When Mole goes for a walk one spring day, he meets the friendly Ratty at the riverside who invites Mole to join him on his river-boat. The two become firm friends and regularly go boating together, one day ending up at the impressive Toad Hall. They decide to say hello to Toad Hall''s owner, the extremely wealthy and fickle Mr Toad who has since developed an unhealthy passion for motor cars. As Mr Toad continues to waste huge amounts of money on motor cars and regularly injures himself in car crashes; Mole, Ratty and their new friend Badger decide to put Toad under house arrest to prevent him from being a danger to himself. Unfortunately, the devious Toad escapes and recklessly drives away from Toad Hall in one of his new cars. He is then arrested and it is up to Mole, Ratty and Badger to look after Toad Hall and safeguard it from the weasels, stoats and ferrets until Toad comes back.
Kenneth Grahame was born in Edinburgh, Scotland but in early childhood, after being orphaned, moved to live with his grandmother on the banks of the River Thames in southern England. He was an outstanding pupil at St Edward's School in Oxford and wanted to attend Oxford University but was not allowed to do so by his guardian on grounds of cost. Instead he was sent to work at the Bank of England in 1879, and rose through the ranks until retiring as its Secretary in 1908 due to ill health. In addition to ill health, Grahame's retirement was precipitated in 1903 by a strange, possibly political, shooting incident at the bank. Grahame was shot at three times, all of them missed. Grahame's marriage to Elspeth Thomson was an unhappy one. They had only one child, a boy named Alastair, who was born blind in one eye and was plagued by health problems throughout his short life. Alastair eventually committed suicide on a railway track while an undergraduate at Oxford University, two days before his 20th birthday on 7 May, 1920. Out of respect for Kenneth Grahame, Alastair's demise was recorded as an accidental death. Kenneth Grahame died in Pangbourne, Berkshire in 1932.
