In a World Full of Toads

Come midnight the new year will begin and so too will a new wall calendar. This year’s choice is themed on Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows.  There is something very soothing about following the journey of Mole and Ratty, as they move through the seasons, avoiding adversaries, side-stepping danger, and learning to accept one another’s foibles and differences along the way. 

And of course, there is also the problem of Toad. 

It seems to me that Toad’s narcissistic tendencies are reminiscent of some of today’s world leaders, who also like to have their way in all things.  Imagine a world run by Toad - heaven forbid.  Yet…  

Consider, who can control Toad’s wild outbursts, his recklessness, his thoughtlessness? He steers his motorcar with abandon, caring nothing for innocent pedestrians who might cross his path: the selfishness is the point. I’ve always felt that luck was too much on Toad’s side - his escape from justice dressed as a washer woman fleeing his prison cell always made me worry - has he really learned his lesson? 

It seems fair to assume that he has not, if past is prologue, and we can only imagine that Toad continues to rain down havoc everywhere he goes, leaving his kindhearted friends to pick up the pieces. 

As 2025 rips through the 12 pages of my calendar, I know that I will take some reassurance from the timeless characters in Grahame’s book, celebrating the group of friends who are the real heroes of the story - Ratty, adventurous and resourceful, Mole, prone to hide away until the worst has past, and old Badger, grumpy and complaining. Who will we be in the days ahead?  I suspect something of all three. 

I hope 2025 brings you peace, joy and happiness, and if at times that is impossible, remember - in a world full of Toads, be a Ratty.

The Wind in the Willows Calendar 2025 by Museums and Galleries is illustrated by Chris Dunn and is  available on their website and from all good bookshops.

Time of the Child ~ Niall Williams

Set in the west of Ireland in 1962, Niall Williams’ book Time of the Child welcomes us to the fictional town of Faha, and introduces us to a delightful array of characters that I feel I must be related to in some way or another -  they are so familiar. The novel plays the melody of a world in harmony, but there is a discordant strain that undeniably runs counter to the lyrical melody of the prose. After all, there is a mother somewhere who has abandoned her infant child in the church grounds, and a doctor who is haunted by knowledge of the notorious Magdalene Laundries. There are serious issues happening just off stage and out of sight of the reader, but on these Williams does not overly dwell. It is a text written in a minor key and Time of the Child could easily dip into a dirge at any moment, but Williams masterfully returns to the solfa note that we are promised in the book’s opening bars. The story begins on the first Sunday of Advent and pulsates with the generous spirit of love that permeates many a book set at Christmas time. The kindness and friendship of the people of Faha restores our faith in human nature in the depths of winter as much as Joe in Great Expectations, or Peggotty in David Copperfield.  As with Dickens before him, we believe in the world that Williams creates from the thin air of his imagination owing mostly to the solidity of his characters.  Dr Troy and Ronnie, Ganga and Annie Mooney, Jude and Pat Quinlan - all are people who lived and breathed air, surely?

And that is how he gets you - Niall Williams that is - with his ordinary, everyday characters perfectly matched with his metaphorical prose, twisting meaning and bending his sentences in such a way, that the place we start out at, is not at all the place we end up. The world of the text may at first risk being pigeonholed as bleak and inward-looking, mean and judgemental - this is the Ireland of John B. Keane, Brian Friel, and Edna O’Brien after all - but before you know where you are, a story is told and somewhere betweeen the warp and weft of it, you see that it is you who is mistaken, and that the world of Faha is, in fact, golden. 

Time of the Child is a perfect story for December - an Irish alternative to the Christmas story; a hopeful tale of regret and second chances, of endings and beginnings, of acts of insanity and acts of love. It is like taking a step back in time, but not a brutal one like that which catapults Scrooge to his schooldays, but a gentle stroll to the early 1960s in Ireland.  Nostalgic and humorous, thoughtful and endlessly entertaining, Williams’ book has the feel of an old black and white film, one with Crosby and Hope perhaps, or the one with Jimmy Stewart running down main street laughing like a lunatic. This is a book for any time of the year - but especially in the darkest days of winter. Gift it to yourself - you’ll be the better for it.