These first two were taken on Christmas morning 1976, when Tiggs was only 10 weeks old.
He’s reclining on Cath’s lap in the first one, and that’s me with him on our living room floor in the second. Can you dig those curtains?
This shot (that I’m sure Ros won’t mind me making available to a global audience), was taken in January 1984. As I've observed earlier, Tiggs was remarkably adept at surviving strangulation.
And here’s Tigger with friends. Gus the Seal, Platy the Platypus, Dino the Dinosaur and a teddy bear, rabbit, koala and furry slug whose names I forget. I seem to recall however that the furry slug was just a thin strip of wood covered in fluff, like one of those padded coat-hangers. Who needs Teletubbies, Thomas the Tank Engine or Tickle-Me-Elmo when you’ve got a child's imagination in your toy box?
Looking at these photos for the first time in years, I'm surprised to realise that Tigger’s face isn’t really that familiar to me. I’ll never forget the faces of Tanis or Comma, so I guess I must have been too young for Tiggs. The thing that does strike me is that little Hitler moustache that I never realised he had! How does one say this without giving the wrong impression, but I wonder how much input my Dad had into the cat's selection?
(Maybe I shouldn’t leave that last question hanging? Dad is not, nor has he ever been, a Nazi, and he loathes Hitler as much as the next person, but he is a student of that period and has such an inordinately large collection of books on the man (including ‘Hitler’s Accountant’) that people have been known to wonder.)
2 comments:
Nice attempt to throw suspicion onto your innocent father; but close readers will remember that it is in fact you who has a penchant for Nazi pets, like Admiral Raeder the mouse.
That was... you know, post-modern and ironic, or something? It was a mouse! Besides, I was young and I needed the money.
Post a Comment