Suzanna Welby: On Publishing Rufus in Rabitannia

October 6, 2023 | By Women Writers Women Books | Reply More

When I was 21 and newly married, I found myself living in the wilds of Lincolnshire with dogs, horses and very many wild rabbits. The garden was pretty non- existent so they were perfect adornments rather than the pests so despised by proper gardeners. I discovered, when I grew up and had a garden – that rabbits don’t eat roses, peonies, rosemary or lavender – so that is pretty much all you will find in my garden and is also how we manage to live in such close harmony with each other. Anything they might find tempting is high up in an urn or a planter! And we don’t grow carrots.

I was so charmed by these creatures that it got me thinking very deeply about our co existence and I resolved to learn more. The Private Life of the Rabbit became my bible and of course my favourite book Watership Down. At the same time a lot of new people came into my life, happily many to become lifelong soulmates and others maybe not so.

It was one of the latter – a small boy – who became the model for Rufus. He is middle aged now and has a son of his own who interestingly was equally as objectionable – I am told. A lot of the trouble for Rufus was caused by his very late and unexpected arrival into a family which already had three children, the eldest of whom was nearly 19 when Rufus was born. The father who was no Johnny Newhouse was stunned and amazed at this entirely unexpected proof of virility and the resultant sprog become the object of his most adoring and devoted attentions. He was the most spoilt brat I have ever encountered.

The mother does feature in Rufus – as both mother and arch villainess. The father I didn’t bother with until many years later, but that little ouvre is not a children’s story. Indeed I think it is probably unprintable until he, and most probably I too have shuffled this mortal!

Anyway, all that needs to be known is that none of them feature in my life today and I have no idea if “ Rufus” is charm personified or the devil incarnate.

So I wrote my fairy story and with all the self righteousness of youth was delighted to see good triumph over evil. My husband read it and loved it but I reckoned he was just being dutiful so I put the ms away and forgot all about it until a few years later when I had children of my own. Three magnificent daughters who all claimed to love Rufus too.

My eldest daughter, Venetia Welby is a brilliant writer. She has two incredibly clever novels under her belt which to be honest was no great surprise. My own mother wrote beautiful stories which she read to us as children, but on Venetia’s father’s side were three great Victorian women who were all published authors and poets of some note. So it’s unlikely that my mother or I had much influence there – but it’s interesting to me nonetheless.

When Rufus had been put away for about 40 years Venetia started asking me if she could have him to read to her small son Hal. I was delighted but it took me months to uncover his whereabouts as he was effectively lost. One day in an uncharacteristic bout of chaos clearing I found the missing rabbitboy hiding at the back of a shelf cunningly disguised as a cartoon file – featuring rabbits obviously.

He was sent hotfoot to London and I was absolutely thrilled and amazed to receive regular reports that he was being a great hit with both my grandson and more seriously, my son in law Charlie. Venetia asked if she could type him up, which was a nightmare for her, as it was part handwritten, part typed and extremely confusing.

Encouraged by their enthusiasm and the renewed interest of my husband Charles we enlisted my very good friend the artist Jane King Spooner to do the illustrations. Jane rose to the challenge and exceeded my wildest expectations with her brilliant and bizarrely accurate depictions of my really very peculiar characters! I mean one of them is rabbit with a weasel grandparent for goodness sake. This irritating character came entirely from my imagination but upon rereading it 40 years later I was absolutely stunned by his resemblance to a man I had subsequently met and who had played a big part in my life professionally. Equally when I read that “all wizards have winged monsters” I immediately thought I must have stolen that from the sainted Harry Potter – but he was years into the future! Clearly I was heavily influenced by CS Lewis but I cannot regret or apologise for that.

In 2021 I was very ill and frankly very lucky to have survived relatively unscathed. That Christmas was more important to me than most and I felt beyond lucky to have all my family at home with me to celebrate but I am lost for words to describe my feelings when I opened my present from Venetia and Charlie. Underneath a charming but ultimately irrelevant painting of a Pekingese , were 10 beautifully bound and presented hard back copies of Rufus in Rabitannia. I literally could hardly believe that they had done all this and I had secretly thought they had lost both the manuscript and the portfolio of drawings! It was overwhelming and the most magnificent thing to do.

These books were distributed to a very few but the feedback was so encouraging somehow Horrid and Hare Publishing came into existence headed up by my darling daughter.

So we wait to see how Rufus fares now that he has been released from the garden here. Who knows? But my current attentions are firmly fixed on committing to paper the life story of my little dog Magnus ( who doesn’t chase rabbits) I just hope I’ve got it right and too much hasn’t been lost in translation.

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Suzanna Welby was born by Lake Victoria in Kenya. Her father was an army man and they moved around a lot so, whilst her parents lived in the Middle East, she was sent to a succession of boarding schools in England. Married at 21 she has lived very happily for 45 years in rural
Lincolnshire with a great many dogs and horses and thousands of wild rabbits. She has 3 daughters; is a creative, accomplished cook; can do a cryptic crossword in ten minutes and is an interior decorator with flair.
www.suzannawelby.com

About Rufus in Rabitannia:

Rufus Wesley is a rude and spoilt little boy. Powers beyond his control have decided he needs to be taught a lesson so that he might become an acceptable member of the human race. Magically he is whisked into the extraordinary world of Rabitannia where, to his great distress, he is turned into a rabbit. He is tasked by no lesser entity than the King of Rabitannia himself with finding and returning the long-lost Crown Princes, sole heirs to the Rabitannian throne. Assisted by the brave and heroic warrior rabbit Capuchin, Rufus finds himself catapulted into a dangerous and mysterious world of enchantment, wizards, worgs, weasels – and treachery and loyalty beyond imagining.