The pet I’ll never forget: Tilly, the rabbit who taught us how to raise a family

This fluffy menace was harder work than either of our babies. But she did show us how to nurture a creature you can’t reason with

Tilly wasn’t our first choice: my wife and I had fallen for a grey lop-eared charmer in a local shop who was unexpectedly pulled from sale. But we were now determined to acquire a rabbit, so we traipsed from store to store around south-west London, this tiny ball of brown and white fluff. Suddenly we could imagine no other bunny.

Tilly was many things. When our landlord was around, she was at a friend’s. To the kale producers of Britain, she was a lifeline. To us, she was affectionate, but with a strong sense of personal space – you could tell when she wanted to be touched and when she did not.