“Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring not even a mouse”… That’s a line you might know from a famous poem.  But it’s not something that was true at number 47, not the night before Christmas or on any night come to that, although it was nearly Christmas.

There was usually a mouse in the house, mooching around, looking for stray crumbs and, when he’d had his fill, sometimes he would sit in a tea towel that had fallen behind the fridge.

But is a human house really a house for a mouse?