Blackie was not the only black kitten born to The Cat. Two years later, when The Cat and Sprocket brought up their families together in the garden, The Cat once again had one black kitten. It was the runt of the litter and was named Boss (because, despite his small size, Boss was bossy). But the name didn’t seem right; it sounded too aggressive, so it was changed to Prince.

Prince was quite like Blackie in many ways – small, clever and daring. He was inquisitive and interested in everything that was going on around him.

He watched the two mothers, taking in everything they did, joining in with the bigger kittens when they started to learn to climb the olive tree.

And, one night, Prince scrambled up through the olive tree onto the high wall with some of the other kittens. Doubtless they were playing and tussling up there, and you can imagine that moment when Prince fell over the edge, probably clinging momentarily to an olive twig, before falling down into the drive. Luckily he was unhurt, but he was on his own, and it was the middle of the night. He knew he needed to be on the other side of the wall, but had no idea how to get there. So Prince investigated. He explored the windowsill, but the jump to the high wall was too much for a small kitten. He checked the garden gate, but it was closed. He paced up and down fretfully, listening to his family playing on the other side of the wall. And then he saw it. Blackie’s drainpipe through the wall, linking the drive with the garden. Perfect. History was about to repeat itself.

But Prince was bigger than Blackie, and the drainpipe was unforgiving. Using his back legs, he pushed himself half way in to the pipe. He wriggled and forced his head forwards, but the pipe was too small (or rather, he was too large). Whichever way he tried, he couldn’t get his rear end in to the pipe. So he backed out, painfully and slowly, from where he had been wedged and did what most other kittens would have done first – he wailed loudly and insistently.

The persistent crying paid off. It may have been 4.30am, but the humans’ ears were finely attuned to the sound of cats and kittens in distress at any time of the day or night, and help came quickly. The back gate was opened, Prince shot back into the garden, the gate was closed, and the equilibrium was restored.

It was only the following day when we saw Prince and Snopake tussling in the garden and saw the patches of bare skin on Prince’s back that we realised he had been stuck in the drainpipe and must have worn his fur away trying to escape.

Stone slabs were promptly placed at each end of the pipe to deter further adventurers and, within a few weeks, Prince’s fur had regrown with just the odd patch visible as a reminder.

With two months, Prince’s fur went smoothly from nose to tail, and no one would have known how he looked after his big adventure.

The biggest surprise was a few months later, when we discovered that Prince was actually a girl – of course by then, her name had stuck and she remained Prince.