The pantomime theatre season is now over, so Dick Whittington actors will have a well-earned break for the rest of the year. The semi-mythical semi-authentic Dick Whittington is an essential part of the British pantomime repertoire.

And he is celebrated in English folk lore. With strong business and family connections in Gloucestershire and London, he, with his famous cat, are important parts of our mythological and historical heritage, and Richard Whittington was indeed a Gloucestershire boy who became an important figure in 14th century London.

Dick Whittington’s family connections are with the remote areas of the Forest area which might be unknown to many local residents. There has been a suggestion that his family connections might have been with Lancashire, but don’t believe it. He emerges from one of the scattered communities at the eastern end of the Forest of Dean Council area, which includes Redmarley d’Abitot, Poolhill, Brand Green, Kent’s Green (no relation), Botloes Green, and another Staunton, which counterbalances another Staunton at the other end of the Forest Council area.

Richard Whittington was from Pauntley, another hamlet in that area. He apparently emerges from this rural area of Gloucestershire to walk to London with his bag on a stick on his shoulder, and his cat, but he may not have been as poor as mythology would have it. His elder brothers were Robert Whittington, who was six times a Member of Parliament for Gloucestershire, and William Whittington, the eldest brother, who was also a Member of Parliament for Gloucestershire.

The famous cat is an important element in Dick Whittington’s migration to the bright lights of London. The cat was a famous mouser, and was a great asset in the squalor of mediaeval London, which was overrun by dangerously infectious mice and rats.

His initial visit London was apparently unsuccessful, and he reluctantly made off with his bag and his cat to return to rural Gloucestershire. His route westward took him over the great hills of northern London at Highgate and Hampstead Heath. This is a special place where the great city unfolds beneath you, and you can pick up the sound of the great bells of the City of London, especially when they exhort you to turn again and become thrice Lord Mayor of London. Dick Whittington took the bells’ advice, and returned to a successful career and a place in theatrical nobility.

When I was a student in London the pubs of Highgate were a great attraction, and a couple of them celebrated Dick Whittington. The Whittington and Cat pub housed a taxidermised cat, which along with the pub is no longer in existence, but there was also the Whittington Stone pub, now still flourishing.

And returning to the Forest of Dean, there is a local reference to the Whittington family. William Whittington who died in 1625 gave lands in St. Briavels parish to support ecclesiastical bequests and gave payments of £3 a year to 12 poor people, a useful sum in those days.