journey thru thick time (1967-72) pengkalan chepa, kelantan

Jalak, Dino, Ning, John, Johny, Mimi, Donny and Marie were some of the names of our cats. we had more than 10 cats around that time and sometimes more. they were mostly stray cats and orange in color.

Donny and Marie got their names from the american singers /entertainers Donny and Marie Osmond who had a weekly show on tv. ‘i m a little bit country, i am a little bit rock and roll ‘ was one of their popular songs.

Jalak was a wild jungle cat who one day got lost and came to our house. to tame Jalak my mum spit her saliva into the rice and fed him. yes, it worked. we also had a burmese cat. burmese cats sometimes have long beautiful furs and were quite expensive if u were to buy them.

the cats were normally fed with rice and fish. my mum would buy fresh fish and boil them in hot water. she then crushed the fish and mixed together with rice. it was a much cheaper way to feed them than buying cat food. the smell of the boil fish was a bit stinky but all the cats love them. sometimes the cats got unlucky to have bones stuck in their mouths. but they always managed to get them out themselves.

all the cats have different characters but they love u most when it is feeding time.

some of the cats got pregnant and start to breed. we would have small kittens and they were the most adorable. we had to watch out for the male cats cause some were jealous of the male kittens and would try to kill them. some got away with it a couple of times.

i used to have my face scratched by cats all the time. it didnt bother me so much cause i love to play with them. sometimes some of them fell into the stinking drain and we had to wash them. and u all know how cats are with water.