The Cat's Whiskers

by Beryl Reid

Published in 1986 by Ebury Press

Not a children's book, this one, and not really fiction. I'm not at all sure why I got asked to do the illustrations: Beryl Reid was an extremely well known and well loved actor. I was, and still am, nobody. The instructions were to produce loose, lively cat drawings. "Think Paul Klee's 'taking a line for a walk'," they said, "and if it takes you more than twenty minutes, you've probably done it wrong." So I doodled away, for rather longer than twenty minutes, and sent them the results. There were also a few jolly boxes in which they could put the first letter of each chapter.