WILLOW: He was the start of it all. The loveliest grooviest ginger pussycat that I have ever known. Three little girls down in Furlongs Supermarket tried to sell him to me for a fiver. They had found him under a hedge. He was tiny, frightened and huddled up in a cardboard box. I gave them each a Mars Bar and they handed him over. I was down the Clontarf Road in a tiny bedsit at the time and that is where Willow came to live with me. When I moved up Vernon Avenue, Willow came too. When it was time to start publishing poems, there was never any question about what to call our imprint. It simply could not have been anything else but WILLOW PUBLICATIONS.

BLACKIE: Willow's girlfriend. She arrived home with him for breakfast one morning to Vernon Court and she stayed. She did not take much interest in books or publishing, preferring to have kittens upstairs in the wardrobe in the big bedroom. One of these was HOOT. There is a lovely poem about Blackie and the kittens and the wardrobe in HOW WAS IT FOR YOU DOCTOR? One bad night in Clontarf, a lot of cats went missing and were never seen again. Blackie was one of them. I prefer not to think about it.

HOOT: The Boss, CEO, MD, son of Blackie, the oldest, most formidable tomcat (retired) on the Northside of Dublin. It appears to me that he has a paw in most of the pussycats in an area bounded by Vernon Avenue, Castle Avenue, Killester, St. Anne's Park and Dollymount. Besides being in charge of everything, he also has his own record label (HOOT RECORDS). he sleeps a lot of the time these days but we are not fooled.

RINCE: Legal Services Section (halfway up a curtain). She came to us from the Animal Hospital in Fairview. Somebody dumped her out of a car on the Clonliffe Road and someone else rescued her and handed her in to the hospital. Rince sleeps in the wardrobe which is filled with copies of BEAUTIFUL CRACKED EYES. I think that she's doing some sort of audit.

RUNDA: Head of Accounts. In theory she is in charge of our financial affairs. In reality she chases wasps, bees, leaves and her own tail. She is very young, extremely crazy, climbs trees, jumps on Rince and bites her. In the middle of a board meeting, she will take off after a bluebottle and we have to do the best we can without her. She was born down the avenue in the yard behind Nolan's Supermarket. If she bites me under the covers again she'll be going back there.

BARNABY BISH: In charge of our Poster Division. Four years ago when he arrived here, he was a tiny goldfish in a small tank. Now he is huge and eats most of the time and is getting huge-r and will in all probability explode. He lives in a much bigger tank now, Runda thinks he is her lunch and still tries to eat him even though he is a fellow director.

ME: I write the poems, haul the books around the place, open tins, open doors, rescue Barnaby, stand in the street for hours, and look forward to coming home again because they all purr and rub up against me.

HONORARY DIRECTORS (Human): Steve Averill, Eddie Quigley, Terry McMahon. These three guys are the best friends that Willow Publications has ever had. If they were cats, they would automatically qualify for full directorship. I possibly would too. I'm still only honorary and I write the books.