As he reminded me of Tabby.

About 35 years ago we found, or rather my younger sister found him up in the hay loft one day when she went up to drop some hay down. He was in a corner, very weak and swore at us. I think he had gone up there to die, he had been in a fight I think. His ears all torn and his faced scarred. He was so weak that was all he could do when we wrapped him up in a blanket and brought him into the house. We had to keep our cats away from him in case he had any diseases. So put him in an upstairs room in the warm and on a soft cat bed and fed him. And he repaid us by swearing at us and looking cross at us every time we went in the room or close to him.

Every evening when I came home I would have my tea and then go and sit on the floor in the room where he would swear at me every now and then, but gradually the swearing slowed down and stopped as he got better and I moved closer and closer to him until I was sitting next to him. One day weak as he still was he just moved enough so as to be leant against me. This progressed until I lifted him onto my lap and he settled down and fell asleep. When we decided it was safe enough to bring him into the rest of the house, he spend all day in my mother’s room, on her bed, or looking out the window at the village street below. But when I came home in the evening he would come to me to be picked up and would spend the rest of evening having to be carried around by me. Draped on my shoulder or being carried like a baby.

A little over a year later he was unwell and I took him to our vets and we found out his kidneys had packed in and had to let him be put to sleep. When we got home I spent the evening with him on my lap, I could not bare to think of not holding this old bundle of ginger fur I had become so fond of (and yes I know and we called him Tabby and he was ginger). My mother and sister had to gently persuade me finally let go about eleven at night.

In the morning I buried him under the hedge where he would sit in the sun when he went out to do his business, before returning to wait at kitchen door to be let in and go up to my mother’s bedroom and watch the village street from her window.

Seeing poor old Jack in the video brought back all the memoirs and the tears at losing him.

An old street cat given a new life