"Make way! Make way for Captain Toad of Toad Hall!"

When I was 7 years old my mother finally agreed with me that I was old enough to have my own library card and I was successfully enrolled as a junior member of Stoneleigh Library.
One of the first books that I brought home was the Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.
From the first page I was enthralled.

Charles van Sandwyk image
Source: Books Illustrated Ltd.

Although I liked Moley & Ratty and enjoyed reading about their adventures, messing about in boats along the Riverbank and the picnics (!)

Mole & Ratty enjoy a picnic.
Arthur Rackham image.

my favourite character was the Toad ~
“He is indeed the best of animals,' replied Rat. `So simple, so good-natured, and so affectionate. Perhaps he's not very clever--we can't all be geniuses; and it may be that he is both boastful and conceited. But he has got some great qualities, has Toady.'

He was so naughty and made my little girl self, giggle at his exploits. Always off on some adventure whenever something new caught his fancy and always getting into trouble.

Mr Toad of Toad Hall is probably best known for his love of motor cars, although his first encounter with one was quite disastrous and left him sitting, befuddled, in the middle of the open road after a road hog sent his canary yellow, horse drawn caravan careering off into a ditch.

Moley leads the horse drawn caravan.
Arthur Rackham image.

“Glorious, stirring sight!' murmured Toad, never offering to move. `The poetry of motion! The real way to travel! The only way to travel! Here to-day--in next week to-morrow! Villages skipped, towns and cities jumped--always somebody else's horizon! O bliss! O poop-poop! O my! O my!'

Image supplied by google

After this first fateful encounter he purchased and crashed several cars, until the day his three friends Badger, Ratty and Mole decided it was time for an intervention.

Despite their best efforts, the Toad  refused to reform and after escaping from them he steals a car, and lands in prison, where he is befriended by the gaoler’s daughter.



Drawing by French artist
Michel Plessix
courtesey of Floss



“When the girl returned, some hours later, she carried a tray, with a cup of fragrant tea steaming on it; and a plate piled up with very hot buttered toast, cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter running through the holes in it in great golden drops, like honey from the honeycomb. The smell of that buttered toast simply talked to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cosy parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one's ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the fender; of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of sleepy canaries. Toad sat up on end once more, dried his eyes, sipped his tea and munched his toast, and soon began talking freely about himself, and the house he lived in, and his doings there, and how important he was, and what a lot his friends thought of him.”

Tea & toast a favourite afternoon tea time treat.

Toad eventually escapes from prison, with the girl’s help, dressed as a washerwoman and is reunited with his friends but not before having many more Wild Adventures along the way.

Wind in the Willows quotes from: Classic Reader.com

LINKING THIS POST TO THE “WIND IN THE WILLOWS PARTY” GRACIOUSLY HOSTED BY MAGS @ FRAISE LACHRYMOSE