Tradition dictates that the smallest kitten of The Cat’s litter is endowed with the largest brain. And Blackie (Tabby Bucket-Head’s sibling) was no exception.

While Ginge, Splodge and Tabby were negotiating the tricky journey from the drive to the garden which involved jumping up to land neatly in a stone birdbath, from there jumping to the windowcill, up to the field wall, then a vertical leap to the high wall and the descent of a large olive tree on the other side, Blackie was planning. Not for him swinging precariously from a thin olive branch having misjudged the highest leap. No. It was observed that while his siblings grappled, clawed and hung on for dear life, Blackie was already the other side of the wall.

Initially it was assumed that he was the best climber and had worked out a cunning shortcut. But the truth was that, as the smallest of the family, he could crawl through a drainpipe which he had discovered, linking the drive to the garden. What took Ginge, Splodge and Tabby a good ten minutes, Blackie could do in two. It was his discovery, and it stayed that way. Not because he didn’t want to share his knowledge, but because they wouldn’t have fitted through (…he said).

Blackie went on to invent Blackie’s Patented Double Hammock which he was happy to share with his siblings. The drainpipe however, seemed reserved for the sole use of black cats and subsequently sat unused until the arrival of Prince, several years later. But that’s another story.