The Adventure Begins...

Readers in search of those distant halcyon days will be interested to learn that Molly Lefebure's mountaineering novel, Scratch & Co. The Great Cat Expedition, is back in print.

This unique and intriguing account of the first ascent of the H.K.P., the Highest Known Peak (an undisguised Scafell Pike), originally published in 1968 with illustrations by the well-known Lakeland guide book author and topographer, A. Wainwright, is seriously in the tradition of classic mountaineering stories and over the years since its first appearance it has built-up an enthusiastic readership amongst the mountaineering fraternity.

As well as being a most exciting adventure story, this is a witty send-up of a mountaineering book — complete with "Alpine Club" type characters, hair-breadth rescues and all the tensions and pompous tones of a Himalayan expedition.

Climbers, dedicated fell walkers, Wainwright fans and Lakeland devotees of all ages and persuasions have followed the high adventures of Scratch and his fellow climbing-cats, his high-altitude terrier sherpas, his twitchy low-level rabbit porters and his free spirited adversaries, the foxes, emerging from their borrans amongst the crags to waylay these expeditionary-offcomers. Such are the colourful and keenly observed characters, making this book witty and gripping reading; not to mention Manx Scoop and Whiskey Bylines, ace reporters for the Cat Times and Cat’s Courier and Manx Scoop’s fighting mad mongoose ever keen to sink his teeth into anything that vaguely resembled a snake.

The choice of illustrator was an easy one. A.W. was, of course, very good friends with fellow mountaineering connoisseur Molly Lefebure for many years, a friendship originally started by post after she wrote to him regarding an error in one of his guides. They shared a lot in common, not only their love of the countryside and the Lake District — but also for cats. When asked to illustrate Scratch & Co. he was all enthusiasm until he met the mongoose, “The cats I can draw with my eyes shut. But a mongoose? I’ve never as much glimpsed one!” he said. Fortunately a stuffed mongoose was discovered in Kendal Museum, where he worked as Curator. When reporting the good news A.W. confirmed “I’ve spent a couple of days with the little chap and I think I’ve got him!”

The letters accompanying the illustrations were written in typical Wainwright humour. Within these typed letters were several of his concerns, primarily for “prostituting his talents.” He jested that he may have to walk the streets holding his head in shame for drawing a scruffy little dog having a piddle (page 131) and confessed “I have sunk very low indeed!” The original copy of the frontispiece showing ‘the route of the expedition’ also carried signs of Wainwright’s character. A small patch near Stockley Bridge covered a burn mark which occurred when he experienced “a moment of tense excitement” when his pipe spilled onto the paper.

The Great Cat Expedition was ready to start. Readers have been joining it ever since.

Molly Lefebure, who lives in the Lake District, is author of books in various fields. Starting with her experiences as Medical Secretary to Keith Simpson, the famous Home Office Pathologist, she followed this with a biography of John George Haigh the acid bath murderer, after which came books on the Lake District, two more novels and writing for radio and television. She is also author of acclaimed biographical studies of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas Hardy. She is at present finishing her third Coleridge study Private Lives of the Ancient Mariner.

SCRATCH & CO. THE GREAT CAT EXPEDITION Molly Lefebure & A. Wainwright SPECIFICATION: ISBN-13: 978-0954721312 New Edition - 2 September 2006 158 page - folded and stitched - hardback 135mm x 205mm 17 A. Wainwright illustrations £11.99 + FREE p&p >BUY NOW

What they're saying...

"There is good news for Molly Lefebure. AW fans and collectors will know that in 1968 AW kindly agreed to do the cover and illustrations for a children’s book she had written, ‘Scratch and Co.’ It’s about an expedition in the Lakeland mountains by a team of cats. AW was amused by the idea and did some excellent drawings. When I was doing my biography of AW in 1995, I tried to get Puffin, part of the same firm that published the biography, to do a new issue of the book, but they turned it down, the rotters!

Now, a publishing company from Blackburn, Mountainmere Research, who specialise in mountain topics, have just reprinted ‘Scratch and Co’. Look out for it. All AW fans should have a copy in their collections. “It’s been out of print for years,” says Molly, who still lives in Lakeland, in the Newlands valley. “I’ve been told that copies of the original book have been changing hands for up to £300. Not that I get a penny. Maddening isn’t it….” "
Hunter Davies

"A super-ingenious and most diverting book" Sunday Times

"The cat's whiskers" Times Educational Supplement

"A very quirky read" The Keswick Reminder

"An engaging mixture of parody and Ripping Yarn...it deserves a new generation of fans"
Cumbria Magazine

"Imaginatively this extravaganza is a triumph. Molly Lefebure manipulates plot and characters with controlled skill. Humorous it is; tense it is; exciting it is; but this saga of the great cat expedition is also a glorious satirical stab at the whole complex of a sport. Children will thoroughly enjoy the book on its merits as a children's story — but mountaineers will recognise the 'types', the slang they use and the lines they shoot."
Junior Bookshelf