THIS month marks the 27th anniversary of National Pet Month, a fact that makes me feel very old as I remember its inception back in 1991.

There seemed to be lots of activities to celebrate way back then and I remember a guinea pig called Louise doing particularly well for my daughter, in a local show for small pets.

There were also several photo competitions that were quite fun, but the “biggy” for us took place in 1993, when my children, aged eight and 13, respectively, decided that we must enter the competition, as advertised on TV, to find Great Britain’s National Champion Pet Cat.

The competition was organised by Whiskas cat food, in conjunction with Cat World magazine and ITV’s Top of the Morning Show, and at that time we had two Persian cats and a domestic long-haired boy of unknown parentage.

To enter, all you had to do was submit a photograph of your cat, plus up to 100 words saying why he was so special.

We decided between us that Tiger, the domestic long hair, was to be the chosen one and then we proceeded to put our heads together and came up with the following:

“His Lordship, the Right Honourable Tiger, is 12 years old.

“He lives with two other cats, two dogs and a collection of smaller animals, all of which he rules with an iron claw.

“Tiger shows a keen interest in ornithology and is chairman of the local mouse appreciation society.

“His hobbies also include looking handsome, hiding behind the hedge to scare anyone who dares to walk down his path, walking our elderly Labrador and amusing the pup (although the latter has cost him a singed tail on more than one occasion).

“Tiger will always be our champion.”

There were no emails back in the 1990s so, with fingers crossed, our entry was duly posted, along with 3,000 others, as I discovered later. I didn’t hold out a lot of hope at the time, but the same could not be said for my children, and then one day the letter arrived.

“Dear Mrs Hunton” it began and then continued to say that Tiger, plus guests, were cordially invited to attend the finals of the National Champion Pet Cat Competition at London’s Charing Cross Hotel at the beginning of May.

Just 10 finalists, from more than 3,000 entries, had been selected and what made it even more amazing was that one of the other finalists, a black and white boy called Jasper, was from a neighbouring village just a few miles away.

Both cats used the same veterinary practice in Stokesley and Jasper’s owner Catherine, also 13 years of age, used to have riding lessons with my daughter. Up until that point, none of us had realised that the other had entered.

We decided to make our trip to the capital city a bit of an event, so we booked a suite of rooms at The Charing Cross and spent a few days taking in the sights, which included taking Tiger to see the pigeons in Trafalgar Square.

On the day of the actual competition, Tiger lost out by a whisker to a contestant who worked as a therapy cat in an old folk’s home, but nonetheless, Tiger still became Great Britain’s Reserve National Pet Cat Champion, which was a title not to be sneezed at and nor was his consolation prize of a year’s supply of Whiskas cat food.

Back in the early 1990s cat food only came in tins, which was how our prize was delivered, all 365 of them.

This did mean that the car had to live out on the drive for a few months as, much to my husband’s chagrin, the tins had to be stored in the garage. There’s no pleasing some folk is there?

Tiger lived to be 18 years of age and now rests in the garden where he spent many summers basking beneath his favourite tree.

And when the time came and he finally felt that it was right to leave us, he simply lay down in his basket and fell asleep.

You see Tiger really was a champion, in every sense.