Sunday 28 January 2018

GAY - WIND IN THE WILLOWS



Kenneth Grahame wrote Wind in the Willows.

The book critics hated Wind in the Willows, but Theodore Roosevelt loved it, and children loved it.



Wind in the Willows, 1908.

When Kenneth Grahame was five, his mother died of a fever.


Cookham.

Kenneth Graham's father, a 'failed lawyer' who had a drinking problem, gave Kenneth, and his siblings, to the grandmother, in Cookham Dean in Berkshire.


Kenneth Grahame. 

Kenneth Graham did well at his private school in Oxford, winning his First XV rugby colours and becoming head boy.

Kenneth Grahame went to work at the Bank of England in 1879, and rose through the ranks until retiring as its Secretary in 1908 [4] due to ill health.

Kenneth Grahame's retiral is linked to a shooting incident at the bank in 1903. 

Grahame was shot at three times by George Robinson, all shots missing. [5] 

Grahame had quarrelled with Walter Cunliffe, one of the bank's directors, who would later become Governor of the Bank of England.


Toad

It is believed that Cunliffe knew that Kenneth Graham was gay, and bullied him because of his sexuality.

Cunliffe, according to some academics, is Mr Toad in Wind in the Willows.

Wind in the Willows 'was Kenneth Grahame's gay manifesto' .

But, Mr Toad may have been based on Kenneth Graham's son 'Mouse'.

Kenneth Grahame: Lost in the wild wood - Telegraph.

On Grahame's retirement in 1908, the family returned to Cookham.


Mouse, who had 'a fragile, nervous disposition.' At the age of three and a half, Mouse played 'a game of lying in front of speeding cars.'

In 1899, at the age of 40, the 'gay' Kenneth Grahame married Elspeth Thomson.

They had one child, a boy named Alastair - whose nickname was "Mouse". 

Mouse was born blind in one eye and was troubled by health problems throughout his short life. 

Kenneth Graham became stuck in 'a loveless marriage with a hysterical hypochondriac.'

Alastair/Mouse became 'ill-disciplined'.

Kenneth Grahame: Lost in the wild wood - Telegraph.

Kenneth Grahamee turned the bedtime stories he told to Mouse into his 1908 masterpiece, Wind in the Willows.[7] 


The Golden Age 

Mouse/Alastair was bullied at Rugby School and transferred to Eton. There, too, he suffered 'because of his disastrously superior attitude.'

Alastair died on a railway track while a student at Oxford University, five days before his 20th birthday on 7 May 1920.[8] 


The Golden Age is a collection of reminiscences of childhood, written by Kenneth Grahame and illustrated by Maxfield Parrish 

Peter Hunt of Cardiff University says that Wind in the Willows is Grahame's 'gay manifesto'.

Professor Peter Hunt of Cardiff University says the adult themes are 'hiding in plain sight'.

dailymail


The Golden Age is a collection of reminiscences of childhood, written by Kenneth Grahame and illustrated by Maxfield Parrish 

The  professor says that there is reason to believe Grahame was gay.


Walford Graham Robertson

Kenneth Grahame, his wife and their son lived in Cookham Dean, Berkshire from 1906.

But, Kenneth Grahame spent much of his time during the week at his London home which he shared with Walford Graham Robertson.

Robertson, a theatre set designer was a close friend of the gay Oscar Wilde.


The Golden Age is a collection of reminiscences of childhood, written by Kenneth Grahame and illustrated by Maxfield Parrish 

Constance Smedley was a family friend who helped get The Wind in the Willows published.

She married the artist Maxwell Armfield, who was gay.

Professor Hunt says: 'It just strikes me that if you've got a woman who goes to see Kenneth Grahame and his wife and Kenneth is gay and she marries a gay man, then you can see some empathy going on.'

Professor Hunt says that Wind in the Willows is 'a story of maleness and male companionship'.

Grahame was 'awkward in the company of the opposite sex.'


dailymail.

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3 Comments:

At 28 January 2018 at 05:55 , Blogger Mark Jesus said...

Fascinating. Was a masterpiece, remember given it and young. Must re-read. Quite fits and gay. Good on him. Prescient. God active. Thanks.

 
At 28 January 2018 at 07:57 , Blogger Hollie Grieg Justice said...

reblogged

 
At 28 January 2018 at 13:52 , Blogger Kaivey said...

1 in 5 CEOs are psychopaths, study finds

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/13/1-in-5-ceos-are-psychopaths-australian-study-finds/

An Australian study has found that about one in five corporate executives are psychopaths – roughly the same rate as among prisoners.

The study of 261 senior professionals in the United States found that 21 per cent had clinically significant levels of psychopathic traits. The rate of psychopathy in the general population is about one in a hundred.

Nathan Brooks, a forensic psychologist who conducted the study, said the findings suggested that businesses should improve their recruitment screening.

He said recruiters tend to focus on skills rather than personality features and this has led to firms hiring “successful psychopaths” who may engage in unethical and illegal practices or have a toxic impact on colleagues.


“Typically psychopaths create a lot of chaos and generally tend to play people off against each other,” he said.

“For psychopaths, it [corporate success] is a game and they don’t mind if they violate morals. It is about getting where they want in the company and having dominance over others.”


The global financial crisis in 2008 has prompted researchers to study workplace traits that may have allowed a corporate culture in which unethical behaviour was able to flourish.

Mr Brooks’s research, conducted with a colleague from Australia’s Bond University and a researcher from the University of San Diego, was based on a study of corporate professionals in the supply chain management industry across the US.

The findings, presented on Tuesday at the Australian Psychological Society Congress in Melbourne, are due to be published in the European Journal of Psychology.

The researchers have been examining ways to help employers screen for potential psychopaths.
“We hope to implement our screening tool in businesses so that there’s an adequate assessment to hopefully identify this problem - to stop people sneaking through into positions in the business that can become very costly,” Mr Brooks said.

 

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