Pets
We inherited a cat with the shop who was an old fluffy, grey tomcat called Smokey. The Wilsons tried to take Smokey with them to their farm at the other end of the village, but he kept coming back and so he became our first cat. When he died, from old age I think, we missed having a cat about the place and were pleased to have one of Yvonne Revels kittens, who was grey but with pale ginger patches.
I cannot remember if she had a proper name originally but soon became “Mum Puss” as she had a lot of babies. We kept one of her female kittens called Muffin and had some fun when they both had kittens at the same time.
Mum Puss spent the whole time (when Muffin was outside) taking her daughter’s babies out of her box and adding them to her family. The young Mum soon got the hang of motherhood and collected her family from Grandma’s.
One kitten I remember was Horace, a tabby tom who we gave to Brenda Howes (Overton), a friend from Letchworth Grammar School. Brenda was a wonderful artist; particularly at drawing horses and in 1953 when it was the Coronation she did a super mural type painting in art class of the Queen’s procession in her golden coach. I was helping her by painting the background of people in the crowds who lined the roadside and we became friends.
Many years later she had a Studio in Mill Street, Ashwell and sold pictures. Peter Sackett happened to visit and mentioned his name and she reminded him of Horace the kitten, which she had for many years but with a different name.
Sylvester was a black and white tom, a very smart cat with black glossy coat, white shirtfront and white front paws. We felt he was like Victor Sylvester, the dance bandleader in dress suit.
Honey was a pale ginger female cat who was very pretty and cute too. As we could not bear to part with her, Mum and Dad Easterbrook were persuaded to give her a home until we married and had a place of our own.
Colin took her back to Bristol in a box on the train with her struggling to get out most of the way. He had very scratched fingers by the time he got on the Bristol train at King Cross station, as he was trying to keep the box lid closed. As the train was fairly empty he eventually allowed her out and enjoyed the rest of the journey back to Temple Meads much more happily.
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