One night a stray cat appeared at our back door hoping to be fed. This is his story.

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One evening, a face suddenly appeared looking in through our back door

This was not as dramatic as it sounds, as we had recently moved into a log cabin that had a feral cat living underneath who often appeared at the door waiting to be fed. However, this face was younger and considerably more male than “Mrs. Miggins” the resident feral, so we realized we had a new visitor. The cabin was built on stilts on a riverbank, with a covered verandah at the back overlooking the river, and this visitor sat on the verandah staring in at us and our resident cats, Baldrick and Meg. I carefully opened the sliding door and went out to greet our visitor. He was a little shy, after all, he had no idea what sort of reception he would receive. At first sight, he seemed almost portly, but I soon realized he had a very broad chest but was thin around the waist, and was obviously hoping for food. Of course, I obliged, as we always have spare food available for anyone in need of a meal. At first, he was wary, as he had heard stories about “crazy cat ladies”, but he was fairly sure that I didn’t fit at least one of those words.

He tucked in but kept one eye on me to make sure I wasn’t up to no good

I slowly reached out to him while he was eating, and he stood up ready to take flight if necessary, but graciously allowed me to softly stroke his back as long as he could continue to eat. We had an old sofa on the verandah, and I sat on it while he finished polishing off the food in the bowl. He climbed up onto the arm of the sofa and sat there licking his lips while judging me. He sat there belching a few times (something we would become all too familiar with) and then strolled off down the verandah and disappeared into the darkness. I didn’t know then whether he would be one of the many feline visitors we have had over the years who only appeared once or twice, or if he would be a regular visitor. We didn’t see him again for a few days, so I thought that was the last we had seen of him, but then one night he was there at the door again hoping to be fed.

Over the next few nights, we settled into a kind of routine

The resident elderly feral Mrs. Miggins would occupy the verandah during the day, and our new visitor would move in in the evening after Miggins had gone to bed under the cabin. We nicknamed them “the day shift” and “the night shift”, as they seemed to change over so that they were never on the verandah together. We had to think of a name for our new visitor, and as we name all our cats after characters from the TV series “Blackadder”, he became Melchett. He would arrive for dinner each evening and then sit next to me on the sofa. As the evenings gradually became colder I would sit on the sofa with a blanket over me, and Melchett started to lie on the blanket on top of me. If I tried to stroke him he would lash out, but if I left him in peace he would settle down with me on the sofa. It was the start of a long cold winter and it looked like I would be spending many evenings outside before Melchett started to trust us. If I picked up my camera he would hide as if he was used to someone throwing things at him, and if I tried to walk past him he would cower as if he was used to being kicked.

Our oil tank was in a shed built on stilts, and one night I found Melchett lying on top of the tank in one of Miggins’ favorite sleeping spots

He wasn’t agile enough to get down, so I started to lift him down. He had previously allowed me to lift him for a couple of seconds, but the few seconds it took to get him down from the tank was obviously too much and he turned and bit me hard on the left hand right down to the knuckles. He dropped out of my grip and ran off into the darkness and did not return that night. The next night he returned and after he had eaten I tried to get some photos of him. He was still scared of me picking the camera up, but he sat in my lap and I managed to get some photos of both of us. You can’t see it in the photos, but the hand I was holding the camera with was by this point badly swollen and bandaged after plentiful applications of antiseptic. These are still some of my favorite pictures of Melchett and I like to think he was sorry for hurting me.

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Just after Christmas, Meg passed away after struggling with the effects of FIV

Tortoiseshell Meg was a gentle soul who just wanted a quiet life. She once lay in front of the fireplace watching a mouse play, and Baldrick had to jump over her to catch it. We buried her on the riverbank overlooking the meadows around the cabin.

After a few weeks, Melchett decided to have a look inside the house

He managed to find a cardboard box filled with biodegradable packing materials hidden under the TV table which has a tablecloth over it. The contents were a bit like white-colored Cheetos or Wotsits and he decided this must be one of those “litter trays” he had heard about and made full use of the facilities. Since that night, we have always kept a litter tray hidden under the TV, and was the only one he would use. Years later he was still nervous about using litter trays, and we suspect that in his early life, he was shouted at for doing anything indoors.

One evening I came home from work to find the road to the cabin flooded as the river had overflowed

I ended up wading a mile through waist-deep water by the light of the full moon to get back to the cabin. For most of the winter we spent in the cabin, the river was in flood. The garden was underwater, and the river flowed under the verandah and the back of the cabin. One night I arrived home from work after dark and went through the side gate straight onto the verandah. Melchett was taken by surprise, panicked, and ran straight off the end of the deck and dropped into the floodwaters in the dark. He didn’t appear for the next few nights and we really thought that was the last we had seen of him, but then one night he suddenly reappeared as if nothing had happened. We never found out how he escaped from the river.

After a few months at the cabin, Miggins decided one day that she would move in with us

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We opened the door one morning and she just walked in, strolled around the cabin, and decided she quite liked the look of the place and that was that. She still liked to sleep outside from time to time, usually on a pile of dead leaves or some gravel, but she was happy to stay indoors too. She would wake us at dawn by standing on the bedside table, drooling into Lisa’s ear, and meowing loudly. Our resident cat Baldrick wasn’t too happy about the locals moving in, but he was too scared of Miggins to do anything about it.

Not long after we moved into the cabin, we found out that our landlord had decided to sell the property and we had to look for somewhere else to live

At this point, we had just buried Meg, Miggins had only just moved in and Melchett was still just on the night shift so this was a bit of a shock. We didn’t know whether we would be able to take Melchett with us, and we didn’t want to leave him behind. We managed to find a bungalow on a cul-de-sac with woodland behind it and open fields to one side. There was a garage in which we would be able to keep Melchett while he became accustomed to his new location. As the weeks passed up to the move, I spent every evening on the verandah with Melchett as he gradually became more used to us. I started putting his food bowl inside a cat carrier so that he would get used to going inside it. A few days before the move, Melchett stopped visiting and we did not see him once before we moved and we thought we would not get a chance to take him with us. On the day we moved we took all our belongings as well as Baldrick and Miggins to the bungalow. After moving everything else, I went back to the cabin with the carrier and a bowl of food hoping to find Melchett. The local farmer had moved his cows into the field surrounding the cabin, and there was no sign of Melchett anywhere. I sat on the verandah in the dark watching across the field and waited for him. When I was just about to give up, he suddenly appeared on the river side of the cabin and climbed up onto the verandah. He must have been scared by the cows and had to take a long way around. I managed to tempt him into the carrier with a bowl of food, and we finally left the cabin (and Meg) behind.

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We put Melchett in his new garage home with a bed and litter tray, as well as the old sofa from the verandah at the cabin

Lisa and I would sit with him each day as we hoped he would settle down. Unfortunately, the garage had a clear plastic roof, and after a few days, a spell of very warm weather started (in April!) and it soon became apparent that we would not be able to leave Melchett in there. We put a collar and tag on him and let him out into the garden from where he promptly disappeared under the hedge and into the woodland at the bottom of the garden. Once again, we thought we might never see him again, but after a few hours, he returned for his supper. There was a covered seating area at the back of the bungalow, so we moved Melchett’s sofa into that, and this became his ‘home’ for the next few months. We started to leave the back door of the bungalow open at night so that Miggins could go out and we left food just inside so that Melchett would start to come in to feed.

Melchett gradually started to settle down and spend more time indoors as he started to trust us more, although one day he went to hide behind the fridge when I walked into the kitchen whistling so we think he may have been mistreated by someone who whistled

It is so difficult to guess what has happened to stray cats before they cross paths with us. At this point, he was still a “whole” tomcat, and each day he would set off across the fields by the house to visit a nearby stable. This was home to several cats, and he would often come home looking a bit the worse for wear and was picking fights with Baldrick as well, so he went for a visit to the vet. After this, he calmed down a lot and was soon being bullied by Baldrick rather than the other way around.

Miggins settled in well to her new domestic lifestyle although we knew she probably wouldn’t have long with us

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She spent the summer and autumn sunbathing in the garden and occasionally being annoyed by Baldrick. She became very affectionate, and even though we knew it was coming it was still a shock when she passed away on Christmas Eve. We buried her by a patch of flowers where she had enjoyed sunbathing.

The cats had to put up with me taking photographs in their garden, often involving throwing water around which they weren’t too impressed about

I could almost hear them saying “that idiot is throwing water at himself again” and wondering who would feed them if they had me locked up for my own safety. Lisa often helped by throwing water at me, it’s the little things that help keep a marriage going.

Melchett struggled to turn his neck much, so perfected the ability to reach into all corners with his tongue, leading to comparisons with Gene Simmons from the group Kiss

Around this time, Baldrick and Melchett decided to start their own Facebook page and continued their descent into catnip addiction

Melchett really started to settle down, and gradually realized that he could play with toys. The new favorite toy was “Hedgepig”, a toy hedgehog on a string, although a succession of “Mousies” also came and went. Melchett also had a soft spot for a catnip fish called a willow kipper.

After a couple of years in the bungalow, we found out that our landlord wanted to sell, so it was time to move again

We found a house on a hillside above a village, with a garden on several levels up the hillside. It was like an adventure playground for cats and was on a no-through road. Baldrick had great fun jumping around on the pile of boxes as we were packing, but Melchett could sense that change was about to happen.

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Baldrick and Melchett had great fun exploring the new house, which had stairs for the first time in a few years, and views of the neighbors from the upstairs windows

They soon decided that the prime location in the new house was the radiator shelf in the living room, which had the advantage of under bum heating and was next to the windowsill eating area from where they could keep an eye on the neighbors. The next best was the “conservatory” at the back of the house with panoramic views of their new garden and from where they could keep an eye out for intruders.

Once they had settled down, we allowed them outside to start exploring the garden

At the bottom of the garden, there was a wood panel fence beyond which there was a drop of about twenty feet to the garden below which was lower down the hill. Melchett climbed up onto the fence and then immediately jumped off the other side which looked like he had dropped straight down into the other garden. Fortunately, there was a bit more of our garden behind the fence before the drop.

Near the top of the new garden was a flat patio area which we nicknamed ‘the platform’ which the cats loved because it gave views all around the neighborhood and beyond

This became the prime area for games and catnip binges over the next few years.

Once again we had a range of birds visiting the garden, most of which didn’t seem too bothered by the presence of the cats and would happily sit watching the cats while I watched the cats and the cats watched me to see if I would do anything entertaining

One day, Melchett discovered some bird food pellets on the garden table and decided that bird food must be made from birds. Judging by the look on his face that was not the case.

During one of his more adventurous moments, Melchett was walking across a wooden fence and slipped off

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He ended up hanging on with his front paws and thrashed around wildly trying to climb back on when he was only a couple of inches above the ground. It took him quite a while to climb back on and then he stepped off onto the ground. Baldrick was never very bright, but there were times when Melchett was a pretty close second.

Around this time, we noticed that Melchett’s right eye was becoming discolored and we took him to the vet a couple of times but the vet assured us it was nothing to worry about

We took him again months later only to discover that he had a cataract in his right eye and were sent off to see a posh eye specialist. All the other patients at the specialist were pedigree dogs with inherited eye problems, so Melchett was a bit out of his depth but maintained his usual level of dignity. After thirty minutes of poking and prodding in a dark room, the vet told us (well she told me but Melchett was listening too) that he had a cataract in his right eye and glaucoma in his left. He had no sight in his right eye but the sight in his left was still OK. He had to have eye drops several times a day, steroids to stop inflammation in his right eye, and pressure-reducing drops in his left. He hated the steroid drops as he said they tasted funny (he had to explain to me that it is possible to taste eye drops) but he doesn’t hold a grudge for long so usually forgave me within a few minutes of me giving him the drops.

Baldrick’s health started to deteriorate quite suddenly and he was diagnosed with a severe heart murmur and was put on pills twice a day

He still acted like a kitten even at the age of 13, and we thought his condition was under control but then one night I found his little body on the mat by the back door with Melchett sitting next to him. He must have passed just after we went to bed, it felt like he had waited for us to go upstairs before he gave up. He had been with us through many house moves and other trials and tribulations as well as the loss of several other cats and it seemed that he would always be with us. For months after, we still found clumps of ginger fur in various places, especially on his favorite spot on the garden path, and it took a long time to come to terms with his loss.

Baldrick was such a character that it seemed like we would never have another cat like him, but only a month after his loss, Lisa met and fell for a tabby kitten at the Cats Protection branch where she volunteers

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He was known as “Gatito” (little cat) because he was so small, and had to be kept in a cage on his own at the rescue center because he kept biting his mother. He soon adopted us and was renamed “Edmund” after a character from the TV series Blackadder. The moment we released him from his carrier he was like the Tasmanian devil, twirling and jumping all around the bedroom, and we joked that he would become the most photographed cat in the world which is probably not too far from the truth.

Melchett wasn’t overly impressed with the new addition to the family

Edmund decided early on that Melchett was entertainment and would jump on him at every opportunity. Melchett was usually fairly peace-loving but his patience was worn very thin. For the first few weeks, Edmund slept in a cage that was originally home to a German shepherd dog. This allowed Melchett to get some sleep and stopped Edmund from doing anything too suicidal.

During Edmund’s first winter with us, we had several snow storms including one which was dubbed “The Beast From The East” by the UK media

Melchett was quite happy trundling his way through the deep snow.

We decided around this time to move somewhere with more open space for Edmund to run around in

He was built like a miniature cheetah and really needed a field to run in. We managed to find a mobile home next to a field and some woodland. It was just outside a village and seemed like the ideal location for Edmund and Melchett.

We had one snowfall during our time in the caravan, and Edmund made the most of it

He ran, jumped, and skidded all over the field and seemed even less likely than usual to stay still. Melchett just sat under one of the vans scowling at the inconvenience of it all.

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We noticed that Melchett was drooling so took him to the vet to find out that he needed a couple of teeth removing

Shortly after that, he had his six-monthly check at the eye specialist where we found out that his cataract was deteriorating which was causing a big increase in pressure in his eye so it needed to be removed. He was already blind in that eye so he didn’t lose any vision. He had to wear a cone for three weeks which he really hated and Edmund thought smelled funny.

One day I was at work and received a phone call from Lisa which rarely happened so I knew it must be something fairly serious

All sorts of thoughts came into my head – maybe something had happened to Melchett, maybe something had happened to one of our parents who are all at the sort of age where you start to brace yourself for the inevitable bad news. Maybe she had had problems with her car or the heating had stopped working. The one thing I never thought of and was totally unprepared for – was “Edmund’s dead”. Two short words carried so much weight. He had been hit by a car that never stopped on a road that has only a handful of vehicles each day.

One thing I have learned from this experience is to appreciate the now

We spend too much of our lives looking forward to a future that may never happen or back to a past that probably never happened the way we remember it. Edmund embodied living in the moment and in his twenty-nine-month life packed as much enjoyment as he could into every moment. He seems to have touched the hearts of many around the world with the joy he expressed in everything he did. At a time when there is so much bad news and reasons to be fearful he seems to have been a brief light in the darkness in a way that came as a surprise to a grumpy old curmudgeon like me.

After we lost Edmund, Melchett did his best to keep the spirit of Edmund alive

He played with toys that he hadn’t looked at for years, running up and down the stairs, and sitting halfway up the stairs at the spot where Edmund used to sit and watch us in the living room. But at heart, Melchett realized that he was destined to be the unappreciated sidekick, like Alfred with Batman, Penny with Inspector Gadget, Teller with Penn, Wise with Morecambe, or Crosby with Hope.

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Not long after we lost Edmund, Lisa met and fell in love with a blind cat at Cats Protection

We named her Gertrude, and Melchett and her would both “hide” from us in the garden.

A few months later, Melchett started to develop thyroid problems

We tried medication but he had a really bad reaction, so he had to have yet another operation (his fifth in two years).

Melchett had a slower life after his thyroid op, but still went out on patrol from time to time

As Melchett gradually slowed down, we knew we would have to prepare ourselves for what was coming. One day, he was struggling to walk and we knew the time had come to take him for his last trip to the vet.

After being a frightened stray at our back door, he ended up with us for ten years and will not be forgotten

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