Gobbolino the Witch's Cat

The farm-children, tired and hungry, trotted into the kitchen, where, beneath the trestle-table laden with good food, a saucer of cream awaited Gobbolino.

One by one the children went off to bed, the cradle creaked its lullaby, and the farmer’s wife washed the dishes.

“There are worse kitchens than this, Gobbolino, and worse homes than ours,” said the farmer, filling his pipe. “While there’s a fire on the hearth, there’s a place beside it for you, and a saucer of milk and a bit of fish on Sundays. Is that true, mother?”

“That’s true, father!” said the farmer’s wife, and Gobbolino purred his gratitude.

When the dishes were wiped and put away, the farmer’s wife sat in the rocking-chair gently pushing the cradle with her foot as she darned the stockings, and Gobbolino crept quietly into her lap and dozed there. He knew that he had found his home at last and for ever and ever. Nobody would turn him out again. The children would become boys and girls and men and women. The baby would grow up and rock its own baby to sleep in the wooden cradle. The farmer and his wife would grow old and watch their grandchildren and great-grandchildren toddle across the kitchen floor, and every one of them, from the oldest to the youngest born, would always have a friendly word and a place in his heart for Gobbolino the kitchen cat.

About the Author

When Ursula Moray Williams was a little girl, she and her twin sister Barbara were sent to bed so early that they used to tell each other stories to pass the time before they went to sleep. After their mother had taught them to read and write, they began to make books – writing new stories and illustrating them with coloured pictures – which they gave to each other at Christmas or on their birthday. They made these “anniversary books” every year until they were teenagers. When they grew up, Ursula became a writer and Barbara a painter, and they remained close – although Ursula lived in England and her sister in Iceland.

Their parents, who were at one time both teachers, gave the girls and their younger brother the happiest of childhoods. The house where they lived was a huge old mansion lit by oil lamps, with an entrance hall paved in marble and surrounded by glass cases full of stuffed birds and animals – foxes, owls, weasels, jays and a large golden pheasant. The house was crumbling, and Ursula remembered that for their lessons with a governess “we moved from room to room as the ceilings fell on us.” But it was a wonderful place to play in (there was a church organ that had no keyboard but provided a perfect hiding-place) – and in the big park outside they had a much-loved pony and cart.

In 1928, when the twins were nearly seventeen (they were born on 19 April 1911), they were sent to France for a year to live in a pastor’s house in Annecy in the Alps. There they had to go to school – which they hated – but out of school they enjoyed every moment: swimming, climbing, skiing and picnicking in the beautiful countryside. Ursula describes this time as like living in a fairy tale. When they came home, both sisters enrolled at the Winchester College of Art, but, while Barbara thrived, Ursula dropped out after a year and decided to practise her writing at home. She was encouraged by her uncle, Stanley Unwin (who was the famous publisher of The Hobbit), and her first book, Jean-Pierre, a story set in the mountains of Annecy, was published in 1931 with her own illustrations. She remembers that the book cost just 2s 6d (12½ pence)!

In 1935 Ursula married Conrad Southey John (always called Peter after their marriage), the great-grandson of the poet Robert Southey. To him she dedicated her best-known story, Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse (1938), written when she was expecting their first child, Andrew. Three more sons followed – Hugh, Robin and Jamie. The four boys were taken out in the afternoons, allowing Ursula to concentrate on her writing for two hours a day, and it was during this time that she created Gobbolino the Witch’s Cat (1942).

Ursula went on to write over sixty books for children. “I write compulsively,” she said. “During the war years I was cooking for ten of us but I had to write, just as my twin sister had to paint and design.” Her husband died in 1974, but she still lived in the family farmhouse on Bredon Hill in Gloucestershire where she brought up her children so happily. Ursula had many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She died in October 2006.

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