W e shall have to rename our oldest cat Fred, for he is Lazarus, come back from the dead.

It has been a harrowing week. Fred, who is now 19, has never been ill in his life, mainly because he is too wimpish to take any risks. He has been convinced all his life that men in white vans are out to get him, and he doesn't get out much.

But he stopped eating, went quiet and floppy, and had to be carted off to the vet, his first visit since he was a kitten. And everything was normal; in fact the vet said he was in amazingly good nick for his age. He gave a him a shot to stimulate his appetite, but said we should prepare ourselves for the worst.

The shot didn't work, and after five days' starvation, Fred looked terrible, skinny, limp and unresponsive. We could see his system was shutting down and we resigned ourselves to having him put to sleep. A pall of misery hung over Reid Mansions, a repeat of the loss of his two 18-year-old siblings last summer,

So we tried a desperate remedy. I took the bulb baster from the kitchen drawer, liquidised some chicken and fish in water, and at regular intervals we squirted nourishment down his throat, much against his will.

Nothing happened for 24 hours, but on the seventh day – note the Biblical flavour of this piece – Fred jumped up on the bed, purred loudly and proceeded to clean up the results of our force-feeding, and he is now himself again, eating round the clock to put back lost weight.

And a weight is off our hearts. It is very hard to watch a sick animal and not be able to help. So we thank the feline Gods that our Fred has been spared to us for a little bit longer.