Harry turned up in my back garden about ten years ago. I didn’t take a lot of notice of him at the time, because my garden is basically a jungle, and it’s not unusual for one of the neighbourhood cats to spend time there during the day.

At first, I thought he lived over the back fence, and just spent his days here, lying in the sun. He was such a beautiful cat, and I didn’t imagine for a moment that he was a stray. I just thought he was extra friendly. If I was gardening, he’d try to climb into my arms. He particularly liked to do this if I was doing something delicate, like sowing carrot seeds. I spent a lot of time pushing him away.

But he was a determined cat. And very early one morning, in the middle of winter, when I saw him catching mice in the compost heap, and eating them as soon as he caught them, I realised he was actually living in my garden.

So I started feeding him. He was pleased, but obviously wondered why it had taken me so long. And I named him Harry-le-beau. Because he really was the most beautiful cat I’d ever seen.

I couldn’t let him in the house because I had another cat at the time, Miss Mouse, and Harry didn’t want to share. So he lived outside, and Miss Mouse lived inside.

At one point, I gave him away. He so obviously wanted to be a house cat, and I was getting a bit sick of having to protect Miss Mouse from him. But it didn’t work out, so a couple of weeks later I brought him back again.

And then Mousie got sick. Kidney failure. She hung on for a while, but the day came when she had had enough, and I called in the vet.

The next day, Harry moved inside.

I’d never had a boy cat before. Are they all so affectionate? So cuddly? The girl cats I’ve had have all been reasonably affectionate. But with every one of them, there would come a time when they had had enough of patting and tummy rubs, and would let me know it. Sometimes with claws.

Not Harry. With him, it was more a case of ‘Why are you stopping? You’ve only been patting me for an hour.’

He wasn’t the boldest of cats (except when it came to wanting attention). But he had a huge personality. And at one point he had his own blog, telling fantastical tales that he swore were true.

Like all writers, he was a sensitive chap. He was allergic to fleas, and had to have a special diet, otherwise he got urinary tract infections. And I always suspected he had some sort of neurological problem. He had a very strange twitch, which got worse as the years passed.

And then one day he had a seizure. That was ten months ago. So I knew the end was coming. In March this year he started falling over, and the vet diagnosed a probable brain tumour.

He died on April 23^rd, and it broke my heart to lose him. He is buried under the plum tree, and friends gave me tulips and lilies to plant around him. I miss him so much. But I wouldn’t have missed living with him for the world.

Good night, Harry-le-Beau.