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.

Kenneth Grahame: Lost in the wild wood - Telegraph. 

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'.

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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.'


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