The house next door in Spear Mews had the builders in doing a major make over, and so their resident mice moved into my house. It got that I'd see mice every day, and I'd be chasing after them with the vacuum cleaner, and sucked up three. I had mousetraps everywhere, which they ignored, but I couldn't find their nest. Eventually my mother said; get a cat and the mice will all move out; which I did, and they did.

We got two Havana cats, Wellington and Baby. After two years, one morning Wellington jumped off my bed and walked into the livingroom and lay in front of the fire. A short while later I went into the livingroom and found him dead. The autopsy showed he had a deformed heart, and the vet was surprised he's lived as long as two years. Baby lived to seventeen. She used to get on well with Winge and Fred, but understandably avoided Ruby.

Before Peter and myself got a dog, we went to Krufts at nearby Olympia in Kensington, to look over different breeds. The large hall filled with hundreds of dogs yapping and barking almost put us off wanting a dog at all. Until we came to the Bullmastiff section; silence, not a barking dog in sight. Then a child went too close to one of the Bullmastiffs, and suddenly there was a ferocious growl and snap. And I thought, wow, this is the dog for me. I'd be rid of uninvited visitors for ever. Of course it didn't work out that way, because Butch, our first dog, was a big softy.

A friend liked Butch so much that he got a Bullmastiff, Sarah, from the same breeder. She had a very nice nature, and we used to look after her sometimes when her owner went away.

Butch died aged 13, and we got Winge, an English Mastiff. She was an even bigger softy, but was afraid of strangers, and when anyone visited would hide on the landing at the top of the stairs. Her size and appearance frightened people, and I reinforced this illusion by explaining that we keep her away from strangers because she might go for them. Little did they know she'd hide under the bed before confronting anyone.

I thought what I really need is a no nonsense guard dog, and so got Ruby, a Neopolitan Mastiff. She was very assertive, the leader-of-the-pack, and a control freek. When visitors arrived, she'd sit on the landing looking down on them with a fixed stare, and a very low growl. Most of our friends disliked her, but a few thought she was a great character. She had bitten one of my friends three times (she was provoked) and bit me once when she mistook my shoe for a bone while I was wearing it.

Neopolitan Mastiffs rarely live beyond ten years, and it was very upsetting when Ruby died at ten and a half. Ten years is such a short life. Whereas Winge lived to 13. So we got Olive, whose grandfather lived to 14, in the hope of enjoying her friendship for the next 14 years. But Olive came from a breeder in North Wales and had only met one human for the first three months of her life. She was afraid of people, and we tried for three months to get her used to living in a this neighbourhood full of people, taking her out every day for walks down the high road. But she seemed to get worse and eventually started barking at our friends. We gave her away to the Mastiff rescue who found a home for her in Dorset, where she could enjoy a large paddock away from crowds of people.

Jessie, our next dog, was named after my gran. She is a Bullmastiff and was born in London in a house with one dog (her mother) and a family including children. No more dog breeders. Jessie was socialised from birth living amongst human adults and children and other dogs. And she loves people.

Peter bought Fred as a present for a friend of his. The friend dyed the white fur shocking pink to compliment his punk image. Peter thought this was cruel, and so took the dog back. Fred was devoted to Peter.

Bonnie was my mother's dog.