Fox and Marshall. (The Illustrator and the Writer).Forty years ago, a young art teacher and mother started to paint a sequence of watercolours about a musical cat to entertain her little daughter who was already fond of music. From those pictures, A Night of Rhythm and Mews slowly developed, purely as a family entertainment. Soon her husband was roped in to provide captions and to help in fitting the material into a sequence. Development of the story was considerably fuelled by laughter at the antics of their characterful cat, whilst anecdotes from the world of music prompted further amusement and were gradually incorporated into the story. Eventually over the years, those efforts coalesced into the book that has now become A Night of Rhythm and Mews. Fox and Marshall have long since retired and live quietly and privately, swimming when they can, listening to music and still laughing at what passing cats get up to. Forty years after the illustrations were painted, Fox and Marshall have finally agreed that A Night of Rhythm and Mews should be offered to a wider audience for the very first time by Raincliffe Books.
