52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History #17: Pets

Week 17. Pets. Did you have any pets as a child? If so, what types and what were their names. Do you have pets now? Describe them as well. If you did not have pets, you can discuss those of neighbors or other family members.



Well, the pet I remember most when I was tiny was my mother's cat. Jet black and a VERY superior animal, Chloe was in fact a boy cat. And my cousin, when she was learning to talk, called him "Coe the Clat"... Here is my favourite photo of him. He is sitting just out of my reach (I am the baby), and you can just imagine him saying "Humans!" in a very long-suffering way.

After he died (he was knocked over by a speeding motorist) my mother never had another pet.  She had loved Chloe too much.  I remember the night I found him lying in the gutter, and how I ran screaming all the way home (I was six), and how she held him in her arms and just cried.  My mother never cried.

When I was a child, I had two gerbils: Mischief and Garibaldi.  'Mischief' because...well...he was always into mischief; and 'Garibaldi' because his two tiny black eyes looked just like the currants in Garibaldi biscuits.

When I was small, my father used to race pigeons when we lived in London.  Later, when I was older and we lived in Somerset, Dad still kept pigeons, but they were no longer for racing.  They were homing pigeons, and I learned to take care of them - and have solemn funeral services for the chicks who never made it all the way out of the egg.  Maybe that's what sparked my interest in religion? LOL