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Since before records began, Swan Upping has taken place on the River Thames in the third week of July – chosen as the ideal moment to make a census of the swans, while the cob (as the male swan is known) is moulting and flightless, and before the cygnets of Spring take flight at the end of Summer. This ancient custom stems from a world when the ownership and husbandry of swans was a matter of consequence, and they were prized as roasting birds for special occasions.

Rights to the swans were granted as privileges by the sovereign and the annual Swan Upping was the opportunity to mark the bills of cygnets with a pattern of lines that indicated their provenance. It is a rare practice from medieval times that has survived into the modern era and I have always been keen to see it for myself – as a vision of an earlier world when the inter-relationship of man and beast was central to society and the handling of our fellow creatures was a important skill.

So it was my good fortune to join the Swan Uppers of the Worshipful Company of Vintners’ for a day on the river from Cookham to Marlow, just one leg of their seventy-nine mile course from Sunbury to Abingdon over five days. The Vintners Company were granted their charter in 1363 and a document of 1509 records the payment of four shillings to James the under-swanherd “for upping the Master’s swans” at the time of the “great frost” – which means the Vintners have been Swan Upping for at least five hundred years.

Swan Upping would have once been a familiar sight in London itself, but the embankment of the Thames makes it an unsympathetic place for breeding swans these days and so the Swan Uppers have moved upriver. Apart from the Crown, today only the Dyers’ and Vintners’ Companies retain the ownership of swans on the Thames and each year they both send a team of Swan Uppers to join Her Majesty’s Swan Keeper for a week in pursuit of their quarry.

It was a heart-stopping moment when I saw the Swan Uppers for the first time, coming round the bend in the river, pulling swiftly upon their oars and with coloured flags flying, as their wooden skiffs slid across the surface of the water toward me. Attended by a flotilla of vessels and with a great backdrop of willow framing the dark water surrounding them, it was as if they had materialized from a dream. Yet as soon as I shook hands with the Swan Uppers at The Ferry in Cookham, I discovered they were men of this world, hardy, practical and experienced on the water. All but one made their living by working on the Thames as captains of pleasure boats and barges – and the one exception was a trader at the Billingsgate Fish Market.

There were seven in each of the teams, consisting of six rowers spread over two boats, and a Swan Marker. Some had begun on the water at seven or eight years old as coxswain, most had distinguished careers as competitive rowers as high as Olympic level, and all had won their Doggett’s coat and badge, earning the right to call themselves Watermen. But I would call them Rivermen, and they were the first of this proud breed that I had met, with weathered skin and eager brightly-coloured eyes, men who had spent their lives on the Thames and were experts in the culture and the nature of the river.

They were a tight knit crew – almost a family – with two pairs of brothers and a pair of cousins among them, but they welcomed me to their lunch table where, in between hungry mouthfuls, Bobby Prentice, the foreman of the uppers, told me tales of his attempts to row the Atlantic Ocean, which succeeded on the third try. “I felt I had to go back and do it,” he confessed to me, shaking his head in determination, “But, the third time, I couldn’t even tell my wife until I was on my way.” Bobby’s brother Paul told me he was apprenticed to his father, as a lighterman on the Thames at fifteen, and Roger Spencer revealed that after a night’s trading at Billingsgate, there was nothing he liked so much as to snatch an hour’s rowing on the river before going home for an hour’s nap. After such admissions, I realised that rowing up the river to count swans was a modest recreation for these noble gentlemen.

There is a certain strategy that is adopted when swans with cygnets are spotted by the uppers. The pattern of the “swan voyage” is well established, of rowing until the cry of “Aaall up!” is given by the first to spot a family of swans, instructing the crews to lift their oars and halt the boats. They move in to surround the swans and then, with expert swiftness, the birds are caught and their feet are tethered. Where once the bills were marked, now the cygnets are ringed. Then they are weighed and their health is checked, and any that need treatment are removed to a swan sanctuary. Today, the purpose of the operation is conservation, to ensure well being of the birds and keep close eye upon their numbers – which have been increasing on the Thames since the lead fishing weights that were lethal to swans were banned, rising from just seven pairs between London and Henley in 1985 to twenty-eight pairs upon this stretch today.

Swan Upping is a popular spectator sport as, all along the route, local people turn out to line the banks. In these river communities of the upper Thames, it has been witnessed for generations, marking the climax of Summer when children are allowed out of school in their last week before the holidays to watch the annual ritual.

Travelling up river from Cookham, between banks heavy with deep green foliage and fields of tall golden corn, it was a sublime way to pass a Summer’s afternoon. Yet before long, we  passed  through the lock to arrive in Marlow where the Mayor welcomed us by distributing tickets that we could redeem for pints of beer at the Two Brewers. It was timely gesture because – as you can imagine – after a day’s rowing up the Thames, the Swan Uppers had a mighty thirst.

Martin Spencer, Swan Marker

Foreman of the Uppers, Bobby Prentice

The Swan Uppers of the Worshipful Company of Vintners, 2011

The Swan Uppers of 1900

The Swan Uppers of the nineteen twenties.

In the nineteen thirties.

The Swan Uppers of the nineteen forties.

In the nineteen fifties.

Archive photographs copyright © Vintners’ Company

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On the Thames with Crayfish Bob

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Fifty years ago, Dragan Novaković took these pictures of the ancient Club Row animal and bird market which closed in 1983 when street trading in live animals became outlawed

Photographs copyright © Dragan Novaković

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Dragan Novaković’s Brick Lane

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The sagacious Mr Pussy

There is an exceptional hush upon the East End, with with the heat and the football conspiring to empty the streets of locals and tourists alike. The clouds hang heavy and the atmosphere is quiet, and my cat Mr Pussy divides his time between dozing on the bed and dozing under a bush. The pace of the city is stilled and Mr Pussy finds the climate conducive to resting.

Mr Pussy observes me with doleful eyes as I go about my daily tasks, too gracious to be overtly critical, yet he hopes that I might one day learn to appreciate the virtue of sitting peacefully for extended periods of time without other occupation, as he does. To this end, Mr Pussy waits patiently until a suitable opportunity when I am settled at my work before he approaches me. Arriving silently like a ghost, Mr Pussy reaches out a soft paw to stroke my forearm gently while I am writing, as a discreet gesture of companionship, drawing my attention without interrupting my activity.

Settling at my side and savouring the tranquillity of the hour, a purr of contentment emanates from him. And if my concentration should wander from my page, searching for a word or casting around to seek the direction of my thought, then I chance upon his hypnotic golden eyes, meeting my gaze with their fathomless depth and opalescent gleam. He has my attention. He has an infinite capacity for staring. He knows I am a novice and he is an expert at it. He knows I cannot resist succumbing to his superior mesmeric powers. He has me spellbound and I share his stillness. The house is empty and we are alone. We look at each other eye to eye, without blinking, to see who flinches first.

Almost imperceptibly, Mr Pussy begins to lower his lids and I do the same. I follow along, as his supplicant. Our eyelids move in sync and we are nodding off to sleep, it seems. I might enter the feline realm, if I did not open my lids again momentarily – only to discover that his eyes are open too. It is a moment of mutual recognition. Mr Pussy was testing the quality of my will, exploring my susceptibility to mental control. Mr Pussy observes me. Mr Pussy is implacable, yet he wants me to follow his example. Mr Pussy knows how to be. Mr Pussy keeps himself. Mr Pussy seeks to be calm. Mr Pussy is always present in the moment. Mr Pussy is sufficient.

Equally, Mr Pussy is curious of me and the intriguing nature of my existence that revolves around things other than eating and sleeping. I am the object of his scrutiny, Mr Pussy is studying me. Mr Pussy is an anthropologist, living among those who are subject of his fascination. Mr Pussy’s research methods are unconventional, he thinks he may gain knowledge by osmosis if he sleeps close to me or he may imbibe understanding by lapping up my bathwater.

Not always an entirely conscientious student, Mr Pussy likes to contemplate his findings at length. Mr Pussy likes to sleep on it, and he is a grand master in the art of  somnolence. Mr Pussy knows how to behave in these dog days.

CLICK HERE TO BUY A COPY OF THE LIFE & TIMES OF MR PUSSY

“I was always disparaging of those who dote over their pets, as if this apparent sentimentality were an indicator of some character flaw. That changed when I bought a cat, just a couple of weeks after the death of my father. “

THE LIFE & TIMES OF MR PUSSY is a literary hymn to the intimate relationship between humans and animals, filled with sentiment without becoming sentimental.

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In these balmy days of sweltering heat, I think of my old cat Mr Pussy

While Londoners luxuriate in the warmth of early summer, I miss Mr Pussy who endured the hindrance of a fur coat, spending his languorous days stretched out upon the floor in a heat-induced stupor. As the sun reached its zenith, his activity declined and he sought the deep shadow, the cooling breeze and the bare wooden floor to stretch out and fall into a deep trance that could transport him far away to the loss of his physical being. Mr Pussy’s refined nature was such that even these testing conditions provided an opportunity for him to show grace, transcending dreamy resignation to explore an area of meditation of which he was the supreme proponent.

In the early morning and late afternoon, you would see him on the first floor window sill here in Spitalfields, taking advantage of the draught of air through the house. With his aristocratic attitude, Mr Pussy took amusement in watching the passersby from his high vantage point on the street frontage and enjoyed lapping water from his dish on the kitchen window sill at the back of the house, where in the evenings he also liked to look down upon the foxes gambolling in the yard.

Whereas in winter it was Mr Pussy’s custom to curl up in a ball to exclude drafts, in these balmy days he preferred to stretch out to maximize the air flow around his body. There was a familiar sequence to his actions, as particular as stages in yoga. Finding a sympathetic location with the advantage of cross currents and shade from direct light, at first Mr Pussy sat to consider the suitability of the circumstance before rolling onto his side and releasing the muscles in his limbs, revealing that he was irrevocably set upon the path of total relaxation.

Delighting in the sensuous moment, Mr Pussy stretched out to his maximum length of over three feet long, curling his spine and splaying his legs at angles, creating an impression of the frozen moment of a leap, just like those wooden horses on fairground rides. Extending every muscle and toe, his glinting claws unsheathed and his eyes widened gleaming gold, until the stretch reached it full extent and subsided in the manner of a wave upon the ocean, as Mr Pussy slackened his limbs to lie peacefully with heavy lids descending.

In this position that resembled a carcass on the floor, Mr Pussy could undertake his journey into dreams, apparent by his twitching eyelids and limbs as he ran through the dark forest of his feline unconscious where prey were to be found in abundance. Vulnerable as an infant, sometimes Mr Pussy cried to himself in his dream, an internal murmur of indeterminate emotion, evoking a mysterious fantasy that I could never be party to. It was somewhere beyond thought or language. I could only wonder if his arcadia was like that in Paolo Uccello’s “Hunt in the Forest” or whether Mr Pussy’s dreamscape resembled the watermeadows of the River Exe, the location of his youthful safaris.

There was another stage, beyond dreams, signalled when Mr Pussy rolled onto his back with his front paws distended like a child in the womb, almost in prayer. His back legs splayed to either side, his head tilted back, his jaw loosened and his mouth opened a little, just sufficient to release his shallow breath – and Mr Pussy was gone. Silent and inanimate, he looked like a baby and yet very old at the same time. The heat relaxed Mr Pussy’s connection to the world and he fell, he let himself go far away on a spiritual odyssey. It was somewhere deep and somewhere cool, he was out of his body, released from the fur coat at last.

Startled upon awakening from his trance, like a deep-sea diver ascending too quickly, Mr Pussy squinted at me as he recovered recognition, giving his brains a good shake, once the heat of the day had subsided. Lolloping down the stairs, still loose-limbed, he strolled out of the house into the garden and took a dust bath under a tree, spending the next hour washing it out and thereby cleansing the sticky perspiration from his fur.

Regrettably the climatic conditions that subdued Mr Pussy by day, also enlivened him by night. At first light, when the dawn chorus commenced, he stood on the floor at my bedside, scratched a little and called to me. I woke to discover two golden eyes filling my field of vision. I rolled over at my peril, because this provoked Mr Pussy to walk to the end of the bed and scratch my toes sticking out under the sheet, causing me to wake again with a cry of pain. I miss having no choice but to rise, accepting his forceful invitation to appreciate the manifold joys of early morning in summer in Spitalfields, because it was not an entirely unwelcome obligation.

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Mr Pussy in the Dog Days

Mr Pussy is Ten

Mr Pussy in Winter

The Caprice of Mr Pussy

Mr Pussy in Spitalfields

Mr Pussy takes the Sun

Mr Pussy, Natural Born Killer

Mr Pussy takes a Nap

Mr Pussy’s Viewing Habits

The Life of Mr Pussy

Mr Pussy thinks he is a Dog

Mr Pussy in Spring

In the Company of Mr Pussy

Click here to order a signed copy for £15

Tessa Hunkin and the members of Hackney Mosaic Project never stop creating. Their latest masterpiece, Birds of Hoxton, was installed in the residents’ garden at Follingham Court this week, where it can be seen by passers-by walking south down Hoxton St.

Three years in the making, this ambitious diptych illustrates the ornithology of the neighbourhood with each species created by a different mosaic maker, imparting diverse personalities to each of the birds and vivid life to the completed mosaic.

Further up in Hoxton Market, decorative mosaic roundels have been installed outside Shoreditch Library, Hoxton Hall and Hoxton Garden, while just round the corner where Pitfield St meets Old St, you will find the Hoxton Varieties Mosaic from 2013. These new projects mark a return to their roots for the project, since this is where it all began with the Shepherdess Walk Mosaics back in 2012.

Tessa Hunkin is giving an illustrated talk, showing the mosaics and telling the story of the project, this Sunday 10th May at 4pm at Sutton House, Homerton High St, E9 6JQ, as part of Hackney History Festival.

Click here to buy a ticket for £3

Sutton House is the oldest house in Hackney and one of London’s few remaining Tudor mansions, built in 1535, so this is a great opportunity to pay a visit.

Roundel outside Hoxton Garden

Roundel outside Hoxton Hall

Roundel outside Shoreditch Library

Tessa Hunkin with two local councillors on the eve of the local election

The Hoxton Varieties mosaic was installed in Pitfield St in 2013

Click here to order a copy of Tessa Hunkin’s Hackney Mosaic Project

Click here to book your walk through the City of London

These are Cockney Cats by Warren Tute, with photographs by Felix Fonteyn from 1953, in the archive at Bishopsgate Institute

Micky is the centre of the Day family of Copley St in the parish of Stepney. The whole family pamper him and have a wonderful time

Bill on weekdays, William on Sundays, the cat at the Bricklayers Arms in Commercial Rd has a wonderful life since the Guv’nor Jim Meade was once a Dumb Animals’ Food Purveyor. At seventy-seven Jim looks back on a long and distinguished life in Stepney during his thirty-two years as Guv’nor.

Yeoman Warder Clark & Pickles on Tower Green

On duty at the Tower of London

The tail-less cat of the guardroom who came out to watch Pickles being photographed

Min, Port of London Authority cat has many friends among the dockers and very good ratting at night

Min of the magnificent whiskers has made her home in the office of K Warehouse in the Milwall Docks

Customs & Excise cat guards the Queen’s Warehouse and is paid a Treasury Allowance of sixpence a day

Mitzi has the run of her ship from the lifeboats to the Officers’ Mess

Old Bill the railway cat, his favourite position is the entrance to Blackfriars Station

Old Bill takes cover when necessary in the rush hour

Tibs the Great (1950-64), the official Post Office cat at Headquarters, does not normally live in this 1856 pillarbox

This cat’s curiosity unearthed a box of ancient stamps and seals, some dating back to Queen Anne

Minnie the Stock Exchange cat was a self-willed and determined kitten who adopted the dealing floor as her own preserve

Minnie enjoys the banter in the tea room

Tiger of The Times is the best office cat in Fleet St

Tiger of The Times is equally at ease whether in the Board Room …

… or doing his rounds in the Print Room

Sneaking back into Lloyds of London is difficult even for the resident cat

Cecil is the Front of House cat at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane

Cecil is very elusive in his many hiding places from which he has to be coaxed by the Royal Waiter before the performance can begin

When thirteen people sit down to dine at the Savoy and the thirteenth guest is Jimmy Edwards, almost anything can happen. The famous black cat is invited to occupy the fourteenth place so that everyone can enjoy the sparkling conversation.

Bill at the Tower of London (1935-47)

Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute

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The Cats of Spitalfields (Part Two)

The Cats of Elder St

Blackie, the Last Spitalfields Market Cat

Today’s tour is sold out and those on Saturday 11th and Saturday 25th April only have a few tickets left, so I have added an extra Spitalfields tour on Saturday 18th April. Click here to book

Today music writer, Mat Smith, contemplates the pied wagtails of Bishopsgate. Please leave a message in the comments below if you have also observed these tenacious creatures

Bishopsgate

During the dark days of the recently-departed winter, I would see two pied wagtails fluttering and strutting their way playfully along Bishopsgate. They were usually to be found between the corner of Liverpool St Station and the entrance to Brushfield St.

Spotting them became an important part of my walk to the office each morning, just after 7am. Seeing them flying across the road or scurrying comedically along the pavement among the sleepy pedestrians was something I depended on to ensure my day started off on the right foot. They were as much a part of the street scene of my morning as Alleynaut’s poetry stickers placed mischievously on street furniture, or weary travellers being deposited from a bus bringing them in from Stansted, or the caffeine-fixated people waiting in line at Store St Espresso, or the construction workers attending to the remodelling of one of the Broadgate office buildings. These two birds were, during winter, part of my London.

Without them, London did not feel right. If I had not seen them by the time I reached the revolving doors of our office, I would begin to panic. I often worried about them flying across Bishopsgate into the path of a bus. Or getting squashed by an angry, over-tired traveller with a wonky trolley bag. Or becoming trapped inside the mechanism of the service lift clinging to the outside of the Broadgate building remodel. And yet, the next day, they were still there and I would breathe a quiet sigh of relief. All was right in my London and all was right in my world.

I noticed that people did not quite know what to make of these two plucky avian characters. One day, I passed a bus stop where a teenage girl in school uniform was idly watching noisy TikTok videos on her phone while sitting on the bench under the shelter. She had one eye on her phone screen and the other on the wagtail that was pecking occasionally at the strap of her rucksack, its long fan tail moving in concert with its inquisitive beak. It was as if the bird was trying to get her attention, and ever-so-slightly failing to do so. Another day, a guy in a suit stopped dead in his tracks as the two birds chased each other along the pavement in front of him. Another day, a street-sweeper in a yellow City of London high-visibility jacket was pushing his cart along when one of the birds landed on the edge of the cart furthest from him. The wagtail cocked its head to one side and allowed the street-sweeper to give it a breather from expending the energy it would have otherwise used tearing along the uneven paving stones outside the Bishopsgate Institute.

I have always loved pied wagtails. I think it is their tiny stature, their diminutive faces and short beaks, their ridiculously long legs and their monochrome colours. I attribute the latter to being a lover of minimalism but also because colour blindness has left me perpetually unsure of what colours I am seeing. Black and white things are, figuratively and literally, much more certain and solid for me. They inspire a sense of confidence that I can – occasionally – see the world in the same way that others are able to.

Whenever I saw this pair of pied wagtails, I would be reminded of two things. The first was a small book that my maternal grandmother gave me, a hardback volume from The Observer’s Pocket Series which surveyed the British avian population, devoting a page to each bird. I still have that book, and each page is often accompanied by sumptuous illustrations. Like most people, I have seen very few of the birds it describes. The wagtail, however, was one that I had seen. We had a regular visitor to our back garden where I grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon and it felt like a privilege to see it exploring the lawn. I do not remember seeing one anywhere else while I was growing up and that is why it felt special.

Much more than that book, seeing the Bishopsgate pied wagtails reminds me of my father, who passed away two years ago. As I come to terms with a world without him, I have begun to reflect on precisely what legacy he left me with. He never taught me how to hammer a nail into a wall, how to change a tyre, how to wire a plug, how to paint a skirting board, or how to wash a car. In fact, there are lots of things I wished he had taught me, but which he chose not to, for reasons I will now never understand.

He did, however, leave me with a solid work ethic, which explains why I can be found walking along Bishopsgate just after 7am each day to start my job, despite me living almost fifty miles away from London. The other thing he gave me was an ability to identify certain birds. He was born in a Warwickshire village after his mother had moved from her beloved East End during the Second World War. He had an undying love and passion for the East End – the area around Bell Lane, where she had gone to school in particular – and the kinetic hustle and bustle of London, all because of his mother.

But while his heart may have been forever yearning after the London he was never able to live or work in, his feet were very much planted on the ground of the Warwickshire countryside. He accumulated an enviable knowledge of wildlife, including birds, and this is undoubtedly one thing he left with me. It was my father who told me what the tiny black and white bird was when it landed in our Stratford-upon-Avon back garden. I am fairly certain I would not be able to name this species of bird today if it was not for him telling me.

And thus, whenever I would see this pair of pied wagtails on Bishopsgate, I felt a mix of emotions. I would feel joy and a lightness of spirit, the kind of uplifting, energising feeling that I needed in order to carry me through my day at work. It was like a shot of espresso carried to my lips on the monochrome wings of these funny little creatures.

For all that levity, the sighting of these two birds was also filled with a sense of enduring, poignant sadness at my father’s absence. They were a reminder that he will never again be able to excitedly identify a species of bird for me, that making my way in this complicated world is now all up to me, that I have reached the terminal limit of the knowledge he could impart to me.

As spring fought and then won its battle against the preceding season, I began to see the two birds less and less, until finally sporadic sightings gave way to a permanent absence. I assumed they were still there and still nesting nearby, and it was merely that the timing of my walk to the office from Liverpool St, and their morning routine, had become less synchronised. I did not want to think it was because of the myriad other fates that could have befallen them.

It occurred to me that their presence during the winter months, when the melancholy at my father’s absence was often at its heaviest, might indicate a sort of impending closure, that their disappearance might imply that the grieving process for my father was now complete. Maybe it is. Maybe it is not. I cannot tell. I will wait for the dark mornings on Bishopsgate to return when another autumn gives way to another winter and perhaps then I will know for certain.

From The Observer’s Book of Birds

James & Mathew Smith

Mat Smith is a music writer for Electronic Sound, Clash, Further. Pooleyville.city and Documentary Evidence. Mat has written sleeve notes for Mute, Cherry Red, BMG and Our Silent Canvas. Since 2019 he has overseen the collaborative arts project Mortality Tables

My beloved cat Schrodinger died suddenly on the night of Saturday 6th December. One moment he was happy and prancing, and the next he was gone. That evening he stretched out in front of the fire to warm himself, as was his custom, and then sat beside me on the sofa in companionship after dinner. When I went out for a walk around the neighbourhood before bed, Schrodinger followed me out of the house into the alley as he always did, settling there in the dark until my return.

When I came back, he was in the same place but slumped over and, as I approached, I could see his body was limp below the shoulders. He lifted his head and there was a brief moment of mutual recognition as I bent down, placing my hands upon him as I saw him choking and gasping for breath. Then his head twisted to one side and the life went out of him in a single exhalation. I ran my hand along his warm fur and supported the weight of his head, now that his neck was limp. The light was gone from his eyes. He was dead.

I wondered if I could had saved him if I had returned earlier, whether he had been holding out for my return. I was grateful that he did not die alone, that I did not return to discover him dead on the pavement.

I laid his head down gently and went into the house to fetch a blanket and carried him inside where I laid him on the carpet in disbelief at what had happened. I could detect no heartbeat or breath. His mouth leaked phlegm, although his body was uncorrupted, and I was expecting him to leap up into life again, but he did not. There was no curing him.

It should not have happened when he was so strong and full of life. Yet I recalled he had a seizure the day before when he threw up a large amount of phlegm. He recovered immediately, so I cleared it up and thought no more of it.

Last summer, the vet told me that Schrodinger had tooth decay and needed dental treatment but, since he had a weak heart, she would need to do further tests to see if it was possible for him to be anaesthetised and recover.

Yet there was never any diminution, Schrodinger was a bright spirit who always bounded at full strength. Maybe he slept more over the past year and there was a day recently when he slept from breakfast until dinner without awakening. I had assumed he had been out all night. But perhaps he grew old and got tired, and I had not noticed.

Schrodinger was a self-reliant creature who kept himself apart and carried the implacable mystery of his unknown origin. He was with me here in Spitalfields for seven years and lived two years before that at Shoreditch Church, where they had estimated he was two years old when he arrived from nowhere. By this reckoning he was eleven years old, though maybe he was older than anyone knew.

After making a phone call, I lifted his soft warm body into the large basket used to carry vegetables and cycled him over from Spitalfields to the veterinary surgery in Hoxton Square. It was late on Saturday night now and the streets were full with crowds celebrating loudly which jarred with Schrodinger’s final journey, gliding silently through the streets of Shoreditch and past the church where he came from.

When I told the duty vet about Schrodinger’s seizure the previous day and his weak heart, she explained that a build-up of phlegm on the lungs could be associated with a heart condition, so we concluded that he had died of heart failure. I left him there and cycled back to Spitalfields.

I thought of my father who fell asleep on the sofa after a day’s gardening at the age of seventy-nine, twenty-five years ago, and never woke up. I have known people suffer, dying slowly, and it has taught me that it is better to leave this life quickly as Schrodinger did.

But how I miss him. I miss him in the morning when I always gave him a dish of fresh water as the start to every day. I miss him waiting for me when I return to the house. I miss him jumping onto my lap whenever I sit down to write. I miss him in so many ways.

I missed him all through December. I missed him today and I shall miss him tomorrow. I shall miss him next year.

How I miss Schrodinger.

You may like to read my stories about Schrodinger

Schrodinger, Shoreditch Church Cat

A New Home for Schrodinger

The Loneliness of Schrodinger

Schrodinger Takes Charge

Schrodinger’s First Winter in Spitalfields

Schrodinger Pleases Himself

Schrodinger’s First Year in Spitalfields

The Consolation of Schrodinger

Schrodinger in Lockdown

Schrodinger Wants to Recruit Me

Schrodinger at Christmas

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This extract is from ‘Aunt Louisa’s Keepsake’ published by Frederick Warne which was given to me by Libby Hall. The copy is inscribed ‘Christmas 1896’ inside the front cover.

‘Twas Christmas-time, a dreary night,

The snow fell thick and fast,

And o’er the country swept the wind,

A keen and wintry blast.

The Robin early went to bed,

Puffed up just like a ball,

He slept all night on one small leg,

Yet managed not to fall.

No food had touched his beak,

And not a chance had he

Of ever touching food again,

As far as he could see.

The stove had not burnt very low,

But still was warm and bright,

And round the spot whereon it stood,

Threw forth a cheerful light.

Now Robin from a corner hopped,

Within the fire’s light.

Shivering and cold, it was to him

A most enchanting sight.

But he is almost starved, poor bird!

Food he must have, or die,

Unless it seems, alas! for that

Within these walls to try.

Perhaps ‘t is thought by those who read

To doubtful to be true,

That just when they were wanted so

Some hand should bread crumbs strew.

But this is how it came to pass,

An ancient dame had said,

Her legacy unto the poor

Should all be spent on bread.

Enough there was for quite a feast,

Robin was glad to find.

The hungry fellow ate them all,

Nor left one crumb behind.

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H W Petherick’s London Characters

These are the last remaining solar-powered houses made out of boxes from Whitechapel Market by Spitalfields artist Robson Cezar. If you would like one of these for £45, drop me a line to spitalfieldslife@gmail.com

Today I remember my old cat, Mr Pussy. This is an extract from the biography I wrote of him, THE LIFE & TIMES OF MR PUSSY.

On dark winter nights, Mr Pussy seldom stirred from the chimney corner. Warmed by a fire of burning pallets, he had no need of whisky to bring him solace through the dark hours, instead he frazzled his brain in a heat-induced trance. Outside in the streets, Spitalfields might have lain under snow, the paths might have been coated in sheet ice and icicles might be hanging from the gutters, but this spectacle held no interest for Mr Pussy. Like the cavemen of ancient times, his sole fascination was with the mesmerising dance of flames in the grate. And as the season descended towards its nadir in the plunging temperatures of the frozen byways, at home Mr Pussy fell into his own warm darkness of stupefaction.

When Mr Pussy grew old and the world was no longer new to him, his curiosity was ameliorated by his love of sleeping. Once he was a brat in jet black, yet he became a gentleman in a chenille velvet suit, as tufts of white hair increasingly flecked his glossy pelt. One summer, I noticed he was getting skinny and then I discovered that his teeth had gone which meant he could no longer crunch the hard biscuits that were always his delight. Extraordinarily, he made little protest at this starvation diet, even as he lost weight through lack of food. I learnt to fill his dish with biscuits and top it up with water, so that he might satisfy his hunger by supping the resulting slush. And through this simple accommodation – plus a supplement of raw meat – his weight was restored to normal and he purred in gratification while eating again.

Once Mr Pussy was a wild rover, ranging over the fields in Devon, disappearing for days on end and returning proudly with a dead rabbit in his mouth. Yet in the end, he did not step beyond the end of the alley in Spitalfields and, in sub-zero temperatures, he only ventured outside to do his necessary business. Sprinting up the stairs and calling impatiently outside the door of the living room, he was ever eager to return to the fireside and warm his cold toes afterwards, sore from scraping at the frost in the vain attempt to dig a hole in the frozen earth. Like a visionary poet, Mr Pussy acquired a vivid internal life to insulate himself against the rigours of the world and, in the absence of sunlight, the fire provided his imaginative refuge, engendering a sublime reverie of peace and physical ease.

Yet Mr Pussy still loved to fight. If he heard cats screeching in the yard, he would race from the house to join the fray unless I could shut the door first and prevent him. Even when he had been injured and came back leaking blood from huge wounds, he appeared quite unconcerned. Only two small notches in his ears persisted as permanent evidence of this violent tendency, although I regularly checked his brow for tell-tale scratches and the occasional deep bloody furrows that sometimes caused swelling around his eyes. But I could stop him going out, even though it was a matter of concern to me that – as he aged and his reflexes lessened – he might get blinded in a fight one day, losing one of his soulful golden eyes. Since he was blissfully unaware of this possibility, I had no choice but to take consolation from his response when he could not eat, revealing that Mr Pussy had no expectations of life and consequently no fear of loss. His nature was to make his best accommodation to any exigency with grace.

Be assured, Mr Pussy could still leap up onto the kitchen counter in a single bound. He could still bring in a live mouse from the garden when he pleased and delightedly crunch its skull between his jaws on the bedroom floor. If I worked late into the night, he would still cry and tug on the bed sheets to waken me in the early morning to see the falling snow. When the fancy seized him, he could be as a sprightly as a kitten. Come the spring, he would be running up trees again, even if  – in the darkest depth of winter – he only wanted to sleep by the fire.

When I was alone here in the old house in Spitalfields at night, Mr Pussy became my sole companion, the perfect accomplice for a writer. When I took to my bed to keep warm while writing my stories, he was always there as the silent assistant, curled into a ball upon the sheepskin coverlet. As the years passed and Mr Pussy strayed less from the house, I grew accustomed to his constant presence. He taught me that, rather than fear for his well-being, I needed to embrace all the circumstances and seasons that life sends, just as he did.

You may also like to read

So Long, Mr Pussy

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