THE BATTY ACROBAT

This is Diego. As a kitten, if you held you held your cupped hands out he would leap into them. We called him Diego because he was a terrific footballer. Should we have called him Romeo?

At the time this was taken we lived in a fourth floor flat & the tenant on the third floor had a young queen cat called Juliette. At the back of our flats we had balconies & these two felines would stand on the railings & chat each other up... "Diego, Diego - wherefore art thou, Diego?"

And the batty one leapt off our balcony thinking to get better acquainted with the Juliette but he misjudged his trajectory & landed on paving stones five floors down on the level of the cellar!

We lost sight of Diego for three days - we printed out copies of this photo asking "Have you seen this chap?" Then on the Thursday morning we got a call from the old fellow on the ground floor who was cleaning out his cellar & had found our Diego covered in dried blood & coal dust but still very much alive!!

Later on we moved to the country where he delighted in bringing home rabbits, moles, voles, shrews & pigeons.

Good chap!