WHO KNOWS ALASTAIR

Taranaki Daily News, 23 March 1935, Page 22 (Supplement)

WHO KNOWS ALASTAIR

A MEMORABLE PERSONALITY. WHAT BECAME OF HIM. Like Peter Pan and Cinderella, who come to life every Christmas, Toad of Toad Hall has been delighting us again, says the Children’s Newspaper. Mr. A. A. Milne gave us one of the best books of last year, his famous Peace book; but he has given us one of the best Christmas plays of every year, to say nothing of all the things he has given us for all time. We wonder how many of the people who have been laughing at Toad during the holidays know the story of the little boy for whom Toad was invented? One evening in 1904, Mrs. Kenneth Grahame stood in the hall, ready in her evening cloak and gloves, and fretting because she was afraid she would be late for a dinner-party. “Where is Mr. Grahame?” she asked one of the maids, who replied in the Wiltshire idiom: “He’s with Master Mouse, Madam; he’s telling him some ditty or other about a Toad.” Every night the big man would slip into the night nursery to tell his four-year-old son a story, and for many nights it was a serial story about Toad. It might have been forgotton, like many another bedtime story, if it had not been continued by letter. Kenneth Grahame was Secretary of the Bank of England, and could not leave London; but his son was sent to the seaside for a holiday, and the father sent him fifteen letters, chiefly about Toad. These letter began, “My dear Robinson,” because his son had decided that Robinson was a manlier name than Mouse or Alastair Grahame. Alastair’s governess kept the letters, and some years later Kenneth Grahame turned them into a book, The Wind in the Willows. Mr. A. A. Milne turned the book into a play, and that is how we got Toad of Toad Hall. But what became of the little boy who first laughed at Toad’s adventures? Alastair Grahame was buried on his twentieth birthday. He was an undergraduate of Christ Church, Oxford, and had gone for a solitary walk one night when, as he crossed the railway lines at Port Meadow, he was killed by a train. Yet, though he lived so short a life, Alastair Grahame, Kenneth Grahame s only child, was a memorable personality. As a baby he had big calm eyes and dark curls; but he was a sturdy boy. One day when there had been guests to tea he had run about the room so incessantly that his mother spoke to him about it afterwards. He said. “I thought “ I kept moving I might avoid being kissed.” Sometimes he said thoughtful things which startled his parents. “Why is there trouble in the world, he asked when he was but a baby. . Before he could read he said to “ 1S governess, “Death is Promotion. She asked if his parents had talked to him about death, but they had not. One day they passed a shop where there was a picture of the Carpenter of Nazareth. “That is my friend, said Alastair. “He came to see me when I was ill.” Alastair had had appendicitis, but he got well. He was strong and handsome, happy and unselfish as he grew up. When he was quite a small boy he wrote remarkable little plays and poems. His friends believed that he was going to be a brilliant man and leave the . world a better place for his work. But, as He so strangely knew, Death is Promotion. . _ , Let us remember Alastair, to whom we owe so much fun and laughter; and above all let us remember the honesty of the very beautiful but very human little four-year-old for whom Kenneth Grahame invented Toad. . . > A certain treat depended on his being good all day. Had he been . Yes, said Alastair carefully; but there was a good deal of vulgar eating and arms on the table.” ; He looked like an angel, but was a very real boy.