Small Finds #10

Budge

I am fond of cats. I am keen on churches. Better yet are churches with resident cats.

How delightful, on a recent visit to Norwich Cathedral, to encounter Budge. He was seated on a pew, eyes green as The New English Hymnal, a small creature in that great ancient space.

I hadn’t meant to visit, but found myself with an hour to spare. Long enough to stroll from the bright copper font to Edith Cavell’s grave. Time, too, for a circuit of the cloister, sun slanting through the tracery and making the flagstones gleam.

Budge, though, was the highlight, and I learned his story. As a young cat he roamed the pubs, but has long since left that roguish life behind.

‘He’s found God,’ I was told. ‘He’s found a place he feels at home.’

His day begins with morning prayer and ends with evensong. He makes a wonderful place more wonderful. He allowed me to stroke his back and padded off up the nave.

An edited version of this story first appeared in The Guardian and can be read here.