Although many of the cats we were feeding and looking after might have had fleas, these were on the whole not detrimental to the cats’ health and, in the many years we were in contact with the cats, there was not a single instance when fleas were transferred to a human or were spotted indoors.

All the same, the advent of spot-on flea treatments was a boon to cat feeders and we made it our rule to apply the treatment only if the cat needed it. Sometimes this was relatively easy, sometimes impossible.

On the one hand there were cats like The Cat’s daughter, Flora. Despite having been brought up in and around the garden, Flora remained very nervous, and mistrustful of humans.

As an adult, she would have benefited from a flea treatment, but sadly it was impossible to get close enough to apply (in fact, trying again and again probably made her dislike the humans even more, and in the end we had to grudgingly admit defeat). It is evident in the second photo that Flora had patches on her ears and neck which she would scratch, leading to broken skin.

At the other end of the scale was She-ba’s kitten Moonstruck (who had come to the garden with her littermates Sundown and Cosmos). Moonstruck was obviously scratching a lot when she first arrived.

But after two days of working with Moonstruck to gain her trust through playing (including getting her used to having the back of her neck tickled), the spot-on treatment was applied on day three. Success – job done! She became so much more relaxed and finally started to use her energy to grow, instead of scratch.

It was very satisfying when a plan came together, especially when you could see the difference that the treatment was making.