This charming cat that lit up our lives

AFTER Christmas, a stray cat started to live under an old railway carriage near to our house. We started to leave out food for the creature and gradually he got bolder and would come out and feed. My son, a fan of The Smiths, named him Morrissey, after the singer. He was a young grey-and-white male cat who hated being picked up, but eventually would allow us to stroke him. We often wondered where he came from, but no one around seemed to have lost a cat and he hadn’t been microchipped. Morrissey decided we were quite nice, but was happy to carry on living in the railway carriage. He ventured into the house a few times, but left his calling card on the sofa! When it was cold I would put a hot water bottle in his bed. Morrissey soon became a fixture around our garden. He appeared every morning without fail for breakfast and, much to the frustration of our dogs, would lie on the kennel roof or stroll nonchalantly in front of the gate. He would play with our own young cat and was a formidable hunter. Sadly, a few weeks ago, I found Morrissey in the barn. We think he had been hit by a car and had died in the night. He did leave us with a lasting reminder, though, in the shape of two grey and white kittens who look just like him, two tortoiseshell kittens that look like their mother, and a black and white one. Any plans to take him to get the snip at the vet had obviously come a little too late! Jo Hawkins, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warks.