An 84-year-old great-grandmother has used her time at a care home to realise a lifelong ambition to write a children's book about the special family cat she remembers from her childhood.
Elva Carver, who lives at Springdale in Brundall, near Norwich, decided to put pen to paper and record the escapades of Fluff the cat, after one of her poems was read out and well-received at a residents' forum meeting.
A Cat called Fluff documents the true life adventures of a wild cat her family adopted when she was a child.
It describes the many adventures Fluff was involved in including being caught in a rabbit trap and falling into a water butt.
Mrs Carver was a girl of about four or five when her mother adopted the cat, while they were living in Lancashire.
Her mother named the cat Fluff and it travelled with them when the family moved to Besthorpe. Fluff lived with the family until it died when it was about 15.
The cat was such a character and so well-loved that Mrs Carver always wanted to put pen to paper and record Fluff's escapades, and her time at the care home has finally afforded her the time to realise her ambition.
Mrs Carver, who also writes poetry and formerly lived in Vauxhall Street, Norwich, said: 'I was mulling it over whether to write the book, and I don't know why I did put it on paper, other than that she was such a wonderful cat.
'With two of my three children living in Canada and New Zealand, and all the 11 grandchildren and great-children I have, so many I've lost count, I thought it would be nice for them to have something from me. Everything in the book is true. Fluff was a beautiful cat.
'She was wild and there was no one to look after her, so my mum adopted her... Everyone who has read the book says that they want to cry at the end.'
She was helped in writing the book by Ben Meen, from the Norse care group, which runs the Brundall home. Mr Meen said: 'Elva came along to one of our residents' forums. She said she was quite interested in writing a book about her cat. So I've been typing up her words on a laptop in the evenings.'
Mrs Carver is now trying to get the book, which is about nine pages long, published.
Have you managed to complete one of your lifelong dreams? Email david.bale2@archant.co.uk
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