Chase, Willow, Tiggy and Barney

By Jan Doyle

Chase, Willow, Tiggy, and Barney is a heartwarming true story that is sure to resonate with cat lovers everywhere. This book takes you on a journey through the lives of four unique cats who brought an array of changes, challenges, and joys to our lives.

The story begins with Tiggy, a confident cat who nonchalantly followed us home one day and decided to make our house her own. Next came Barney, whose initially promising relationship with us took a turn when he began exhibiting aggressive behaviour.

Willow, a shy and timid cat, joined our family and slowly learned the joys of the outdoors, while Chase, the outgoing explorer, preferred the comforts of indoors and needed gentle persuasion to venture outside.

Chase’s story takes a touching turn when, after a change in my work schedule left him alone for longer periods, he began to visit local shops, people’s homes, and most notably, a nearby care home. His presence there became so cherished that one of the residents, deeply missing him after his unfortunate accident, requested a special visit. The reunion between Chase and the resident, brought together in her wheelchair, was a profoundly emotional moment.

This book is a tribute to the deep bond between humans and their feline companions, celebrating the unique personality of each cat and the indelible mark they leave on our hearts. Join us on this journey filled with laughter, challenges, and poignant memories, as we recount the unforgettable impact of Chase, Willow, Tiggy, and Barney.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Apr 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9781035846610

Jan Doyle

I am an author who, despite being extremely nervous, finally decided to publish my book at the age of 72. The thought ‘now or never’ was the decisive factor after investing so much time and effort into writing. I never expected that Austin Macauley Publishers would agree to publish it. In fact, when they responded to my manuscript, it took over a week for me to muster the courage to open their email. When I did, I had to repeatedly check to ensure I hadn’t misread their acceptance. This book is the culmination of countless lunch hours at work, travel time to and from work, weekends, and scribbles on yellow stickers, which I later deciphered. I felt I owed it to Chase, Willow, Tiggy, and Barney to take a chance with this book. Even if it ends up in Poundland, or starts there at ten for a pound, I believe it’s better than not trying at all.

Book preview

About the Author

I am an author who, despite being extremely nervous, finally decided to publish my book at the age of 72. The thought ‘now or never’ was the decisive factor after investing so much time and effort into writing. I never expected that Austin Macauley Publishers would agree to publish it. In fact, when they responded to my manuscript, it took over a week for me to muster the courage to open their email. When I did, I had to repeatedly check to ensure I hadn’t misread their acceptance.

This book is the culmination of countless lunch hours at work, travel time to and from work, weekends, and scribbles on yellow stickers, which I later deciphered. I felt I owed it to Chase, Willow, Tiggy, and Barney to take a chance with this book. Even if it ends up in Poundland, or starts there at ten for a pound, I believe it’s better than not trying at all.

Dedication

For the unforgettable memories of Chase, Willow, Tiggy and Barney.

Copyright Information ©

Jan Doyle 2024

The right of Author Name to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with Sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035846603 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035846610 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Bev and Joe, for looking after Tiggy, Chase, and Willow, whilst we were on holiday.

Marian for all the love that she showed willow, during our Friday morning visits.

Jill and Ray for letting chase wander in and out of their house and play with Henry and Emily’s toys, whilst demolishing the contents of their food-bowls and having a catnap whenever he felt like it.

Chase’s many friends at the care-home and their visitors. The charity shop and half of the population of Sidcup that he encountered during his daily travels.

I would like to thank Austin Macauley for all their hard work in publishing this book for me.

And, last but not least, Celia Hammond, for allowing us to adopt three wonderful cats, and for all their help and advice when we first adopted Barney, Chase and Willow, and all their hard work whilst rescuing and rehoming unwanted and stray cats.

The Visitor

It all started back on Christmas Eve 2003 when I was coming home from shopping, that I had the feeling that I was being followed. I went through the front door, quickly closing it behind me; then, whilst unpacking my shopping, I realised that my stalker was actually a cat. She made herself comfortable by the armchair and decided not to move. After a while, I shooed her out the door and thought no more of it.

Two days later, she followed my dear partner, Joe, through the door, but Joe decided that she was just exploring and gently led her out again but, by the end of the week, she had made up her mind; she was here for good. The next day, she tried to follow Joe through the front door but Joe sadly shut the door behind her (or so he thought), then went upstairs to continue studying for his Microsoft exams, when he suddenly saw a figure dart in front of him.

How she had managed to get through the front door, without Joe noticing, was anybody’s guess. Yet again, he decided that she must belong to somebody, so out the door she went.

By the following Sunday night, she had crept up behind me, dashed into the living room, ‘put her paws down’, and was determined not to move. She cried so much when we tried to gently push her out the door that we decided to let her stay. I went up to bed but then came down again to see if she was OK. She stared at me and I stared at her, then I went back to bed. I came down again and found her asleep, so I quietly went back to bed, so as not to wake her.

She kept coming and going, so we started to feed her. She did not wear a collar and there weren’t any posters around suggesting that she was missing as there usually are when a cat goes missing in our area. As we had not owned a cat before, we did not fully understand the ramifications of ‘doing the owners a favour (if in fact, she did have any owners) by feeding their cat for them’. We started her off on a tin of tuna, which she seemed to love, then she moved on to the giddy heights of Morrison’s salmon and tuna sachets. She would not eat anything else, it had to be Morrison’s salmon and tuna.

I work for solicitors on the night shift in the old bank of England building and started to get used to her waiting for me in the garden when I came home. I would then let her in and feed her. I became extremely disappointed when she was not there and started to worry in case something had happened to her. Joe worked for a reinsurance company in the city; his usual finishing time was 20:00 but that could also be a lot later at times, so there was, more or less, somebody at home most of the time.

We live in a cul-de-sac which contains six houses. It is separated by a gate (more about that later) which leads out to a road which consists of another seven houses which are the same design as ours, very large impressive detached houses, a tiny block of private flats and at the other end of the street, a small block of council flats.

In the first house through the gate, on the left-hand side, lived a wonderful couple called Len and Gladys. Len was a member of the Burma Star during the war, a fact that he was very proud of and rightly so, he used to talk about his Burma Star days as if they were yesterday.

As Gladys become frailer, I went round on a Friday evening—my night off—to have a drink with them. Sadly, Gladys passed away in June 2003, so consequently, when we used to go round to our club on a Saturday night with our friends, Len used to come with us and even managed to get up and dance with all us ladies. It was not unusual for somebody to come up and have a chat with Len because they worked at the bank or supermarket that he used to frequent and, as he was so friendly, everybody liked him.

The club used to have good entertainment, which he enjoyed, sometimes he didn’t! But those times were few and far between.

One evening, they had a variety show, which Len wanted to see but he had to attend a function at his other club. Halfway through the evening, Len turned up just in time for the opera singer and the comedian—he was a bit of a comedian too. He said that he had been working on a round-the-world cruise but he was so bad that Len reckoned that it must have been ‘the Woolwich ferry’!

Every weekday, I used to go and see Len to see if he needed anything and watch Deal or No Deal with him. Len used to really look forward to it and shout his instructions to the contestants during the show and we used to have a good laugh. Len’s daughter used to say that when she used to phone Len, that if it was in the middle of Deal or No Deal, he used to say ‘can you call back because Jan and I are watching it’; she used to say that she thought it was very sweet.

Len’s pride and joy was his garden, and on one occasion, during a scorching hot summer, Len went away to the Isle of Wight with his social club and left me to do the watering. Unfortunately, his hosepipe had broken and I think that we were still in the middle of a hosepipe ban anyway, but I did my best and watered as much as I could. Len was not too pleased on his return to find that his beloved grass had turned brown and I noticed that I was never left in charge of the watering again!

In the first house on the right, through the gate, a couple lived with their son who was away at university. During the holidays, whilst his parents were at work, he used to have his music on full blast in the daytime which started to upset Len. So on one particular occasion, when Len was feeling poorly, I knocked on his door to complain. He stuck his head out of the window and I asked him to turn the volume down because Len was feeling unwell.

He apologised and turned the music off. After all that, I went round to Len’s to tell him not to worry ever again about the loud music, only to discover that Len had made a dramatic recovery and gone out!

Before working at the solicitors, I used to work at HSBC in the payments department but, after a rumour of redundancy, I thought that I should enhance my skills by joining a computer class. During the summer, I noticed that Brockwell Park was having a ‘fun day’ which included all sorts of activities, and by chance, I just happened to notice a bus which had been converted into a computer learning centre. I discovered that it used to park opposite a pub in Baylis Road, Kennington, twice a week—when it turned up! And we all crammed onto it, to enhance our computer skills. What a laugh that was.

One day, the bus had to be moved halfway through the class and we were told to cling onto our computers whilst we were moving. Another time, when we had broken down, we stopped a motorist, who managed to get us going again; but the most worrying time was when we used to turn up and we were without power and we could not get the kettle to work!

I used to sit next to a very elderly lady who throughout the class kept saying I am too old for all this, but somehow, she still kept coming back. It was not unusual for some of the students to disappear in the direction of the pub, never to be seen again.

My mum who was an avid Sunday Times reader and had a terrific sense of humour—god bless her soul—used to attend an arts and crafts class every Tuesday at her sheltered housing. I used to ask her what she had created and she used to always say, I don’t know but we all had a good laugh though.

It was really nice because all the residents used to look after each other. One lady called Eileen, who was over 90, was always taken down to whatever was going on to ensure that she was not left out. There was great excitement on one occasion when I went to see mum because they had just been told that they were getting a gazebo. I am sure that half of the residents had never even heard of a gazebo before but they were still looking forward to seeing it, once it had been fitted into the kitchen!

At Christmas time, mum’s Tuesday class was always busy creating Christmas cards, decorations or Christmas crackers. I must admit the communal lounge always looked wonderful with all the arts and crafts that had been created by the class. I used to say to mum, Which ones did you make then?

To which she would always reply, I’m not sure but we had a good time making them.

Mum always looked forward to their Christmas dinner, which they had a week before Christmas. One year, my sister, Angela, went along to help with the proceedings. When the entertainer arrived, Angela noticed that he had a full head of hair and was really nicely turned out but when she went into his room to take him a cup of tea before the show started, she was rather startled to find a bald-headed man with his wig smiling at her from the table.

He quickly shoved it on his head again, hoping that Angela had not noticed, at which point Angela gave him a wry smile, put his cup down in front of him and legged it.

One day, my mum could not wait to tell me that she had attended a computer class and that she had taken Eileen with her. I asked her what she had learnt and she said that she didn’t know. As time went by, she was very proud of herself as she seemed to be getting the hang of it.

Not long after that, when I went round to see her, she was so excited because the manager of the sheltered housing had come round and given her a diploma for her course work.

I questioned her again about her ‘new found skills’ and came to the conclusion that she had been awarded her diploma for learning ‘how to log on’, and even more amazing was the fact that Eileen had also gained a diploma for her computer skills; even though she thought that she was using a microwave.

My only claim to fame—apart from teaching at Pineapple dance studios and my local keep fit and dance class—was when I joined a dance and drama class in my youth, and on occasions, we used to put on shows in care homes or sheltered housing, or whoever would put up with us; but we never had many takers!

On one occasion, we arrived very excitedly at the care home and rung the door bell, which was answered by one of the residents. I proudly said to her, We have come to entertain you.

To which she replied, Do you have to? And that was that. Even though the meet and greet service left a lot to be desired, we went in and did the show.

One of our acts was a very grand lady who used to perform all the old songs. During the act, she started to sing a song, which’s name I can’t recollect, but it contains a line which goes ‘show me the leg of your drawers’, at which point a member of the audience, who we found out later had never shown any interest in anything, ‘in a moment of passion’ tried to grab her off the stage. I can clearly remember the male care worker who was looking after him trying to restrain him, whilst all the residents’ visitors were trying not to laugh.

Whilst I was doing my turn which consisted of a small dance routine, another of the residents kept asking me in a loud voice, all the way through the routine if it was ballet dancing, because she thought it was very pretty; what a nice compliment.

Mission accomplished; we all went home very pleased with ourselves but having said that, I noticed that we were never invited back again!

Back to the Story

It must be said that one of our neighbours does not have time for animals and was most upset when another neighbour who lives two doors away from Len, banged on his door and upon answering it, told him to ‘stop feeding my cat’. I won’t tell you his response but it was not very nice. All of the houses in the cul-de-sac received a letter asking them to stop feeding their cat. The irony of the situation was, we were told the husband was a detective, but could not detect that his cat had been, more or less, ‘boarding’ five doors away from them for about six weeks and he had only just started to locate her.

Our next door neighbours,