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I used to have three cats. Bernard was the oldest followed by Sam and then Bisley.

Bernard had the air of a retired colonel busy snoring in his chair at the club with a soda syphon and a decanter of whiskey by his side. He really did snore by the way.

Bisley had the biggest, brightest eyes, the fluffiest coat, the daintiest feet and the biggest stomach you've ever seen. She used to go through the cat flap in a ripple. She even had to pull herself through with her claws; it was like a furry cork being pushed back into a bottle. The slightest thing used to scare her. If she were a film star she'd be the fat lady in the sequinned dress that was either screaming or fainting.

Sam was living proof that cousins should never have children. He was without doubt the scruffiest, most unkempt cat I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. When he came in through the cat flap he always brought with him a selection of leaves, twigs, mud in his coat and a variety of nuts bolts and screws stuck to the magnet that operated the cat flap. He even once came in with a huge orange slug dangling from his collar like a necklace. Sam was completely oblivious to the stowaway; he probably just thought he'd found a friend.

Sam has always been mute even when he set fire to himself by sitting on a cigarette butt, and the occasion when I inadvertently stood on his tail and he tried to walk off and wondered why he wasn't getting anywhere.

He has always had his own very special, personal cologne.

You can appreciate how difficult it was to know when anything was wrong with him. Living in the cesspool of life I just assumed that his constitution acclimatised to the inordinately high level of bacterial activity within his body.

So it was quite fortuitous that I noticed we weren't getting through quite so much cat food and spotted that Sam was looking a little thinner than usual. Down to the vets I went with him. Nice vet man, Nigel (looked a lot like cro-magnon man), gave him a once over, declared him dehydrated and suffering from very nasty teeth (niotinhg out of character there then).

Sam was put on a drip and a course of strong antibiotics. Two days later after undergoing a session on the operating table to have the offending teeth removed and ultra-sonic descale he was returned minus two teeth. For those with a morbid interest in dental matters, the removals were a canine and a molar, and somewhat disconcertingly his cologne as well. We used to know where he was just by sniffing but we had to actually go and find him.

Sadly they have all gone to feed at the great cat bowl in the sky, tremendous characters never to be equalled and never to be forgotten.

Learn more about this author, Ian Pauley.
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