Eddie the cat: TV critic and superstar

He’s the little fellow who has changed our lives… and continues to do so on a daily basis.

And Eddie the ginger cat, or Eddie Ed as he is more commonly referred to, now rules the roost in Romford.

The Grainger family had never had a cat before, and nothing was further from my mind until my friend Becky asked me to cat sit for her, a few years ago.

I popped into to feed her four cats daily and immediately became smitten with her youngest Jaffa, the friendliest of the moggies.

Even then, the thought of being a cat owner had not entered my thoughts until wife Lesley heard a work friend’s cat was about to deliver… and she thought it might be an idea to consider it. We talked it through and agreed and then off we went to get little Ed.

From that very first day when we really did not have a clue, he has captured our hearts and minds, and that of everyone who sees him.

He’s into everything a normal healthy cat is into, but he has made his own headlines!

During my time at the Newham Recorder, we staged an annual Perfect Pets Parade competition, run by Jackie Ross. Naturally, when we looking for a poster boy to feature on the newsbills outside newsagents, to encourage people to buy the paper, there was only one choice.

When he was around 18 months old, I was faced with a dilemma at Christmas when a page came back from another paper I used to edit, the Stratford Express, with a huge white space on it . The printers could not get hold of any ad staff, everyone else except for planner Sue Hamilton had gone home and there no “house ads” available. I had 45 minutes to fill the space on the entertainments page and there were no journalists left either.

An idea came to me, I created something “off the wall” and fellow cat-lover Sue read it and according to her, was soon “PMSL” as people tend to text and post on social media these days…

The first TV column, written by a cat, complete with every cat pun possible, was born.

And like all good ideas, something that was meant to last for one week ran for over a year until the paper closed.

He got mentioned in the trade media, plugged on the front page, mentioned in the sister paid-for paper, the Newham Recorder and even got a plug on radio. So it was purr-fectly natural Eddie would graduate to having his own Twitter account and Facebook Page.

Some of his followers on Twitter were, and are, quite frankly, bizarre. One woman regularly told him she was shopping in Harrods and asked him what to buy!

Indoors, and in the garden and on the golf course at the back of our house, Eddie has his own kingdom.

He prefers proper food to dried food, he brings in too many mice, he has brought us in the odd live bird as a present (fortunately, they have all escaped unharmed). My only regret is not persisting with the training on a lead so I can take him for walks in the park.

He dispensed with collars while only a year old. If there is ever an archaeological “dig” on the land out back, around 20 of these will surface, I’m sure.

He continued to be the poster boy for the Recorder every time we ran a cat story until my redundancy a couple of months ago when the paper was amalgamated with another. Now he is back on Facebook.

He’s even got his own video on YouTube when I managed to capture him chasing his own tale in the the “Tale of Eddie’s tail”!

He is of course, naturally suited to and available for photographic work. He must be one of the most photographed cats in the world!

He climbs into or onto the most amazing places, and has this uncanny ability to headbutt or nudge you affectionately when you least expect it.

He also has this amazing ability to buy Christmas, birthday and anniversary cards for his family and regularly watches Spurs on TV. The other night, he turned and urged me to switch channels after getting bored with a film I was watching, first by tapping the screen and then me!

He may be a touch overweight, which is my fault. We are both going to get fitter soon. But he still manages an amazing run across the lawn and loves chasing squirrels up our trees.

Yes, he does wake us up at 5.30am for feeding, and yes, I am still waiting for the day he sits for a nap on my lap… he’s getting closer by kipping on the sofa sometimes.

All cat owners have a fund of stories about why they love their pet. This has been a small glimpse of mine.