This stamp is one of a set of 10 issued by Royal Mail to mark the 150th anniversary |
The world-famous grinning cat turned 150 years old in 2015.
Not bad for a literary creature that was originally imagined simply to amuse a small
girl named Alice (daughter of Henry Liddell, the Vice-chancellor of Oxford
University and friend of author Lewis Carroll). Since its publication in 1865, Carroll’s
masterly tale Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland has never been out of print and, in the subsequent 150 years,
the work has been translated into more than a hundred languages.
Carroll, born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson on 27 January 1832,
spent his early years in the village
of Daresbury , in Cheshire , where his father Charles Dodgson
was the vicar (from 1827 to 1843) of the local church, All Saints’.
Not surprisingly, Daresbury is proud of its famous son. In
the church, Carroll is commemorated in a special stained glass window. As well
as a Nativity scene, the window also depicts scenes from Carroll’s life: the
Cheshire Wheatsheaf, representing the country where he was born; the shields of
Rugby School
and Christ Church ,
Oxford , where
he was educated; and a pair of compasses and the Lamp of Learning, symbolising
his considerable skills in mathematics. And, at the bottom of the window appear
some of Carroll’s unforgettable fictional characters, including the Mad Hatter,
the Queen of Hearts, the mad March Hare, the Mock Turtle, the Dormouse sitting
in a teapot and, of course, the inimitable Cheshire Cat. (Unfortunately, I
haven’t yet been to Daresbury but you can see the window here.)
I’m sure it will also come as no surprise that the whole of Cheshire celebrates its
name being associated with the famous grinning cat. There are Cheshire Cat
public houses in Christleton and in Nantwich (its signs appear in the
photograph below), a company of that name provides themed parties and events, and
you can enjoy tea and cake in the Dormouse Tea Rooms in Daresbury.
The inspiration for the fictional Cheshire Cat character is
claimed by several places. There is a 16th-century
sandstone carving of a grinning cat on the west face of St Wilfrid's
Church tower in Grappenhall, a village very close
to Daresbury, but there is also a cat carving
in Croft church, where Carroll’s father was rector for 25 years, and a cat gargoyle
in St Nicholas Church in Cranleigh, where Carroll used to visit.
The origin of the Cheshire Cat, though now largely associated
with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,
does, in fact, predate the book and it seems Lewis Carroll merely elaborated
on the idea of a grinning cat when concocting the mischievous character for his
tale.
During the six months I lived in Cheshire earlier this year, I searched for
the famous grinning cat but never found him. The cats I encountered never
displayed that famous grin and were, on the whole, rather taciturn. Certainly, none
shared any pearls of wisdom similar to those uttered by the fictional Cheshire
Cat, which are what I love most about the character. I’ll leave you with some
of my favourite quotations:
‘I myself don't need a weathervane
to tell which way the wind blows.’
‘Every adventure
requires a first step. Trite, but true, even here.’
‘Those who say there's nothing like
a nice cup of tea for calming the nerves never had real tea. It's like a syringe of adrenaline straight to the heart!’
‘Only a few find the way, some don't
recognize it when they do – some ... don't ever want to.’
‘If you don’t know where you want to
go, then it doesn’t matter which path you take.’
And, my particular favourite, ‘I’m
not crazy – my reality is just different from yours.’
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