USUALLY, tennis only holds the British attention for a couple of weeks a year when Wimbledon is on, and even then our interest in lobs and second serves is so shallow that we are easily distracted by the sight of Andy Murray's wife, Kim Sears, particularly if she starts swearing.

This weekend may be different as, live on BBC TV, the Murray brothers try to lead Britain to our first Davis Cup victory since 1936. Back then, the star of our team was Fred Perry – and he had on his arm "Darlington's Gracie Fields".

Perry was an unlikely lawn tennis star, struggling to fit in to the snobbish, wealthy world of Wimbledon. He was from Stockport, the son of a cotton-spinner who became a Labour MP. He started out as a table tennis player, honing his skills by batting a ball against a wall until he became world doubles champion. In the late 1920s, he transferred his shots from the table to the grass, and was almost immediately a success – in 1931, he was selected to represent Britain in the Davis Cup. He won the competition in 1933 and retained it in three consecutive years, while also winning Wimbledon in 1934.

Such success catapulted Perry to fame. One day in 1934, he visited the set of a new film, Falling in Love, and he fell in love with the star – Mary Lawson. She was from Pease Street, Darlington, had started off singing and dancing in the town's many cinemas – she was known as "the Scala Pet" – and had herself been catapulted to fame by Gracie Fields.

Their relationship caused a sensation – it was like a footballer dating a Spice Girl.

Just after Perry retained the Davis Cup in 1934, he and Mary became engaged. But tennis took him around the world, and Mary didn't enjoy the Kim Sears role in the stands. She broke the engagement after eight months, saying: "Publicity has killed our romance."

In 1937, Mary was filming on Jersey – grappling with a killer 8ft octopus in the shallows – when she fell in love with the son of the Seigneur, the ruler of the island. They married, and Mary died in his arms in 1941 in a German air raid. She was only 31.

OUR menagerie increased once more this week. We now have Morris the lovebombing stray cat, Roger the irritable rooster and his harem of two hens, plus a hamster – "a bedroom rat" – that my daughter took in as no other sane person wanted it. And at dawn on Wednesday, two blackbirds appeared. Presumably they are the ones we fed last winter – not that we had much choice. They'd sit in the gutter or on the garage roof, insistently staring at the bedroom window, waiting for the slightest sign of movement and then squabbling over how much food we were going to give them.

When the warmer weather arrived, they gracelessly disappeared, without even sending a postcard of thanks from wherever they went.

But Wednesday was the first touch of frost, and they returned, bouncing aggressively and possessively around the yard as if they still owned the place.

So far Morris the lovebombing cat has not stirred – now that he thinks he has found a permanent home, he's far too busy soaking up every degree of warmth from the radiator. Surely, though, it can't be long before the sight of over-confident blackbirds outside the back door reminds him that he is really a dangerous predator...