Clay Lane

A classic tale from Switzerland of overbearing authority and a father with a very steady hand.

Whenever royal families married, fought and died in Mediaeval Europe, the borders of their realms changed, and their long-suffering peoples were told to forget whatever loyalties they had sworn last, and swear new ones. There were always those willing to prosper by spying on their fellows, and according to legend, one day a Swiss archer named William Tell was spotted in an act of lese-majesty.

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Mrs Tabby White thought she’d try some of the clever things her humans did.

Mrs White does everything she can for her kittens, but she can’t do what her humans do, and she starts to wonder if she’s a failure as a mother.

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Ruth Lorimer’s strangely comfortless life changes when she finds a scruffy little cat on the stairs, but not everyone is pleased.

Little Ruth Lorimer has nice toys and a nice house, but she is dreadfully lonely. Then one day a scruffy little cat brings some warmth into her life.

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A tortoiseshell laments his hard life among heartless humans.

A tortoiseshell cat is chatting with a rather skinny grey cat. It is so difficult, he says plaintively, for a cat to find a proper home.

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Fate and a vicious professional thief named Fagin conspire to trap orphan Oliver Twist into a life of crime.

‘Oliver Twist, or, The Parish-Boy’s Progress’ is a novel by Charles Dickens. First published in February 1837, it has been dramatised for film and TV many times, and turned into a popular musical named ‘Oliver!’. Here is the first part of a two-part summary of the plot.

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Two men fed up with Athenian politics decide to build a city in the sky.

Aristophanes’s absurd play is two and half thousand years old, but its satire is as fresh today as it ever has been.

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