Cats

There were always cats at home when I was a child, certainly until I was a student, and I remember the three main, all black, females we had: Sooty, Tinkle and Pip (they were grandmother, mother, daughter, respectively); at one point there was also a black & white male, Whiskey (I think one of Sooty’s kittens).

When Noreen and started living together we had a rented flat and could not keep pets (including children), although we knew we wanted to. So when, in July 1981, we moved into our own house the decision was made within a month to get a cat. Note, a singular cat. It was a Saturday, and none of the cat rescue charities wanted to do anything on a Saturday, with the exception of Blue Cross at Victoria in central London.

And yes, they would see us and they did have a couple of young cats wanting homes. So we went off to Blue Cross on a hot August Saturday afternoon. Long story short, we ended up with both cats (Floss and Pickle, see below) – we couldn’t leave one as they were living on borrowed time already. We set off to bring them in their cardboard carriers, home on the Tube.

How wrong we were! Walking to the station, after just 200 yards, and in the middle of the busy London traffic, Pickle had ripped a hole in her box and had her head sticking out. So we had to engage the first black cab who would bring us home to Greenford – a mere 12 miles!

That was the first of so many feline exploits, especially as we seem to have a a series of characterful cats, all of whom have had quite different personalities, and all of whom have provided equally amusing, if not hair-raising, interludes – because cats are magic!

Since those early days we’ve always adopted rescue cats (well Tilly is perhaps the exception). All have been outdoor cats as we’ve always had a cat-flap so they can come and go when they choose. And all have been neutered, and since it has become available micro-chipped.

So to date we’ve clocked up eight permanent residents. (There have been a couple of short-term lodgers too; but they are another story!) Currently we have cats 5, 7 and 8 (Tilly, Rosie and Boy). Here’s a summary, in order of arrival …

Floss1. Floss
White with black splodges; large handsome male. Adopted from Blue Cross at Victoria, August 1981; thought to have been about a year old. Spent 6 months having a nervous breakdown and living in a wardrobe. General demeanour and voice said he was part Siamese. Very agile and a Samurai warrior cat with a large territory; would have been a holy terror if left entire. Needless to day he was an excellent hunter. Died in mid-1998 (aged around 18) from a mouth cancer.

2. Bubbles (Pickle)
PickleCalico (tortoiseshell and white) female. Adopted at the same time as Floss and probably no more than 6 months old. Nursed Floss through his breakdown. She was also a supervisor; any workman in the house had her company keeping an eye on things – and walk across the wet paint! Like all tortoiseshells, a feisty customer not averse to tackling large rats. Solidly built and possibly part Burmese. Died in 1992 (aged about 12) from a chest/heart tumour.

3. Harry
HarryAfter losing Floss it took some months to find Harry & Sally who we think were siblings; we had several prospects fall through. We first met H&S in October 1998 at Blue Cross at Hammersmith; they’d been dumped on Blue Cross’s doorstep with Sally heavily pregnant and subsequently having 6 kittens – from their colouring fathered by Harry. We finally managed to adopt them in mid-December 1998 once the kittens were weaned and off to their new homes.
Harry was equal parts grey and white, we suspect with some Russian Blue ancestry. He was a champion ratter. Very affectionate; he had a fan club at the vets: they said if ever he was kept in they never got any work done –he spent a lot of time upside down demanding tummy rubs. We finally lost him to a combination of cancer and thyroid on my 65th birthday in January 2016.

4. Sally
SallySally was a semi-long-haired tabby with a bit of white. A foot fetishist, she often rolled over and demanded tummy rubs from your foot. She had a sad end as she went missing in May 2013 but was found 6 weeks later by someone 200 yards up the road in a poor condition and with major, irredeemable, neurological damage.

5. Tilly
TillyTilly is a tabby and white (and unusually she’s swirled tabby, rather than striped tabby) female who came from our next door neighbours in August 2013. She is the only cat whose ancestry we know for certain as the neighbour had both her (unneutered) mother and grandmother (a ginger and white Persian), who each birthed four kittens within 2 weeks of each other; Tilly was born around 24 May. From all this we worked out that Tilly’s father and grandfather were the two local alpha males. Tilly was the last of the eight kittens to be homed, and as we had just lost Sally we had already said we would take the last one or two of the eight. She’s not a confident cat, having been one of eight, not fully socialised as a kitten, having not been appreciated by Harry in his last years, and then had youngsters foisted on her. But she is very affectionate when the mood takes her.

6. Wizard (Wiz)
WizWiz and Rosie came from our local cat rescue charity (Guardian Angels; sadly currently not taking rescues) in June 2016 (we know they were born on 5 April), some while after we lost Harry (again we had several options fall through). They were part of a litter of five.
Wiz (male) was black with just a bit of white, and white whiskers. He was so-called as he reminded me of the Wizard in the Wizard of Id cartoon strip. He was an adventurer, even at four weeks old when we first met him. Very curious and highly intelligent. And that’s probably what got him into trouble: we lost him very suddenly in May 2017 (he was just a year old) from major kidney failure which was thought to have been due to poisoning.

7. Primrose (Rosie)
RosieRosie is Wiz’s sister and also black and white, but with a lot more white. She’s cunning: it took her two days to work out that if the cat-flap is locked to stop them going out, but still allowing ingress, then she can hook it open; she also knows how to wriggle open the sliding door on the shoe cupboard in our bedroom in just 30 seconds. She never understood what happened to Wiz and took to comfort eating so got a bit podgy; she’s better now and has lost some of the weight. She plods off down the garden looking just like WPC Primrose on the beat. She’s another good hunter, although we’ve no idea who taught her, but she has probably taught Boy!

8. Boy
BoyBoy (needless to say male) is white with some tabby markings. He was another rescue kitten from Guardian Angels in early July 1027 (born around the beginning of May). The girl who was fostering him said she just called him Boy, by the time we’d got him home it had stuck; and it suits him. He’s grown in a year from a scrap of a kitten into a large, solid, tom cat; if he’d been left entire he would be another holy terror. When we got him he had very curly whiskers; they’re still curly but not so much. And he’s like a small fox hound; not just his colouring but his tail is always aloft and waving madly to and fro. This together with his short coat, large ears, triangular head, people orientation and voice make us think he has a significant chunk of Cornish Rex in his make up: they’re said to be part cat, part dog, part monkey and that fits exactly.

In case you’re wondering about apparently stupid names for cats, the first four came with those names, so although they didn’t know them we kept them – except that Bubbles very quickly became Pickle (and much else besides). Boy came with his name and it stuck, and suits him. Tilly, Wizard and Primrose (soon shortened to Wiz and Rosie) got their names because they seemed to suit them as kittens.

Those who dislike cats often say they are aloof. No, cats are not aloof. Independent, yes. Highly intelligent, yes. Affectionate, yes. But aloof, no – though I will admit this is all strictly on their terms; the cat is always in control! A cat is gracious enough to share your living space, and will move on if it finds you wanting. You do not own the cat.

Do you communicate with your cat? We do try to speak cat to our cats … though I’m sure it is a travesty of proper cat. And I’m equally sure that they understood both our attempts at cat and the English we say to them – if they choose to … indeed I’m sure cats could speak in human if it was to their advantage.

Talk to your cat, be with your cat, give your cat quality time, and it will treat you as at least an honorary cat. Floss used to come in on a nice evening and ask Noreen to go out mousing with him – and he seemed quite perplexed that we couldn’t turn ourselves from a galumphing great human into a finely-tuned feline hunter. All the others have done similar things at various times.

While I wouldn’t claim to be an addicted ailurophile, I think I would always have at least one cat if at all possible, although I’m not into breeding, showing or even pedigrees. I’m quite happy with ordinary moggies, which I suspect we’ll continue to re-home as long as we can.

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© Copyright Keith C Marshall, 2018. All rights reserved.
Last updated: 30 April 2018, Keith Marshall