Gemma Simms on the 100-year-old author of the Orlando books... Kathleen Hale's father died when she was just five years old which changed her life for ever.

The Oxford author and talented artist, now 100, was forced to live with relatives, who beat her, and her childhood was a miserable one.

Instead of wallowing in self pity, Kathleen decided to make her own children's lives much happier. She created an idyllic family in her famous stories of Orlando the Marmalade Cat.

And now, to celebrate her 100th birthday, one of the most popular of Kathleen's original Orlando books - Orlando the Marmalade Cat: A Trip Abroad - is being reissued by Frederick Warne, as well as her memoirs in her autobiography A Slender Reputation.

These days she is an incredible women for her age - even her 100th birthday cake was as bright and flamboyant as her person- ality.

The gold satin blouse she wore on the day made her look far younger than her years and although she's no longer writing books, Kathleen is still sharp as a pin.

Kathleen's talent as an artist was developed at school after a sympathetic headmistress recognised her potential and she went on to attend art courses in Manchester and at Reading University. She had orginally thought up the enigmatic feline character to entertain her own young children at bedtime.The Orlando stories combine excitement and adventure together with an appreciation of friendship and family life. Although Kathleen's own family life was so different to the happy family life she so loved to write about, she found the characters from within.

She said: "My own children inspired me for the Orlando books because there were very few good books for children. They didn't have the sense of values that I liked and everything was hypocritical - good or bad and nothing in between."

The author and illustrator lived for many years in Forest Hill, near Headington, Oxford, but grew up in northern England.

When her father died, Kathleen, her brother Ernest and sister Dorothy were farmed out to aunts.

"The parting from Mother developed in me an uncontrollable habit of wetting myself - my aunt pinned a large piece of cardboard to the back of my dress with the words 'I Wet My Drawers' clearly written on it. I used to edge up the stairs with placard to the wall to hide it," she recalled in her memoirs.

Not everything was miserable for Kathleen and she does recall moments of pleasure.

She married a doctor, Douglas McClean in 1926, had two sons and later moved to Oxfordshire.

Kathleen said: "It was I who had to make a decision; and the whole of England was our oyster. Oxford seemed to me to be the best place." Not only was it a beautiful city, but Douglas had scientific friends there who, hopefully might find him a part-time job.

"I registered with an Oxford estate agent, stipulating an old cottage... every week I noticed an advertisement in an Oxfordshire paper for a stone cottage about two to three hundred years old in a village in Oxfordshire."

During a rocky patch in her marriage, Kathleen had an affair with a bisexual artist Arthur Lett-Haines but soon reunited with Douglas. "I knew that an affair with Lett would be no bed of roses and I also knew that I wouldn't be the only bush in the rosebed." She said Lett's relationships never lasted - except for his permanent attachment to a man named Cedric.

"When in the nature of things, the affair with Lett ended, my married friendship with Douglas remained strong and survived."

"I was not always unhappy. There were wonderful pleasures in discovering for the first time flowers and their scents. I loved the wild garlic which grew in the steep little wood nearby, with the narrow stream at the bottom, the feverfew with its yellow-green leaves, its strange odour and daisy-like blooms."

Kathleen was awarded the OBE in 1976 for her books and went to Buckingham Palace to collect her medal.

"I had intended to be graceful and feminine and thought that I had succeeded, but when, after the ceremony, I asked my sons what they thought of my performance, they replied, 'Very military, Mother'

Had her father lived longer, Kathleen believes she may have been a more balanced character, but she would never have written the Orlando books which so many people have enjoyed.

Extracts taken from A Slender Reputation, an autobiography by Kathleen Hale The series of Orlando books

Orlando the Marmalade Cat:

A Camping Holiday

Orlando the Marmalade Cat:

A Trip Abroad

Orlando the Marmalade Cat Keeps a Dog

Orlando the Marmalade Cat Buys a Farm

Orlando the Marmalade Cat:

A Seaside Holiday

Orlando the Marmalade Cat and the Three Graces

Orlando the Marmalade Cat's Evening Out

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.