Well, hello again, fans, and many apologies for my recent lack of communication! Please be assured, this was quite unintentional and entirely unplanned. As you will soon see, no one could have been more surprised than I was by what transpired during this time, but suffice to say that at the end of the day this has resulted in some most exciting news! That said, I’m sure you can’t wait to hear more, so without further ado, here is an account of the truly remarkable events that have led up to my current status:

It all kicked off early in August, when I received a recorded delivery letter from my cousin Lord Kvetcher – which, it must be said, is a highly unusual occurrence. Kvetch (as he is affectionately known to his family and friends) is currently stationed in Calais, France, where he is serving in the overseas unit of the Angry Rodent Brigade. Now Cousin Kvetch hardly ever writes letters, so as soon as I saw it was from him, I knew it had to be serious. But as my nervous fingers fumbled to open the envelope, nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to read…

He began by telling me that this unit is a special branch of the Army Reserves attached to the Home Office, whose job it is to intercept foreign rodents trying to enter the U.K. illegally. Many of these unfortunate creatures are either a threat to our own native species, or else carry deadly diseases that need to be kept out of Britain. This means the work is very dangerous and difficult, and in consequence of that, the unit has recently lost three high-ranking officers and eleven privates, including weasels, rats and mice. Some died of illnesses caught from the illegal immigrants, but most perished in combat. Shortly before writing his letter, Kvetch himself sustained a nasty wound to his neck while trying to stop a sickly black rat from jumping aboard a ship bound for Dover. Now he was fighting for his life in a French hospital, and turning to me for help…

‘Things here are bad, Grumpkin, really bad. More and more illegal rodents are crossing to Britain every day, and there just aren’t enough of us to stop them. We desperately need more recruits, and so of course I naturally thought of you. With all the acrobatic training you got in the circus, I’m quite certain you’d be ideal for this work. Could you come and see me? We can talk more about it then.’ And so with not a little trepidation, I booked my ticket for the ferry and reached the hospital by noon of the next day.

By then, much to my relief Kvetch was out of danger and well on the road to recovery. But as we sat and talked about the Angry Rodent Brigade, despite all my misgivings it soon became plain that I couldn’t ignore this new vocational calling. After all, who could be better suited than yours truly – the world famous Lion-Hearted Super-Rat – to take up such a noble challenge? Yes, fans, my country clearly needed me, and it was my duty to respond!

So with the decision made, I returned to the U.K. and duly applied to join the Army Reserves. Then amazingly enough, just one month later I was off to the Brecon Beacons for six weeks of basic training… which I have to tell you, were absolutely gruelling! Because of the dire shortage of recruits, our six week course consolidated what would normally be two phases of initial training into a single block of time, meaning that at the end of it we had been thoroughly trained in physical fitness, weapons handling, field craft, map reading, military terminology, first aid and army drill.

Our instructor was a nasty little weasel called Fang, who kept us all in order with a deadly set of incisors, routinely threatening to bite us whenever we didn’t jump to command fast enough. One day I forgot to polish my boots for the parade, so as punishment she made me run fifteen times round the compound in the sweltering summer heat with a fully loaded backpack. Then she caught another recruit chewing gum while on duty, and forced him to stand outside in the pouring rain instead of eating dinner with the rest of us in the mess hall. She left him there all night and then next day made him do a full morning’s work on an empty stomach. And as for the food – don’t get me started! Their porridge would make excellent wallpaper paste, their baked beans taste like wood chips boiled in orange paint – and believe me, you really don’t want to know what goes into their vegetarian sausages!

But to my enormous relief it was finally all over on October 13th, when I and the other recruits passed out of the Training Centre with a formal parade, followed by a rather splendid four-course dinner. As might be expected, my many friends and a large number of fans came to the ceremony to celebrate my success. Amongst them was Bumble the miniature badger, who after it was finished had this to say:

‘Well, twizzle my whiskers, Grumpkin, I didn’t know you had it in you! I suppose we’ll have to call you Private Grumpkin from now on, won’t we?’

‘Private Grumpkin? No, of course not!’ I said indignantly. ‘Being a soldier doesn’t mean I’m no longer an Aristoc-Rat, Bumble. I’m still perfectly entitled to be addressed as Lord Grumpkin of Grumblemore, just the same as always.’

‘Hmm, you might want to reconsider that, Grumpkin. After all, it’s a pretty big mouthful for your commanding officer to shout at you on the battlefield,’ he pointed out.

‘What do you mean, a big mouthful? What are you talking about?’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘imagine them barking out this order:  “Private Lord Grumpkin of Grumblemore – FIRE!” ’

‘Bumble, I do appreciate that most soldiers are not aristocrats,’ I snorted, ‘but what can possibly be wrong with using my full nobleman’s title on the battlefield?’

‘Oh, nothing, Grumpkin, nothing at all,’ he answered meekly. ‘Of course, you’ll just have to pray very hard that all the enemy soldiers have even longer names…’