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Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.

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1567
Too Clever By Half by Clay Lane

Mrs Tabby White thought she’d try some of the clever things her humans did.

Mrs White does everything she can for her kittens, but she can’t do what her humans do, and she starts to wonder if she’s a failure as a mother.

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1568
The Kitchen Cat by Clay Lane

Ruth Lorimer’s strangely comfortless life changes when she finds a scruffy little cat on the stairs, but not everyone is pleased.

Little Ruth Lorimer has nice toys and a nice house, but she is dreadfully lonely. Then one day a scruffy little cat brings some warmth into her life.

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1569
The Selfish Cat by Clay Lane

A tortoiseshell laments his hard life among heartless humans.

A tortoiseshell cat is chatting with a rather skinny grey cat. It is so difficult, he says plaintively, for a cat to find a proper home.

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1570
William I to John by Clay Lane

A quick overview of the Kings of England from William I in 1066 to John in 1199.

Below is a brief overview of the Kings of England from William the Conqueror, who seized the crown in 1066, to John, whose disgruntled barons forced him to sign the Magna Carta in 1215.

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1571
John to Henry IV by Clay Lane

A quick overview of the Kings of England from John in 1199 to Henry IV in 1399.

Below is a brief overview of the Kings of England from John, whose disgruntled barons forced him to sign the Magna Carta in 1215, to Henry IV, who pushed his cousin Richard II off the throne.

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1572
Fashionable Freedom by Thomas Clarkson

Josiah Wedgwood’s promotional gift made Abolitionism fashionable.

The Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, founded in 1787 by Thomas Clarkson, distributed a tasteful cameo of its emblem done in jasperware by Josiah Wedgwood. Clarkson (who sent some to Benjamin Franklin, President of Pennsylvania) later expressed his warm appreciation.

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© Nicholas Armitage / Clay Lane, 2025

June 11 NS

May 29 OS

The Two Shakespeares : Arthur Clutton-Brock complained that idealising Shakespeare had made him dull.
Fairway : Use each noun below in two sentences, first as the subject, and then as the object of a verb.
England Expects : Lieutenant John Pasco not only flew the most famous signal in British history, he helped write it.
Running Late : Use these adverbial clauses in your own sentences.
Peggy’s Dog : Some lines from the comic verse of Thomas Hood, for reading aloud.
An Interruption : Report this conversation without using direct speech.
Tender Plants : Prince Albert regretted the destructive power of the Art Critic.
Lost for Words : Join these ideas together into a single sentence, using ‘although’ or ‘though’.
Loan Words : Match these words to the language they come from, whether Old Norse, Malay or Welsh.
Evidence : Join these ideas together to form a single sentence, using the relative pronoun ‘who’.
Fatal Vow : Robert Pierrepont called heaven to witness that he would never pick a side in the Civil War.
Lost and Found : What would you in these difficult situations?
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