Member-only story
The Cat That Made Me Stutter
My earliest childhood memory…
Firstly, thanks to for starting this idea for stories of our earliest memories.
The age I was when this happened is a little ambiguous because my Mum insists I was only 18 months old, however, I really didn’t think I would be able to recall a memory from such a young age, I remember the first part of the incident but what followed is all from my mum, anyway, here it is:
We had a huge garden when I was a kid and we had a massive sycamore tree that stood on the boundary between ours and our neighbours’ garden.
I was on the swing in our garden, I loved the swing — I was going back and forth, I can see my feet up in front of me as I went high and the whoosh of the wind as I went back, folding my legs underneath to get higher and higher. I even remember the light breaking through the huge tree.
Then I remember a commotion from the neighbours’ garden. There was a bush behind their garage and each time I swung up I could see the bush rustling and moving — up and back, up and back my legs going underneath the swing.
Then I saw a flash of ginger, my cat was in that bush thrashing about. Fighting with a bird?
Up and back — the bush wasn’t rustling so much now.
