When I was a child we had the odd pet around the house but I have never thought of it as being full of pets and yet a look through some old photos suggests otherwise.
The year 1960 seems to have been the climax of pet ownership. No longer did we have any mice stinking the shed out (at least not tame ones but a few escapees might still have been around) but GB had a pet white rat called Cornelius. An exceptionally intelligent creature it could open its own cage door but had the sense not to wander off because it knew staying put meant free food.
My contribution to petworld was a pair of rabbits (bought as two females!) – Nibbles (a black and white Dutch which would have passed the Trades Descriptions Act) and Snow – a sort of long-eared albino the description of whose sex pushed the boundaries of truth. I found out the truth of their gender when the first brood of little rabbits appeared – the first of many.
The household pet at the start of that year was a vicious black object of vaguely feline parentage which had walked into our house through the kitchen window some years earlier and clawed to near-death anyone who tried to evict it.
By the time it died, that year, it had just about calmed down enough to be picked up once a month or so. Otherwise it just occupied the best seat in the living room and hissed if anyone threatened to dislodge it. If it ever had a name other than “That **** Cat” I have forgotten it.
After the demise of the black cat Mum had another cat which also began life as a stray.
That was followed by a sort of half Persian. This was the last of the pets to live at No. 68.
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