Memories of childhood cats
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I’ve lived with cats as long as I can remember. As a child, there were always 3 or 4 of them running about the house and garden. It was wartime, and times were hard, so we had vegetables and chickens and rabbits in the back garden. The cats needs of course, did not rank highly in such conditions, and they lived off scraps from the table and presumably a mouse or bird here and there. But their staple diet was a mixture of thin soup with dry bread in it. They seemed to manage on this for several years with no apparent ill effects. There was certainly no luxury tinned food and expensive toys for them in those days!
Peter, a big black tom, died when I was very young, I’d known for a while that he was sick, and he eventually disappeared as cats do, to find his final resting place. I watched saucer-eyed when he was found weeks later in a cupboard under the stairs, and my father carried him out, stiff as a board. Later, I remember, we had a little row of graves at the end of the garden, in honour of our dear cats.
Vicky was a big grey tabby, the bully of the family. He was always getting into trouble, and if there were cat fights in the garden, it was nearly always him. He came back once with half his ear missing and various scars, but he didn’t seem to care about such minor details. One afternoon in the garden, the rabbit cage got knocked over, and about 10 baby rabbits escaped. I looked on in awe as Vicky chased around the garden, slaughtering them as quickly as he could, while my mother and sister ran frantically round trying to catch them before he did. He probably considered that to be one of his better days!
Timmy was next down the hierarchy at that time, a mild black and white cat who’s only interest in life was sitting around and sleeping and getting in the way.
But my favourite buddy was Jinx, a fragile little orange tabby, a female I think, which is apparently unusual. I remember my father coming home one evening slightly inebriated, his raincoat dripping from the storm outside. After a short discussion with my mother, he reached into his pocket and pulled out - a bedraggled, soaking wet kitten! She was a poor, lost soul that he had found on his walk, probably not even a couple of months old. My mother was definately not amused, but we persuaded her to keep the little mite, even though it was a female (my mum would only have males). She thought we had enough cats already! We called her Jinx, and she was very timid, but quick and cunning as all cats are.
My mother enforced a fairly strict curfew, and if the cats weren’t in by 11 in the evening, then they stayed out. This was no fun in the winter of course, but Jinx worked out a devious plan. My bedroom faced out onto the back garden on the first floor. Underneath the window was a sloping roof over the pantry. Opposite this, across the path, was an old bicycle shed. Jinx worked out that by hopping up onto a high, narrow fence, she could then leap up onto the roof of the bicycle shed, leap across the path onto the sloping roof, scramble up and scratch on my window. She knew a sucker when she saw one. This resulted in us being regular bed companions, since she didn’t need to worry about the curfew. For me this was better than a hot water bottle, as there was no heating in my bedroom, and I would sometimes wake up with ice on the blankets from my breathing and thick ice crystals on both sides of the window. Once in the middle of winter, when there was snow and ice on the pantry roof, Jinx came up and scratched on my window as usual, but then presumably lost her footing. She slid gracelessly down the roof and landed with a thump in the path. Not 10 seconds later she was scrambling her perilous path back up, and we tucked ourselves in under my blankets as ever to keep each other warm.
I left England when I was 20, and from then on, my mother would only have one cat at a time. They were always called Timmy.
So those of you that have read of Randi’s reservations to Fister being in our bed (see “The Battle of the Bed”) will understand why I was so doubtful about being able to keep HIM off!
John
