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Jasper appeared out of the blue one day, decided that we were worth his trust, moved in and stayed for the next seventeen years.

We called him Jasper because he had very strong black and gold tabby markings, a real wasp and where I come from in Kent, wasps are known as Jaspers'. Jasper was actually a female cat, although it never seemed to occur to him that he was even a cat let alone a girl. He arrived with his silver tabby sister who we called Jemma and we estimated their age to be about seven months. The pair were in a very pitiful condition, very thin and dirty and Jemma was obviously pregnant. Jasper struggled against his past to trust us, but eventually felt sufficiently reassured that we were not going to harm him and within three weeks they had adopted us and moved in. From then on our lives were never to be the same again.

Jasper was very much a people's cat; he loved company and would seek out someone to share his time with whenever he could. Inevitably, if you were engrossed in an activity, whether car cleaning, cooking a meal, gardening or just watching television, then Jasper would be there with you. He loved the car and took to riding from the garage to the main road on the roof of the car. His ears would be slicked back and his eyes screwed into slits against the airflow. Once at the junction, he would jump down and saunter back down the lane to sleep on the lip of the up and over garage door, waiting until he heard the car and would meet you on the lane for the return ride. Another particular pleasure was bonfires and many was the time that he would come home with streaming eyes and fur that would retain a pungent smoky odour for many days. Over the years and at various different addresses our neighbours became used to seeing Jasper scramble over their fences to join in a rubbish burning session.

There were, however, some occasions when our neighbours were less than happy with Jasper and we did occasionally receive complaints about him. By far the worst one was in relation to ham sandwiches and the builders on a housing estate.

When we moved to Chepstow we were only the third family to move onto the new Bryant Estate, neighbouring houses were in various stages of build and teams of plumbers, carpenters and brick layers rumbled in every morning. It soon became obvious that Jasper had been to introduce himself to the nearby workmen when every day from Monday to Friday, you could set your watch by the clang of his cat-flap at 12.45pm on the dot.

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