Day 49

I was going to leave it a while before I did another cat story, dear Reader, but as you do seem to like them I will share another. Another cat we had was a cat called Skittles. Not quite sure how or why we named the cat Skittles dear Reader. Skittles the cat came into my life via my grandparents who were at the time living in Castleford and I first met Skittles on their coal bunker where my grandmother had put out some food for this stray tabby cat. Well I think it was a tabby, dear Reader, so we will go along with that.

I'm not quite sure how Skittles made the journey from Castleford to our house in Batley. I had become attached to this stray so I am presuming it was decided that I should take the cat. My gran was much more of a dog person.(I mentioned this in Day 48) Anyway Skittles was safe and sound in Batley, but not for long...

One day Skittles was not looking too good and seemed to be in a lot of pain, so my Ma knew at once what the problem was. Skittles was about to have kittens and was having a very bad labour. So she decided to get a neighbour to take Skittles and her to the vet. Skittles was in that much pain that a laundry basket was the mode of transport to put the cat in the car ( no fancy pet carriers back then). Once at the vets my Ma explained to the vet what was occurring. The vet quickly examined Skittles and turned and said to my Ma, "Mrs T your cat is not having kittens." 
"Are you sure?" Asks my Ma. 
"I am certain Mrs T" said the Vet. 
"How do you know?" said my Ma. 
"Well Mrs T you see, the problem is... Skittles is a TOM CAT!"
It turned out that Skittles had actually broken his tail. No not that one dear Reader, which would have given Ma the perfect excuse for her mix up.

It was not long before Skittles made another trip to the vets. This time he had been asleep under a car and not woken up or got stuck and ended up getting himself run over, but don't worry dear Reader, cats have nine lives so luckily so he was okay... well apart from that he had to have a special breathing pipe fitted that made him sound like Darth Vader. But with Star Wars being popular at the time he became a very popular cat.

Evening all x x x