August 2011
Somehow, mum had never been that struck with poor long haired tortoiseshell cat, Dinky. She, Dinky that is, was a little bit too highly strung for her liking and so was, I'm afraid, a bit of a disappointment as the first cat we'd owned for many years.
That summer we went to Blackpool for a week's holiday and during a wet and very windy day we decided to wander through an interesting arcade only a stone's throw from the famous tower. There happened to be a pet shop there, which, amongst other animals, housed a few monkeys.
Next to the monkeys' cage, however, was a little grey kitten, whom mum took an instant liking to. In fact she was so entranced by the creature that she wanted to buy him! I was dumbfounded! Not only did we have a perfectly good year old cat at home, but the only means of transport we had was a train to London, from where we had to get to Ilford. True, we were to be picked up from Kings Cross, but the person performing this function was a not very reliable relation. Surely she wasn't serious?
Anyway, the day came for our return to London and we duly went to the pet shop where mum paid the money for the grey kitten (five shillings, whereas Dinky had only cost half a crown!) and the lady gently placed the kitten into a small cardboard box, not much bigger than a shoe box, with a couple of air holes bored into it.
So it was that we climbed into a vacant compartment in the London bound train and Dandy, as he was later christened, was placed carefully on the luggage rack.
The carriage soon filled up and a boy my age with his parents got on and unthinkingly threw his coat onto the cardboard box. I think he was a bit taken aback when mum asked him nicely to remove the coat as there was a kitten in the box!
Well, apart from the occasional miaow from the interior of the box, the rest of the journey passed without incident. But needless to say, our notoriously unreliable relative never turned up. When it dawned on us that he wasn't waiting at another part of the station and that he'd forgotten he'd promised to give us a lift (or most likely couldn't be bothered), we realised we'd have to drag poor Dandy, still imprisoned in his cardboard box, onto a taxi, then an underground train, then a bus and finally being manhandled by us walking the last half mile or so.
So far as I can remember he didn't have to perform any necessary bodily functions in all that time. I think this was a portent of what a placid character he would turn out to be.
When he was finally freed from his cardboard prison, he was naturally very inquisitive, but a bit nervous too. This was only to be expected after such a long journey in the near darkness only to end up in an unknown environment.
As if this wasn't bad enough, he had to contend with another cat who considered herself mistress of the house. When Dinky entered, even before she spied Dandy, the look of suspicion on her face was priceless. Of course, as soon as she set eyes on him she swiped him and growled threateningly. At first he had to take it, especially as she was twice his size and always would be. (Even at the age of twelve, people would say what a beautiful kitten he was.)
Soon, though, he learned to give as good as he got and would stalk Dinky and attack her, but only in fun, though Dinky didn't consider it fun. Thus, what Dandy instigated as a lark would often turn into a battle royal.
However, for the most part the pair became devoted friends, sleeping together mostly entwined in a mixed heap of short grey and brown long hair, fur and paws.
Dinky lived to be twelve, but little Dandy lived to sixteen and so was around for my early teens to my late twenties, so as it turned out I was very glad that mum did decide to bring that cardboard box back with us all those years ago.