Whereas there were a few completely black cats, there were no completely white cats among the Garden Family members. The closest was Snopake who was Sprocket’s daughter (and The Cat’s grand-daughter) who was brought up by The Cat and Sprocket when they combined their families into one colony in the garden.

Snopake was the runt of Sprocket’s litter and, as a tiny kitten, appeared to be white. But as she grew, it became clear that she was a very dilute calico with pale peach patches on a white background, and a tail banded with white, peach and tawny-grey. Snopake was the only member of The Cat’s family to retain her baby-blue eyes and, in fact, the only blue-eyed cat we ever cared for.

Being the smallest, Snopake was always keen to snuggle in the middle of everyone to feel warm and protected. Very often, all you could see of Snopake was was a white nose and maybe a paw sticking out from the middle of a pile of kittens. Here she is cuddled up with her brother Early Lately (the dark orange cat under her chin), and The Cat’s kittens Prince, Tippex and Big Bang.

Growing up in a colony meant that Snopake in effect had two mothers – The Cat (actually her grandmother) and Sprocket, who was her natural mother. The Cat had nursed the runts of the two litters while Sprocket looked after the stronger kittens, and it was not a surprise that most of the kittens were equally at home with either mother (or preferably both!).

As Snopake grew physically, she became more confident. She didn’t need to be in the middle of the pile any more (and, in any case, Prince made a very comfortable chin-rest).

Snopake’s independence grew and she started to display her mother’s (and grandmother’s) typical tortoiseshell spirit. She took on all comers; she tussled with kittens much bigger than herself and won. She was becoming feisty, and a force to be reckoned with, and she could run very fast to escape, should she be in danger of losing her fights.

There were times when she appeared to be half cat, half elastic band as she was able to contort herself into the strangest shapes, and still sleep soundly. How could her back legs face the opposite way to her front legs? What exactly was she made of?

As the kittens became more independent, The Cat and Sprocket would leave them alone for a while and go together each afternoon over the aviary roof, picking their way along some roof-level water pipes to our neighbours’ terrace, where there was a stone bench on which they would nap. The terrace was near enough to the garden for the mothers to be within a couple of minutes of returning should they be needed, but far enough away for none of the kittens to follow them. Or so they thought. But young adventurer Snopake had other ideas and worked out the whole trek on her own; she looked so small napping away there; none of the other kittens were ever spotted there.

In some ways, the more Snopake grew, the whiter she looked – there was never another cat like Snopake in colouring and she retained her feisty spirit as she grew up.

There were no clues as to who Snopake’s father was, but she certainly had the tortoiseshell spirit of her mother and grandmother to see her through – she really was small but mighty.