The Wind in the Willows

'The Wind in the Willows.' I never actually read the book but I remember the puppet series from when I was a kid. It used to terrify me - something about the stop motion was too uncanny for my eight-year-old brain. There were only a couple of episodes that followed the plot of the book, the rest I assumed were original stories written with the same characters, or parts of the book padded out for runtime.

Although that one show scared the heck out of me as a kid, I remember the main story and the characters themselves fondly. What was it really about? A mole, sick of spring cleaning, leaves his secluded home and explores the wider world beyond. He meets Ratty the water vole, who shares with him a life of leisure on the riverbank, boating and writing poetry, ever passionate about the beauty and intensity of the world. Then there's Toady, the wild and gregarious heir to a vast fortune, who day by day swings between obsessions. Finally, my personal favourite, Badger, the wise and stern hermit who acts as something of a surrogate father to Toady, but proves to be fierce and fearless in a fight.

For the most part, there was messing about in boats and visiting each other's homes for tea, then the story evolves into car theft, imprisonment, a jailbreak, and what can essentially be described as a war with mobsters. For a couple of anthropomorphised critters, they got into some wacky adventures, but it wasn't until adulthood that I came to appreciate the deeper meaning and lore of this story. From pagan gods, to exploration of the human experience, the tale somehow manages to instil nostalgia even within readers to have never known that lifestyle or culture.

So what was it that compelled me to think about it now? I guess it started when my mum and I were going through our DVD and video collection - looking to clear out some junk. I found the DVD box set we owned of that very stop-motion animated series from the eighties. I wasn't a child of the eighties, I was an early two-thousands kid, and my dad had picked it up on a whim from a charity shop for like a fiver. I must have watched the set four or five times, but I hadn't touched it for years. We kept hold of it; I think our shared nostalgia for the show made us want to pass it on to future generations. I couldn't bring myself to watch it at the time, apparently the fear of the uncanny valley had somewhat traumatised me.

Yet I still kept thinking about it, and one day while walking home from work, I passed a second-hand book shop that lo and behold had a copy of The Wind in the Willows sitting on a display in the window. I went in, picked up the obviously very loved book and opened the cover. The first page was signed, 'To Emma, Happy 5th Birthday, from grandma and grandad.' And as a result, I couldn't bring myself to buy it. The thought of parting with something so special, when I couldn't even bring myself to throw away a DVD box set of an eighties show my dad had picked up solely on impulse - a show which used to freak me out, completely shook me. Because for all I used to cringe and cry at that box set, the story and those characters meant more to me than I could ever describe. How could a book I'd never read shape my childhood and the adult I grew into so profoundly?

It got me to wonder if anyone else thought the same about it. After a bit of light research, I concluded that I wasn't alone. People like former US president Theodore Roosevelt, and Christopher Robin Milne had been in the same boat. It had been remade and retold countless times, with various interpretations and across many mediums, each with their own unique identity. So I couldn't help asking, what the heck went wrong? Why did people stop caring? Why would Emma give her grandparents' gift away?

And I couldn't offer you a definitive answer. We seem to have crossed a threshold where nostalgia simply isn't relevant anymore, because it was no one's (who's alive today) experience. Is the story that outdated, it means nothing to a modern audience? Newer versions and interpretations do exist, but I hadn't heard of any of them before doing my research. They have been reimagined to take place elsewhere - new creatures, new characters, new settings, new motives. The characters hate each other, they're each out to get something from one another; the new plots are about class conflict, sexism, manipulation, violence. What became of the innocent Moley, the poetic Ratty, the outgoing Toady, the thoughtful, protective Badger? Apparently they were far too good for this world, too naïve, too trusting, even for Emma. Perhaps their story was so far outside reality, they couldn't even be perceived as fantasy. The children who grew up with this bedtime story were so subdued by reality, it compelled them to frame this tale and its characters in nought but spite and despair. I can scarcely think of anything more bleak.

But in all honesty, where could anyone go in this world to find Moley, Ratty, Toady, and Badger?

Some days I take the long route home from work, past the river near my home, hoping to find them. The riverbends have been straightened by concrete blocks. The water is polluted - murky and brown with a putrid stench of sewage from the outfall upstream. Long gone are the meadows where Ratty and Moley might go for a picnic. Badger's forest was flattened and replaced with a plantation for cheap furniture. Toad Hall was torn down and made into a housing estate no one can afford to live in. Ratty's species is endangered. Moley's relatives were culled for the sake of neat green lawns. Toad's ponds have all been filled in, his brothers poisoned by pollution and invasive diseases. And Badger, well, even in this day and age his kind are still hunted for sport. I'm sure no child today would think The Wind in the Willows remotely plausible. I myself was in university before I saw any of those creatures in the wild. Although there is more that has been lost than their species. One of the recent retellings of the story swapped all the characters for women, because it is apparently a risk in the modern age to present men as timid, poetic, passionate, or nurturing.

I would not find Moley, Ratty, Toady, or Badger in the world today. Such a world in which a person steps out of their home, finds a lifelong friend who exists as part of a habitat and lifestyle completely strange to them, could only ever exist in a fairy tale. A world where one could spend his days boating on the river, writing poetry - a person, though who struggles to break out of routine could come to share his home with his new friend. A world in which they could both be close companions of an impetuous wealthy young man, and an intellectual recluse. Yes, of course the idea is so outlandish even for a fantasy tale - for a child's bedtime story. It was clearly much too fanciful for Emma.

And yet I hold onto that DVD box set. Someone will eventually walk into that second-hand book shop and buy Emma's copy. I will wander by the riverside on my way home from work, hoping to see people boating on the water, to join picnics in the meadow, to roam the forest and come across a badger sett. I would take a trip to Toad Hall, eat lunch at an inn, ride in a motor car and a horse-drawn caravan. I'd choose to write poetry, to take a walk when I tire of spring cleaning, to learn the ways of the river, and to share a banquet with friends.

I would do all that and more, messing about in boats, and listening to the wind in the willows.