CATS

Battersea Children's Zoo

Location: Battersea Park, Albert Bridge Road, SW11 4NJ

Wild Cats

The European wildcat (Felis silvestris silvestris) split away from the other branch of wild cats. The domestic cat is descended from the African wildcat (Felis silvestris lybica). The wild cat is 50% larger than the domestic cat, its dorsal stripe always ends close to the start of the tail. Its tail has a ringed pattern and its rump striped patterning and not spots. It is a solitary hunter that can kill rabbits, hares, and young roe deer. They cannot be domesticated.

The European wild cat had a range that extended all over Europe bar Russia and the Scandinavian peninsula. By the start of the 19thC wildcats had disappeared from lowland England and by 1860 from southern Scotland. In 2010 there were eight geographical separate populations. The British one was lived in northern Scotland.

Battersea Children's Zoo has wild cats. Their preferred food is rabbit although they occasionally catch their own vittels. They are part of breeding programme that is intended to support the wild population which is at risk of disappearing as a result of hybridisation with feral domestic cats.

Website: http://www.batterseaparkzoo.co.uk/animals/mammals/scottish-wildcat

Battersea Dogs & Cats Home

The Temporary Home for Lost & Starving Dogs was founded in Holloway by Mary Tealby in 1860. It moved to its present site in 1871. In 1883 the Home also started taking cats.

The architect Clough Williams Ellis is best remembered for designing Port Meirion, a village in Wales. He designed a cattery for the Home.

In 2010 a new cattery was built.

Location: 4 Battersea Park Road, Battersea, SW8 4AA

Website: www.battersea.org.uk

Bob

James Bowen is a busker whose life was given meaning by his relationship with a street cat that he started caring for.

The Cat Flap

There is an account that one day Sir Isaac Newton was engaging in a series of experiments with light. However, his work kept on being interrupted by his cat, who wished to come and go from the room in which he was working. Therefore, he cut a hole in his door and covered it with felt. The moggy was a queen. Subsequently, she gave birth to some kittens. This prompted the scientist to make a smaller cat flap for them.

There is an alternative version of the tale in which Newton had a normal-sized cat and a fat one. He created appropriately-sized flaps for both of them because he did not wish either of them to believe that it was less cherished by him than other one was.

Gravity was merely a discovery, whereas the cat flap was an invention.

Location: 87 Jermyn Street, SW1Y 6JD (red, brown)

See Also: SIR ISAAC NEWTON

Cats

With the publication of his poem suite Four Quartets (1943),¹ T.S. Eliot ended his creative writing career. Thereafter, he continued to produce criticism and to work as a poetry editor for the publishing house Faber & Faber. He had a strand in his character that meant that he was able to dissimulate his true intentions and then act swiftly and decisively. In 1947 he started sharing a flat in Carlyle Mansions on Chelsea Embankment with his associate John Hayward. A decade later, to the great surprise of his colleagues and friends, especially Hayward, Eliot married Valerie Fletcher, who was his secretary at Faber. The couple moved into a flat Kensington Court Gardens. The period that followed was the most contented one of the poet's life.

Following her husband's death, Valerie Eliot proved to be a fastidious guardian of his literary legacy. However, one of her actions caused great surprise - she gave Andrew Lloyd-Webber permission to use Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939), a collection of nonsense poems, as the basis for a musical.² Lloyd-Webber wrote Cats, which opened in 1981 and went on to become a global entertainment phenomenon. The Eliot literary estate, with its share of the profits, established the T.S. Eliot Prize for poetry in 1993 to mark the 40^th anniversary of the Poetry Book Society.

Location: 3 Kensington Court Gardens, W8 5QE. Marital home. (red, grey)

Carlyle Mansions, Chelsea Embankment, SW3 5LS. Bachelor home. (purple, pink)

Faber & Faber, 24 Russell Square, WC1B 5EA. Workplace. (purple, yellow)

See Also: LITERATURE

¹. The Four Quartets was almost called the Kensington Quartets.

². Possum was a nickname that Eliot's fellow American, the poet Ezra Pound had given him. It drew an analogy to the way in which opossums (Didelplis marsupialis), when alarmed, sometimes lie very still and pretend to be dead. Pound was well enough acquainted with Eliot to know that there was a playful personality behind the formal Westminster Abbey fa ade that most people only ever encountered.

Hello Charmmy Kitty

Kitty White was created in 1974 by Ikuku Shimizu for Sanrio Inc. of Japan. Her name was taken from that of a cat that was cared for by Alice in Through The Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871). She lives in the suburbs of London with her parents and her twin sister Mimmi.

In 1999 Daniel was created as a boyfriend for Kitty. His name was taken from the movie Melody (1974), which had starred the actor Mark Lester.

Hello Kitty is not a cat. She is the cat-rendered anthropomorphised personification of a girl. She always acts physical in a human-fashion. She never walks on all-fours. She has a pet cat Charmmy Kitty who looks like Hello-Kitty but who does walk on all-fours. Charmmy Kitty is kind, friendly, and occasionally sassy. She has a younger sister, Honeycute, who is pink.

Birthday: 31 October (Hello Kitty's is on 1 November)

Website: https://hellokitty.fandom.com/wiki/Charmmy_Kitty https://sanrio.fandom.com/wiki/Charmmy_Kitty

Hodge

Every day the 18^thC lexicographer Dr Johnson would buy a dozen oysters for his cat Hodge. He did not wish discommode any of his servants by having them undertake the task.

Location: Gough Square, EC4A 3DE. A statue that was erected in 1997 by Richard Byron Caws in memory of his grandfather Major Byron F. Caws, who had been involved in the preparation of The Oxford Concise Dictionary. (purple, red)

Humphrey

Humphrey the Downing Street cat arrived at No. 10 in 1988 as a stray. Opinions as to his character varied. Some believed him to be capable of conducting a reign of terror over the local wildlife, while others did not believe that he had it in his nature to do so.

In July 1995 Humphrey went missing. Two months later the Cabinet Office accepted that - in view of his history of kidney trouble - he was almost certainly dead. The newspaper stories that reported the beast's believed demise were accompanied by photographs of him. From these he was recognised. He had taken up residence three-quarters of a mile away at the Royal Army Medical College in Millbank.

In May 1997 the Labour Party was voted back into power. Cherie Blair moved into No. 10 with her husband Tony Blair the new Prime Minister. It was alleged that Mrs Blair did not like cats. Humphrey soon found himself on the front of virtually every newspaper being embraced by his new mistress in an effort to try to dispel the possibility that his future abode might be in doubt. Shortly afterwards, after the hubbub had died down, he took up residence in the suburbs.

Location: 10 Downing Street, SW1A 2AA (orange, turquoise)

The Royal Army Medical College, 16 John Islip Street, SW1P 4JU. (Now the Chelsea College of Art & Design, part of the University of The Arts.) (blue, yellow)

The Jocks

Winston Churchill adored cats. During the Second World War Nelson, a black cat, attended Cabinet meetings. For his 88^th birthday in 1962 Churchill was given a marmalade cat. He named it Jock after Sir John Jock Colville, who had been one of his private secretaries. It is reputed that the animal became so dear to him that he would not eat unless the creature was at the dining table with him. In 1966 the Churchill family bequeathed Chartwell, the former premier's country home, to the National Trust. They did so on the stipulation that there should always be a Jock resident there who was a marmalade cat with a white bib and four white socks. This condition has been honoured. In 2014 Jock VII (n Malley), a cat sanctuary cat, assumed the position.

See Also: WINSTON CHURCHILL

Website: www.nationaltrust.org.uk/chartwell/features/jock-vii-of-chartwell

Sir John Langbourne

The social theorist Jeremy Bentham (d.1832) was very fond of cats. He had one that he called John Langbourne. He was so fond of the beast that he conferred a knighthood upon it so that it became Sir John Langbourne. Subsequently, he granted it a Doctor of Divinity degree, thereby causing it to be known as the Reverend Sir John Langbourne D.D.. There was speculation about whether he might make the animal a bishop.

Location: The Ministry of Justice, 102 Petty France, SW1H 9AJ. The site had been 19 York Street. (blue, brown)

The National Cat Club

The artist Harrison Weir organised the first cat show. This was held in Crystal Palace in 1871. There were about 160 entrants. The event was won by a Persian kitten. Fifteen years later Weir became the inaugural President of the National Cat Club.

Website www.nationalcatclub.co.uk

The Ousting of Thatcher

During the middle years of her premiership, Margaret Thatcher's control of office seemed as though it would never end. At popular protests, there were calls of Maggie! Maggie! Maggie! These were responded to by the crowd with the chant Out! Out! Out! Such exclamations proved to be ineffective. Sustained, concentrated Absurdist thought was applied to the problem. A new call was born - Moggy! Moggy! Moggy! This engendered the reply, Cat! Cat! Cat! Her days in power had become numbered.

Satin Park

Satin Park is a small urban park off the Old Street between Central Street and Anchor Yard. It has a plaque that commemorates Satin (1995-2003), the estate caretaker's cat. She was a sociable marmalade cat, who was appreciated by the estate s residents. She had to be put down after having been attacked by a dog.

Location: Satin Park, Wenlake Estate, Old Street, c.EC1V 9JH (orange, yellow)

The Royal London Institution for Lost & Starving Cats

The Royal London Institution for Lost & Starving Cats was founded by a Mrs Morgan in 1896.

Location: 38 Ferdinand Street, NW1 8HE (blue, orange)

Selima

Horace Walpole owned a cat called Selima. She was fascinated by the goldfish that he kept in a cistern in his townhouse. One day, while he was away, she slipped into the vessel and was unable to make her way out of it. She drowned. She became the subject of one of Thomas Gray's better known compositions Ode On The Death of A Favourite Cat, Drowned In A Tub of Gold Fishes (1747-8). In a light-hearted manner, the poem dealt with the subjects of death, loss, and mourning. These were to be those of Gray's most celebrated work Elegy Written In A Country Church-yard (1751).

Location: 11 Berkeley Square, W1J 6BR (red, grey)

See Also: GRAVEYARDS

Website: www.thomasgray.org

Sunning

One afternoon the politician Charles James Fox (d.1806) and the Prince of Wales were walking along Bond Street. Both men were keen gamblers. They came across a cat. The M.P. bet the prince that, if they walked the length of the road, he would see more cats on its eastern side than the prince would see on its western one. They proceeded to promenade along the street's full length. Fox won by a large margin. He had chosen the side of Bond Street that had the sun shining upon it.

Location: New Bond Street, W1S 1DQ (orange, purple)

See Also: WEATHER

Working Cats

Cafe Cats

Java Whiskers Cat Cafe

In 2002 Java Whiskers opened a second cafe in the Westfield Shopping Centre.

Location: 105 Great Portland Street, W1W 6QF (purple, pink)

Ariel Way, W12 7HB

Website: https://www.javawhiskers.co.uk

Cinema Cat

Houston was The Scala cinema's cat.

Location: 275 Pentonville Road, N1 9NL (red, brown)

See Also: CINEMAS The Scala

Lavatorial Cat

Tiddles manned the principal Ladies in Paddington Railway Station in the 1970s. The frequent treats that the beast was offered by travellers meant that he grew to be very obese.

Location: Paddington Railway Station, Praed Street, W2 1HB (red, blue)

See Also: FOOD Extreme Obesity; LAVATORIES

Library Cat

In 2023 the British Library cat was called Daisy. During the Covid lockdowns, she had single-pawed defended the institution, thereby, preserving a significant chunk of civilisation.

Location: The British Library, 96 Euston Road, NW1 2DB (blue, yellow)

Website: www.twitter.com/britishlibrary/status/1424294344912158720?lang=en

Navy Cats

In 1975 Royal Naval vessels were no longer required to have a ship's cat.

Location: (32) Whitehall, SW1A 2DY (blue, brown)

See Also: THE NAVY

Police Cat

Constitution Arch police station's cat was called Snooks.

Location: Hyde Park Corner, W1J 7NT (red, purple)

Restaurant Cat

Upon one occasion the clothes designer Mary Quant and her husband Alexander Plunket Greene (d.1991) were dining in Rule s. The couple had an argument during which Ms Quant was moved to exclaim I m not having dinner with a pompous, self-opinionated man like you, I d rather dine with the cat! She then seated herself at another table, tied a napkin around the restaurant cat s neck, and ordered jugged hare and burgundy for them both.

Location: 34-35 Maiden Lane, WC2E 7LB (brown, grey)

Website: www.rules.co.uk

Theatre Cat

Many West End theatres have a resident cat. One of the better-known ones was Beerbohm (d.1995) of The Globe Theatre. From time to time, he would steal a show by making an impromptu guest appearance during a performance. The Stage, a theatrical weekly newspaper, published his obituary.

Location: The Gielgud Theatre, 33 Shaftesbury Avenue, W1D 6AR (orange, red)

Website: www.gielgudtheatre.co.uk

David Backhouse 2024