes flying over
and the motorcycles.

202
00:12:26,980 --> 00:12:29,220
But...

203
00:12:30,500 --> 00:12:34,460
Strangely enough, the idea
of the quiet old Father Thames

204
00:12:34,460 --> 00:12:37,100
is pretty much a Victorian invention.

205
00:12:40,900 --> 00:12:44,820
The old commercial river traffic
had passed.

206
00:12:44,820 --> 00:12:47,220
The coming of the railways
turned the Thames

207
00:12:47,220 --> 00:12:49,340
into a pleasure-ground.

208
00:12:49,340 --> 00:12:52,500
Rowing became a fashionable,
middle-class pastime

209
00:12:52,500 --> 00:12:56,220
and Kenneth Grahame took to it
like a dabbling duck.

210
00:12:56,220 --> 00:12:58,620
And as Ratty famously says,

211
00:12:58,620 --> 00:13:01,060
as he and Mole drift down
the riverbank,

212
00:13:01,060 --> 00:13:04,180
'Believe me, my young friend,
there is nothing,

213
00:13:04,180 --> 00:13:07,220
absolutely nothing,
half as worth doing

214
00:13:07,220 --> 00:13:09,940
as simply messing about in boats.'

215
00:13:11,060 --> 00:13:14,860
The words could have been spoken

216
00:13:14,860 --> 00:13:18,660
by a man called James Furnival,

217
00:13:18,660 --> 00:13:22,620
because the young
mole-like Kenneth Grahame,

218
00:13:22,620 --> 00:13:27,380
bumped into this man shortly after
he'd joined the dreaded bank.

219
00:13:27,380 --> 00:13:30,060
Furnival was a keen boatman and poet.

220
00:13:30,060 --> 00:13:33,140
He was one of the creators of
the Oxford English Dictionary,

221
00:13:33,140 --> 00:13:36,260
and he was Grahame's entry
to the literary world.

222
00:13:36,260 --> 00:13:41,460
Clearly, this man was a mentor.

223
00:13:41,460 --> 00:13:45,380
A Ratty to Kenneth Grahame's Mole.

224
00:13:45,380 --> 00:13:50,340
Effectively, he introduced
the young Kenneth Grahame

225
00:13:50,340 --> 00:13:55,580
to essential two oars that later
propelled The Wind in the Willows.

226
00:13:55,580 --> 00:13:59,140
One was the whole idea of
messing about in boats,

227
00:13:59,140 --> 00:14:04,660
but the other was the literary side
of his life.

228
00:14:04,660 --> 00:14:09,260
Furnival encouraged Grahame
to develop his writing.

229
00:14:09,260 --> 00:14:12,180
The bored banker would
soon be on his way

230
00:14:12,180 --> 00:14:15,740
to becoming a successful
and acclaimed author.

231
00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:29,400
After his business day had finished,

232
00:14:29,400 --> 00:14:33,640
Kenneth Grahame spent his evenings
working on a series of short stories.

233
00:14:33,640 --> 00:14:36,080
Gradually, they were published.

234
00:14:38,320 --> 00:14:42,160
By his early thirties,
his literary reputation was rising.

235
00:14:42,160 --> 00:14:44,800
And then the quiet banker was invited

236
00:14:44,800 --> 00:14:49,640
to become part of the most radical
publication in Victorian England:

237
00:14:49,640 --> 00:14:51,560
the Yellow Book.

238
00:14:51,560 --> 00:14:55,880
To find out more, I've come to meet
someone who owns every issue:

239
00:14:55,880 --> 00:14:58,800
literary critic, Matthew Sturgess.

240
00:15:00,160 --> 00:15:03,600
We've got some copies of
the Yellow Book here,

241
00:15:03,600 --> 00:15:08,040
sort of anthologies of work
of leading writers at the time.

242
00:15:08,040 --> 00:15:11,440
Yes, it was the quarterly magazine
that looked like a book.

243
00:15:11,440 --> 00:15:15,400
A yellow book. And of course,
yellow was considered to be

244
00:15:15,400 --> 00:15:19,120
a rather daring and dangerous colour
in the 1890s

245
00:15:19,120 --> 00:15:22,920
because it was the colour
of French novels.

246
00:15:22,920 --> 00:15:25,640
And French novels were known
to be dangerous.

247
00:15:25,640 --> 00:15:28,240
Naughty?
Naughty, dangerous. Yes.

248
00:15:28,240 --> 00:15:32,240
So we're finding the Secretary
of the Bank of England writing

249
00:15:32,240 --> 00:15:36,320
in what was a sort of deliberately
slightly racy periodical?

250
00:15:36,320 --> 00:15:39,520
Yes. Well, it caused
outrage and amazement.

251
00:15:39,520 --> 00:15:43,760
The periodical, not Kenneth
Grahame's appearance in it.

252
00:15:43,760 --> 00:15:47,000
One of the most startling
contributors to the Yellow Book

253
00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:50,040
was the young artist,
Aubrey Beardsley,

254
00:15:50,040 --> 00:15:52,080
who designed the covers.

255
00:15:52,080 --> 00:15:56,760
Beardsley was infamous for
his decadent, racy pictures.

256
00:15:57,880 --> 00:16:01,760
Mr Mole was mixing in heady company.

257
00:16:01,760 --> 00:16:05,400
There is a description of a rather
riotous dinner that was given

258
00:16:05,400 --> 00:16:08,000
to launch the first number
of the Yellow Book,

259
00:16:08,000 --> 00:16:10,480
at a little Italian restaurant
down in Soho.

260
00:16:10,480 --> 00:16:14,120
And it was crammed with tables
and everybody was there

261
00:16:14,120 --> 00:16:16,200
and somebody noticed Kenneth Grahame

262
00:16:16,200 --> 00:16:18,920
looking slightly bemused
at the edge of the crowd,

263
00:16:18,920 --> 00:16:21,120
but very pleased to be included.

264
00:16:21,120 --> 00:16:25,360
Here he is, working at the Bank of
England, a most unlikely Bohemian.

265
00:16:25,360 --> 00:16:29,240
He managed to position himself,
or was swept into the position,

266
00:16:29,240 --> 00:16:32,480
of being at the cutting edge,
really,

267
00:16:32,480 --> 00:16:35,680
of the literary world of the 1890s.

268
00:16:39,200 --> 00:16:43,040
Kenneth Grahame's Yellow Book stories
were far from racy, though.

269
00:16:43,040 --> 00:16:46,720
They were based on a pinpoint
accurate recollection

270
00:16:46,720 --> 00:16:49,240
of his blissful childhood.

271
00:16:49,240 --> 00:16:51,120
But in their own way,

272
00:16:51,120 --> 00:16:54,200
they were a radical affront to
Victorian attitudes.

273
00:16:55,040 --> 00:17:00,120
Grahame's children weren't
regimented innocents or victims.

274
00:17:00,120 --> 00:17:03,120
They were fully-formed
imaginative human beings

275
00:17:03,120 --> 00:17:05,640
who found the grown-up world
ridiculous.

276
00:17:05,640 --> 00:17:08,600
Collected into a book
called Pagan Papers,

277
00:17:08,600 --> 00:17:10,840
they became a sensation.

278
00:17:10,840 --> 00:17:15,360
Grahame was told that
the German Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm,

279
00:17:15,360 --> 00:17:17,600
had only two books in English
on his yacht:

280
00:17:17,600 --> 00:17:21,560
one was the Bible and
the other was Pagan Papers.

281
00:17:23,080 --> 00:17:25,480
Yet for all his literary stardom,

282
00:17:25,480 --> 00:17:29,440
Grahame preferred the security and
simplicity of the bachelor life,

283
00:17:29,440 --> 00:17:31,760
male company and walking.

284
00:17:31,760 --> 00:17:34,760
But when he was 39,

285
00:17:34,760 --> 00:17:40,480
a woman named Elspeth Thompson set
her sights on the talented Mr Mole.

286
00:17:40,480 --> 00:17:43,320
Like Kenneth, Elspeth was an orphan

287
00:17:43,320 --> 00:17:46,480
from a solid upper middle class
family.

288
00:17:46,480 --> 00:17:49,800
But their romance was
anything but conventional,

289
00:17:49,800 --> 00:17:53,480
as Grahame's biographer,
Alison Prince explains.

290
00:17:53,480 --> 00:17:55,640
Everybody wanted Grahame

291
00:17:55,640 --> 00:18:00,240
but he was terrified of
young women and sexual approach.

292
00:18:00,240 --> 00:18:02,320
Obviously knew nothing about women.

293
00:18:02,320 --> 00:18:04,920
They were regarded as
a rather terrifying race.

294
00:18:04,920 --> 00:18:06,680
Elspeth did the opposite thing.

295
00:18:06,680 --> 00:18:10,000
She obviously realised that she was
not going to be terrifying at all.

296
00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:14,480
She was a woman who had
the romantic idea of being simple

297
00:18:14,480 --> 00:18:19,000
and walking among the daisies
and being open to nature.

298
00:18:19,000 --> 00:18:23,960
And she wrote to Grahame. And it is
the most extraordinary document.

299
00:18:23,960 --> 00:18:28,320
In a childish scrawl, it says,
'Dear zur...' Z - U - R.

300
00:18:28,320 --> 00:18:31,520
'I being so very 'umble

301
00:18:31,520 --> 00:18:34,600
cannot expect that he will
look at me kindly.'

302
00:18:34,600 --> 00:18:36,920
And it was written like a milkmaid,

303
00:18:36,920 --> 00:18:39,120
in sort of child's language.

304
00:18:39,120 --> 00:18:41,640
But that was how she got him.

305
00:18:41,640 --> 00:18:45,040
She was so artless, so vulnerable,

306
00:18:45,040 --> 00:18:46,760
so in love,

307
00:18:46,760 --> 00:18:49,040
what could he do but marry her?

308
00:18:52,920 --> 00:18:56,360
Grahame sent equally bizarre letters
to Elspeth,

309
00:18:56,360 --> 00:18:59,920
written in a curious misspelled
baby language.

310
00:19:17,320 --> 00:19:21,640
Within a year, Dino and Minky,
as they called each other,

311
00:19:21,640 --> 00:19:26,160
were married, surprisingly late
in life by Victorian standards.

312
00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:30,560
Within months, Elspeth was pregnant.

313
00:19:30,560 --> 00:19:35,560
These quite reserved,
childlike people

314
00:19:35,560 --> 00:19:37,640
had one child.

315
00:19:37,640 --> 00:19:39,280
Yes.
Alastair.

316
00:19:41,040 --> 00:19:43,120
Whom they loved to bits.

317
00:19:43,120 --> 00:19:45,560
But they spoilt him dreadfully

318
00:19:45,560 --> 00:19:48,080
and he was an obnoxious brat.

319
00:19:48,080 --> 00:19:51,400
He used to pull little girls' hair
in Kensington Gardens

320
00:19:51,400 --> 00:19:53,640
and he got himself banned
eventually.

321
00:19:53,640 --> 00:19:56,200
He obviously had no idea
how to behave.

322
00:19:56,200 --> 00:19:59,800
He was born with disabling
sight problems.

323
00:19:59,800 --> 00:20:03,480
Yes. He could barely see at all
out of one eye.

324
00:20:03,480 --> 00:20:08,560
And all evidence suggests that the
child was not particularly bright.

325
00:20:10,240 --> 00:20:13,400
The Grahame's doted on Alastair,

326
00:20:13,400 --> 00:20:15,280
whom they nicknamed Mouse.

327
00:20:15,280 --> 00:20:17,800
They were convinced he was a genius.

328
00:20:17,800 --> 00:20:20,600
And it was love for Mouse
that more than anything

329
00:20:20,600 --> 00:20:23,440
sparked the creation of
The Wind in the Willows.

330
00:20:23,440 --> 00:20:26,200
Grahame had written nothing
for a decade

331
00:20:26,200 --> 00:20:29,320
when he started to tell
the seven-year-old Alastair

332
00:20:29,320 --> 00:20:33,640
those bedtime stories
about the escapades of Mr Toad.

333
00:20:33,640 --> 00:20:36,000
'Oh, ho! I am the Toad!

334
00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:39,680
The handsome, the popular,
the successful toad.'

335
00:20:40,560 --> 00:20:43,880
The boy loved
this outrageous character.

336
00:20:43,880 --> 00:20:49,200
But soon after, Kenneth and Elspeth
set off on an eight-week holiday

337
00:20:49,200 --> 00:20:51,160
to Cornwall.

338
00:20:51,920 --> 00:20:54,960
As was the standard of
their time and class,

339
00:20:54,960 --> 00:20:58,240
they left beloved Alastair at home

340
00:20:58,240 --> 00:21:00,040
with his nanny.

341
00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:04,520
But Alastair wanted more of
the Toad adventures.

342
00:21:07,480 --> 00:21:11,520
I've come to the Bodleian Library
in Oxford to see what happened next

343
00:21:11,520 --> 00:21:14,680
because if the Grahame's
had never gone away,

344
00:21:14,680 --> 00:21:18,120
the Toad stories might never
have been written down.

345
00:21:18,120 --> 00:21:22,720
It is amazing to see these letters...

346
00:21:25,200 --> 00:21:26,920
..from Grahame.

347
00:21:26,920 --> 00:21:30,040
Because there came a point where

348
00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:36,080
Kenneth couldn't continue to tell
the stories personally to Alastair

349
00:21:36,080 --> 00:21:40,680
so he wrote him extensive letters,

350
00:21:40,680 --> 00:21:44,880
from the Fowey Hotel in Cornwall,
where he'd gone.

351
00:21:45,800 --> 00:21:47,720
'My dearest Mouse,

352
00:21:47,720 --> 00:21:50,600
Now I daresay you'll want to hear
something more

353
00:21:50,600 --> 00:21:52,760
of the sad misadventures of Mr Toad.

354
00:21:52,760 --> 00:21:55,320
Well, when he found himself
outside the prison gates,

355
00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:57,080
it was quite dark...'

356
00:21:57,080 --> 00:21:59,520
And then he just drops
straight into the book!

357
00:21:59,520 --> 00:22:02,400
I mean, 'When he found himself
outside the prison gates,

358
00:22:02,400 --> 00:22:04,440
it was quite dark.'
This is actually...

359
00:22:04,440 --> 00:22:06,960
Suddenly you're reading
The Wind in the Willows.

360
00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:08,880
Or at least the basic outline of it.

361
00:22:08,880 --> 00:22:13,000
'Then he remembered that when
he'd changed clothes in such a hurry,

362
00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:17,360
he'd left all his money and his keys,
pencils and watches and everything

363
00:22:17,360 --> 00:22:20,080
in the pockets of the clothes
he'd taken off.

364
00:22:20,080 --> 00:22:22,640
So there he was,
miles and miles from home,

365
00:22:22,640 --> 00:22:25,760
dressed like a washerwoman
without a penny of money.'

366
00:22:26,600 --> 00:22:28,320
Now, this...

367
00:22:28,320 --> 00:22:30,680
..is the actual manuscript.

368
00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:33,560
Again, it's in his own handwriting.

369
00:22:33,560 --> 00:22:38,280
But we can see that
he's taken the basic story

370
00:22:38,280 --> 00:22:41,800
and started to embroider it
a little bit.

371
00:22:42,280 --> 00:22:44,840
'To his horror, he recollected that

372
00:22:44,840 --> 00:22:48,720
he had left both coat and waistcoat
behind him in his cell,

373
00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:51,440
and with them, his pocket-book,

374
00:22:51,440 --> 00:22:56,120
money, keys, watch, matches,
pencil-case.' Slightly longer list!

375
00:22:56,120 --> 00:22:58,840
'All that makes life worth living.

376
00:22:58,840 --> 00:23:01,960
All that distinguishes
the many-pocketed animal,

377
00:23:01,960 --> 00:23:04,280
the lord of creation,

378
00:23:04,280 --> 00:23:08,920
from the inferior one-pocketed
or no-pocketed productions

379
00:23:08,920 --> 00:23:14,240
that hop or trip about permissively,
unequipped for the real contest.'

380
00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:16,880
And we're seeing a writer at work.

381
00:23:16,880 --> 00:23:20,120
Somebody who's taking
his simple story

382
00:23:20,120 --> 00:23:23,520
and adding a bit of fine writing.

383
00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:31,560
Alastair's bedtime story had become a
beautifully-composed children's book.

384
00:23:31,560 --> 00:23:34,760
Grahame's admirers
had waited ten long years

385
00:23:34,760 --> 00:23:37,360
for him to produce more work.

386
00:23:37,360 --> 00:23:39,560
But this was not what they wanted.

387
00:23:39,560 --> 00:23:43,200
His usual publisher rejected it.

388
00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:47,560
But he sent a copy to
one of his most ardent fans

389
00:23:47,560 --> 00:23:51,120
who happened to be one of
the most powerful men in the world:

390
00:23:51,120 --> 00:23:54,560
US President Theodore Roosevelt.

391
00:23:54,560 --> 00:23:58,120
Teddy Roosevelt said,
'This is absolutely wonderful.

392
00:23:58,120 --> 00:24:01,080
We must find a publisher.'

393
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:04,560
And he in fact got it published
by Scribners in New York.

394
00:24:04,560 --> 00:24:06,920
And that's what unlocked it
for Britain.

395
00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:09,120
That's what started the book off.

396
00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:14,720
Roosevelt became the book's
unlikely champion.

397
00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:16,480
In October 1908,

398
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:18,960
The Wind in the Willows
was published in Britain.

399
00:24:18,960 --> 00:24:23,560
This was the golden age of
children's writing.

400
00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:25,680
This was the time of Peter Pan,

401
00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:28,360
of the Railway Children,
of Beatrix Potter.

402
00:24:28,360 --> 00:24:32,680
Yet first reviews of this contender
were damning.

403
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:35,080
'A failure,' said one.

404
00:24:35,080 --> 00:24:39,320
The Times dubbed it,
'Monotonous and elusive.'

405
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:43,200
Grahame was known as
a sophisticated adult writer

406
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:46,080
about children, not for them.

407
00:24:46,080 --> 00:24:51,480
So what was this baffling
anthropomorphic broken-backed story?

408
00:24:51,480 --> 00:24:57,160
Talking animals eating picnics while
errant toads hopped around on barges.

409
00:24:57,160 --> 00:24:59,880
I wanted to get a writer's
take on this.

410
00:24:59,880 --> 00:25:02,840
Someone who's written
for both children and adults.

411
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:05,040
So I went to meet
award-winning author

412
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:08,800
of the Curious Incident of the Dog
in the Nighttime, Mark Haddon.

413
00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:11,600
So do you think it's written
for children?

414
00:25:13,360 --> 00:25:16,240
I think to write any good book
for anyone of any age,

415
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:18,600
you sort of have to write it
for yourself.

416
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:22,000
I mean, how do you know if something
works unless you take off one hat

417
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:24,640
and put another hat on
and think, 'It does it for me.'

418
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:26,520
And I think he was writing
for himself.

419
00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:28,600
It's self-evident
cos the book works so well

420
00:25:28,600 --> 00:25:30,480
that it must have been
written for him.

421
00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:33,080
And he was such
a paradoxical character,

422
00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:35,040
part child, part adult,

423
00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:38,000
so it's almost in a grown-up body
but he's a child at heart.

424
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:41,280
I mean, I didn't read it as a child.
I read books about science.

425
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:43,640
I came to it rather late.
Me too, me too.

426
00:25:43,640 --> 00:25:46,080
Partly in the hope that I would
persuade my children

427
00:25:46,080 --> 00:25:47,840
this was a work of genius

428
00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:50,280
and they were completely
uninterested.

429
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:52,560
You came to it as an adult.

430
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:55,760
What, as an adult,
do you find in it, then?

431
00:25:58,600 --> 00:26:02,880
I think it's that idea of friendship
and more importantly home

432
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:06,560
that just rings so strongly
through the whole thing.

433
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:09,720
Partly because I'm Mole and
partly... You're Mole, are you?

434
00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:12,400
I'm definitely Mole.
Which are you? Are you Ratty?

435
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:14,320
No, I'm Toad, I'm afraid. Yeah.
(LAUGHS)

436
00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:17,960
Boastful and prone to depression
when things go wrong,

437
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:21,480
prone to elation when minor things
go right. I am completely Toad.

438
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:24,360
But it's interesting that
people split themselves.

439
00:26:24,360 --> 00:26:27,080
The other thing that
fascinates me as a writer,

440
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:29,120
he didn't write
anything like it before

441
00:26:29,120 --> 00:26:32,280
and he didn't write afterwards
and no-one could persuade him

442
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:34,480
to write part two
or indeed anything else.

443
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:38,400
Cos one of the fantastic things
about it is that slightly uneasy mix

444
00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:41,760
between quite sentimental,
on this side of sentimental,

445
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:44,840
deep sentiment. And there's some
quite nastiness at some points.

446
00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:47,280
And the nastiness always comes
from Toad, doesn't it?

447
00:26:49,120 --> 00:26:52,360
And for me, one of the reasons
that The Wind in the Willows

448
00:26:52,360 --> 00:26:55,960
is so successful is because of
its complex layered structure.

449
00:26:55,960 --> 00:26:58,680
One minute, bucolic nature-worship.

450
00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:00,920
The next, a rollicking adventure.

451
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:05,400
Never more so than in
the escapades of Mr Toad.

452
00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:08,400
Toad is forever misbehaving.

453
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:12,040
At one point, he finds a car
parked outside a pub

454
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:15,480
and is so entranced that
he can't help stealing it.

455
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:21,640
'As if in a dream, he found himself
somehow seated in the driver's seat.

456
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:26,560
As if in a dream,
he pulled the lever.

457
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:30,320
He swung the car round the yard
and out through the archway.

458
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:33,640
And as if in a dream,
all sense of right and wrong,

459
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:38,240
all fear of obvious consequences,
seemed temporarily suspended.

460
00:27:41,640 --> 00:27:43,920
He increased his pace

461
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:46,160
but as the car devoured the street,

462
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:49,680
and leapt forth on the high road
through the open country,

463
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:53,400
he was only conscious
that he was Toad once more.

464
00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:55,680
Toad, at his best and highest.

465
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:57,840
Toad, the terror,
the traffic-queller,

466
00:27:57,840 --> 00:28:00,920
fulfilling his instincts,
living his hour,

467
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:03,360
reckless of what might come to him.

468
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:08,640
Poop-poop!

469
00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:11,640
Of course, we long to go off
with Mr Toad, don't we?

470
00:28:11,640 --> 00:28:14,800
And when we do, the whole nature
of the book changes

471
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:17,560
and it's really interesting
that it changes

472
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:20,320
from being
a closely-observed nature book,

473
00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:24,600
where the animals are in touch with
the realities of the countryside

474
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:27,200
to a comical place, a farcical place,

475
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:30,360
where there are silly judges
and chases,

476
00:28:30,360 --> 00:28:34,360
railway trains running
through the countryside.

477
00:28:34,360 --> 00:28:38,520
But all in a spirit of nonsense.

478
00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:41,800
In other words, the real world,
the world where humans live

479
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:44,880
and pursue their activities,

480
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:47,080
is a silly place.

481
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:56,840
Toad is one of the great comic
creations of English literature.

482
00:28:56,840 --> 00:28:59,960
He behaves like a fractious infant.

483
00:28:59,960 --> 00:29:02,040
He can't control himself.

484
00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:05,760
But it's commonly believed that
he's not just any infant.

485
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:08,520
He was in fact the author's own.

486
00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:11,360
I think there was a sort of
private joke between them

487
00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:13,840
that really,
Toad was rather like Alastair.

488
00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:16,320
He was very mouthy,
very full of himself.

489
00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:18,720
So he was a bit of a toad.

490
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:22,360
But instead of Kenneth Grahame
being a sort of Victorian father,

491
00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:25,240
who would have gone
and beaten it out of him,

492
00:29:25,240 --> 00:29:27,360
he had a sort of sympathy for it.

493
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:29,600
It's a very modern feeling
in a father.

494
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:32,160
Yes, very. He was offering this
to his son.

495
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:34,880
It was a very gentle way of saying,

496
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:37,880
'If you just refrain from
being too obnoxious,

497
00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:40,280
you get on rather better.'

498
00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:44,080
He allows the boy to see that
the other animals are going,

499
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:47,960
'Poor old Toady.
He really is a bit silly, isn't he?

500
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:51,080
Dear, oh, dear.
But we love him all the same.'

501
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:54,200
And surely that's what
you should say to a child.

502
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:57,120
Toad, like Grahame's beloved Mouse,

503
00:29:57,120 --> 00:29:58,920
is subversive and lawless.

504
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:00,640
But he gets away with it.

505
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:03,360
And a century after he was created,

506
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:07,600
we can still find miscreant
roguish toads all around us.

507
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:10,320
One of my favourite
EH Shepherd illustrations

508
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:12,560
in The Wind in the Willows

509
00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:16,560
is of Toad being led in shackles
up the steps of the prison

510
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:20,000
after he's been tried
and sent down for 20 years.

511
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:23,480
And he's being escorted by
two huge wardens,

512
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:26,200
wearing armour and carrying helmets.

513
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:30,520
And this poor shrunken monster Toad

514
00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:35,160
now cut down to misery
and degradation,

515
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:37,640
I must say I did think of
Jeffrey Archer.

516
00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:39,440
When Jeffrey Archer was taken away

517
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:41,760
after being at last found out
and sent to prison,

518
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:44,120
I couldn't help thinking of Toad

519
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:47,000
being led up between
the wardens and helmets.

520
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:49,920
I'm always accused of being Toad.

521
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:53,920
And that's fine.
I have no problem with that at all

522
00:30:53,920 --> 00:30:56,120
because Toad has stayed with me
all my life.

523
00:30:56,120 --> 00:30:59,440
You take Toad out of that book,
it's a very ordinary book.

524
00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:02,960
He is the one you're waiting for
cos he's got all out failings

525
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:05,480
as well as some of our strengths.

526
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:07,400
And he is, of course,
the hero of the book.

527
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:10,440
And he is, of course - When you say
I am Toad, everybody's Toad.

528
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:13,280
Don't let's kid ourselves.
You're Toad, everybody's Toad.

529
00:31:16,360 --> 00:31:18,240
Well, in some ways,

530
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:20,320
I was more Toad than Jeffrey.

531
00:31:20,320 --> 00:31:22,840
After all, I played the part
for many months,

532
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:25,240
here at London's
Royal National Theatre.

533
00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:29,440
And that's what really stirred
my enthusiasm for Grahame's book.

534
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:34,680
I've come to meet the director of
that production, Nick Hytner.

535
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:38,560
Yet another lifelong fan of
this children's classic.

536
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:42,480
Take this down.
The last will and testament of Toad.

537
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:44,600
Toad, Toad, it's still me. Ratty!

538
00:31:44,600 --> 00:31:46,960
When you cast me as Mr Toad,

539
00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:50,120
you said, 'Oh, well, Griff
is actually the most like Toad

540
00:31:50,120 --> 00:31:53,280
of people I know.' Did you say that?

541
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:56,280
I could easily have said that.
Were you trying to flatter me?

542
00:31:56,280 --> 00:31:59,240
No, I think I probably
remember you as a student

543
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:01,320
as being rather Toad-like.

544
00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:05,560
At any gathering of a large number
of people, you would always be the
most entertaining.

545
00:32:05,560 --> 00:32:08,400
Oh! You're being sweet.
No, you mean the most boastful.

546
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:10,880
The most inventive!

547
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:19,080
How serious a work of literature
do you think it is?

548
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:26,040
Well, I think to the extent that
it caught the imagination

549
00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:30,520
of its original readers and has
continued to catch the imagination

550
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:33,760
of generations of readers
ever since,

551
00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:36,080
it is a serious work of literature.

552
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:40,120
Anything that captures
an image of a lost golden age

553
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:42,160
has got to be a serious
work of literature.

554
00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:47,440
Grahame didn't just set his story
in the English countryside.

555
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:49,800
He mythologised it.

556
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:54,320
The book's most lyrical passages
offer a vision of the countryside

557
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:56,640
quite as Arcadian and poetic

558
00:32:56,640 --> 00:33:00,200
as the writings of William Blake
or the later Romantics.

559
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:04,040
But in keeping with the owner's
own gentle personality,

560
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:08,360
it's achieved with a deceptive
light and comic touch.

561
00:33:08,360 --> 00:33:13,000
Grahame's characters love nature
when it's ordered and fructifying

562
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:15,760
but if things threaten to get harsh,

563
00:33:15,760 --> 00:33:18,880
they run back to
a warm, welcoming burrow.

564
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:25,960
'Presently, they all sat down
to luncheon together.

565
00:33:25,960 --> 00:33:29,720
The mole found himself
placed next to Mr Badger

566
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:32,600
and he took the opportunity
to tell Badger

567
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:36,080
how comfortable and
home-like it all felt to him.

568
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:42,560
"Once well underground,' he said,
'you know exactly where you are.

569
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:45,920
Nothing can happen to you
and nothing can get at you."

570
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:49,920
The badger simply beamed on him.

571
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:53,720
"That's exactly what I say,"
he replied.

572
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:57,560
"There's no security,
or peace and tranquility,

573
00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:00,240
except underground."'

574
00:34:04,800 --> 00:34:08,520
One of my favourite chapters
and for me, the defining chapter is

575
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:15,320
when Ratty and Mole
stumble upon Badger's haunt.

576
00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:20,440
And then one of the central themes
of this book comes to the fore,

577
00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:27,600
which is the importance
of a sort of...of a shed.

578
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:31,920
I think it appeals to
the shed-like in every man

579
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:35,240
because what effectively Badger has

580
00:34:35,240 --> 00:34:39,120
is an extremely cosy,
very personal space,

581
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:44,120
which he invites these other animals
to share with him.

582
00:34:44,120 --> 00:34:47,640
This is one of the abiding
themes of the books.

583
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:50,080
It may be about nature

584
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:54,240
but it's actually about escaping
from the vagaries of nature.

585
00:34:54,240 --> 00:34:57,320
This is all about trying to
avoid the bad weather.

586
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:00,440
Getting below, getting warm,

587
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:04,400
getting cosy and
eating huge quantities of food,

588
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:07,000
in front of a roaring fire.

589
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:08,960
It's about security.

590
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:15,640
It's remained my favourite book
all my life.

591
00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:18,160
And I chose it when I did
Desert Island Discs

592
00:35:18,160 --> 00:35:22,040
because if all books are
in some degree comfort food,

593
00:35:22,680 --> 00:35:25,080
The Wind in the Willows seems to me
a comfort feast.

594
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:28,280
All one's troubles drop away
as you sit there reading it,

595
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:34,600
you sink into a lovely, delicious
bath of fantasy and comfort

596
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:39,160
and beauty because it is
a deeply poetic book

597
00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:41,960
and the lyricism of
almost every line of it.

598
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:43,880
It has this wonderful
calming effect.

599
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:46,520
Everything falls back into
its proper proportion.

600
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:52,040
And you just see that all that
really matters is living amid beauty

601
00:35:52,040 --> 00:35:55,440
and having friendships
and chaps who you can trust.

602
00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:01,760
But there is another side to reality

603
00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:04,000
that runs through the book.

604
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:08,080
Grahame is keen to paint
shadow as well as light.

605
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:11,880
Sometimes, as Mole discovers,

606
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:15,600
the outdoors can be a wild
and frightening force.

607
00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:21,280
'As he lay there panting
and trembling,

608
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:23,560
and listened to the whistlings

609
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:25,520
and the patterings outside,

610
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:29,160
he knew it at last,
in all its fullness.

611
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:33,520
That dread thing that other little
dwellers in field and hedgerow

612
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:37,280
had encountered here and
known as their darkest moment.

613
00:36:37,280 --> 00:36:41,280
That thing that the rat had
vainly tried to shield him from.

614
00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:44,840
The terror of the Wild Wood.'

615
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:50,720
Throughout the book,

616
00:36:50,720 --> 00:36:57,360
there is a dark, dangerous,
threatening place on the horizon.

617
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:01,360
And that's called the Wild Wood.

618
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:07,800
Now, when Ratty and Mole get
lost in the Wild Wood,

619
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:12,520
they're a lon way from
comfortable nature.

620
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:15,440
They're a long way from their burrows

621
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:18,640
in the countryside
around the riverbank.

622
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:22,360
The Wild Wood works as a symbol

623
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:26,360
for all the horrible things Kenneth
Grahame wanted to escape from:

624
00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:29,760
modern cities, madmen with guns,

625
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:32,040
the harsh realities of adult life.

626
00:37:33,200 --> 00:37:37,000
Beyond the Wild Wood, he wrote,
was the Wide World.

627
00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:42,400
Ratty warns young Mole that no one
should even think about going there.

628
00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:45,640
But The Wind in the Willows
is a fantasy

629
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:48,080
and as Grahame will sadly discover,

630
00:37:48,080 --> 00:37:52,960
it is impossible to avoid going out
into the Wide World forever.

631
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:06,120
The success of
The Wind in the Willows

632
00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:08,280
made Kenneth Grahame a wealthy man.

633
00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:11,800
Retired from the bank,
he lived a charmed life of leisure.

634
00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:15,080
But there remained a problem
in his life:

635
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:17,080
his son.

636
00:38:17,080 --> 00:38:19,480
Ten years after
the book's publication,

637
00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:21,680
difficult Alastair was now grown up.

638
00:38:23,680 --> 00:38:26,880
Too old to escape into
the fantasy land of Mr Toad,

639
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:30,720
he was forced to confront
the pressures of the adult world.

640
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:35,840
Despite all their idiosyncrasies,

641
00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:40,480
their rural seclusion and
their daisy-chains and baby talk,

642
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:43,680
the Grahame's wanted to keep one foot

643
00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:48,440
in their conventional
upper middle class background

644
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:52,440
and they wanted Alastair to do well.

645
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:55,200
They especially wanted him
to go to Oxford,

646
00:38:55,200 --> 00:38:58,720
which had been so cruelly denied
to Kenneth.

647
00:38:58,720 --> 00:39:01,520
And so after some private tutoring,

648
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:08,000
the six foot three socially gauche
boy came here, to Christchurch.

649
00:39:10,360 --> 00:39:14,280
To Kenneth and Elspeth, Alastair
was still a precocious talent.

650
00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:16,440
Like his alter-ego Toadie,

651
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:18,240
he would always make good in the end.

652
00:39:18,240 --> 00:39:20,760
But Toad was make-believe.

653
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:23,400
Alastair is complicated.

654
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:27,480
He'd obviously inherited
the same kind of difficulties

655
00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:32,120
in entering the adult world
that his father and mother both had.

656
00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:35,400
Not surprisingly. They passed it on
to him. They passed it on.

657
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:37,200
They had.

658
00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:39,680
And of course,
he was never encouraged

659
00:39:39,680 --> 00:39:42,320
to face difficulties
and find a way out.

660
00:39:42,320 --> 00:39:45,680
We have to have a great deal of
sympathy for Alastair here.

661
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:49,240
Absolutely. Because here he is,
brought up in a household

662
00:39:49,240 --> 00:39:52,200
which was totally introspective.
Yeah.

663
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:57,760
Which was a little bit fixated on
childlike... What we might call...

664
00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:01,280
A couple of batty romantics,
really, as parents.

665
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:08,720
He arrived at Oxford,
he couldn't cope with it.

666
00:40:08,720 --> 00:40:11,520
He couldn't pass exams.

667
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:15,240
He was unconfident.
He knew he was a failure.

668
00:40:15,240 --> 00:40:18,800
He couldn't see. His sight was
getting worse all the time.

669
00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:21,160
And the depression just built up.

670
00:40:26,080 --> 00:40:31,000
Early on the morning of
the 8th of May 1920,

671
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:34,320
some railway gangers
discovered a body

672
00:40:34,320 --> 00:40:36,720
here on the railway line,

673
00:40:36,720 --> 00:40:39,040
just outside Oxford.

674
00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:42,440
It was a young man, an undergraduate,

675
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:44,640
Alastair Grahame.

676
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:51,760
At first, it was assumed and
the official version always was

677
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:56,160
that his blindness, as he tried
to cross the tracks,

678
00:40:56,160 --> 00:40:59,160
had meant that he hadn't seen
the train coming.

679
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:04,680
But the inquest,
if looked at in detail,

680
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:06,880
tells a rather different story.

681
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:21,120
The official report listed
the cause of death as decapitation.

682
00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:24,800
Alastair's arms and legs
were also fractured

683
00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:27,240
and his body badly bruised.

684
00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:32,600
All indications were that when the
train passed through,

685
00:41:32,600 --> 00:41:37,120
the young man was already
lying in wait on the line.

686
00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:41,720
The inquest left it
a sort of open verdict,

687
00:41:41,720 --> 00:41:44,000
whether he's taken his own life

688
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:47,000
but you're pretty convinced
that that was the...

689
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:48,920
I think there's no doubt about it.

690
00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:53,920
I mean, it was kind, of course, not
to bring in a verdict of suicide,

691
00:41:53,920 --> 00:41:57,240
because that was, at the time,
a criminal offence.

692
00:41:57,240 --> 00:42:01,680
And that would have left his parents
without a shred of an excuse.

693
00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:05,320
But looking at the misery
that the boy had been in,

694
00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:08,560
it seems fairly obvious to me

695
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:12,720
to think that he decided
to bring it all to an end.

696
00:42:14,520 --> 00:42:22,280
As an only child, Alastair had been
a concentrated centre of attention

697
00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:24,800
of his parents
throughout his short life.

698
00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:31,840
Kenneth Grahame created
The Wind in the Willows for him.

699
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:38,320
He made him into
his own little Mr Toad.

700
00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:44,160
Not totally loveable but much loved.

701
00:42:45,640 --> 00:42:52,720
And both parents seemed to
want him to stay

702
00:42:52,720 --> 00:42:59,400
in their escapist fantasy world of
permanent holiday, countryside,

703
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:03,240
introspection and mild eccentricity.

704
00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:09,560
Several times, Alastair was
sent out into the real world...

705
00:43:10,720 --> 00:43:12,760
..and failed to adapt.

706
00:43:14,120 --> 00:43:15,920
Poor Mouse.

707
00:43:15,920 --> 00:43:17,760
Poor Elspeth.

708
00:43:19,040 --> 00:43:21,600
Poor, poor Kenneth.

709
00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:29,240
The Grahames coped with their loss
by escaping.

710
00:43:29,240 --> 00:43:31,720
They sold all of
Alastair's belongings

711
00:43:31,720 --> 00:43:33,440
and many of their own.

712
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:35,800
And for years, shut out reality

713
00:43:35,800 --> 00:43:37,800
by aimlessly travelling in Europe.

714
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:40,520
Kenneth never wrote another book.

715
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:44,320
He lived a life of aimless leisure
on the riverbank

716
00:43:44,320 --> 00:43:47,720
like Ratty, Mole, Badger and Toad.

717
00:43:47,720 --> 00:43:50,240
He went walking by the Thames,

718
00:43:50,240 --> 00:43:52,720
even on the very day he died.

719
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:58,200
What I've discovered from the story

720
00:43:58,200 --> 00:44:00,520
of the making of
The Wind in the Willows

721
00:44:00,520 --> 00:44:03,120
is that the book is more
than simple fantasy.

722
00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:06,600
It inspires devotion in its readers

723
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:09,440
because Grahame put
his own faith into it.

724
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:15,640
His faith in beauty, companionship,
comfort, forgiveness and security.

725
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:21,680
It was written to demonstrate
what is worthwhile in life.

726
00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:24,960
But never in a moralising way.

727
00:44:26,880 --> 00:44:30,640
I think it's very difficult
to achieve in any book

728
00:44:30,640 --> 00:44:32,960
and when it comes,
people tend to cherish them

729
00:44:32,960 --> 00:44:34,840
and hug them to themselves.

730
00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:37,720
It's a book about feeling.

731
00:44:37,720 --> 00:44:40,680
It's full of emotion.

732
00:44:40,680 --> 00:44:45,200
Not just the companionship that
the animals have for each other,

733
00:44:45,200 --> 00:44:47,920
the kindliness that
they show to each other.

734
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:51,720
But in the description of
the joy of the scenery,

735
00:44:51,720 --> 00:44:57,240
the river, the homes, there's
a great outpouring of feeling.

736
00:44:57,240 --> 00:44:59,160
And we warm to it in the book

737
00:44:59,160 --> 00:45:02,160
and that's what makes us love it.

738
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:05,320
And finally, and I think this
is often forgotten,

739
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:08,640
it's very, very funny.

740
00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:14,120
'"You common, low, fat bargewoman!"
Toad shouted.

741
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:17,320
"Don't you dare to talk to
your betters like that!

742
00:45:17,320 --> 00:45:21,000
Washerwoman, indeed? I would have
you know that I am a Toad!

743
00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:25,240
A very well-known respected
distinguished Toad!

744
00:45:25,240 --> 00:45:27,840
I may be under a bit of a cloud
at present

745
00:45:27,840 --> 00:45:30,800
but I will not be laughed at
by a bargewoman."

746
00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:32,960
The woman moved nearer to him

747
00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:35,920
and peered under his bonnet
keenly and closely.

748
00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:39,120
"Why, so you are!" She cried.

749
00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:44,440
"Well, I never!
A horrid nasty crawly toad!

750
00:45:44,440 --> 00:45:47,160
And in my nice, clean barge too.

751
00:45:47,160 --> 00:45:50,440
Now that is a thing
I will not have!"'

752
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:56,480
itfc subtitles