I'd often seen this beaten up cat walking down the garden wall behind our house. Many times I had seen him curled up in the rain in the gutter of a garage adjoining the cemetery and felt sorry for him. He didn't respond when called to but ran away if you got within 10 foot of him.

He did rounds about 4pm every day. I watched him over a period of months. His battered and beaten ears had black stuff coming from them running down his face and very often had war wounds from brawls.

I made numerous enquires about who he belonged to, all which came up blank. His welfare weighed on my mind and so I started to befriend him. After 6 months I had him coming for food. I waited for the right opportunity until one day I plucked up the courage to pick him up. To my surprise he didn't struggle but appeared quite happy to be picked up, so I took him inside.

We tried to clean his ears, but soon realised it was beyond our aid, the smell was hideous. I phoned the RSPCA who arranged for him to go immediately to a vet. They said he'd need an operation to clean his ears from inside out. I was devastated to let him go and went to see him after his op. I talked to the vet and asked if I could have him which wasn't really the way the RSPCA worked, but the vet understood that I'd built up a relationship with him.

Eventually all was agreed and when they did the op on his ears they castrated him at the same time and took Leukaemia and Feline Immuno Virus bloods to test.

The operation on his ears was successful. Fred hadn't been able to hear at all but his eardrums were intact. Not all the news was good because his bloods had come back FIV positive. Still after getting all the available info we took him home.

For the first few weeks he recouped in our feline recovery cage where he got used to us, the house and the other cats. Slowly he became more confident and after about a year was fully acclimatised to his new life. We had a further problem with one of his ears as it kept ulcerating. Then one day, cleaning it with a cotton bud, out popped a hunk of concrete!

He was extremely verbose. Some people thougth he looked angry because of his ears but that couldn't be further from the truth. He was the most loving cat anyone could wish for and we considered ourselves very lucky to have had such a wonderful cat. How sad that such a lovely boy should have been treated so badly in the first place. I doubt he would have survived that winter.

Sleep well. You were taken from us too soon.