I know that everyone thinks that their cat is special, but some cats end up in the news. Sometimes for silly actions like stealing random items from the neighbours or for walking for days to return to the home their family has just moved from – and just occasionally, for being an extraordinary cat.
SIR ISAAC NEWTON’S BLUNDER
Sir Isaac Newton is known as a great genius in physics and mathematics. The traditional story goes that his optical experiments were constantly interrupted by a cat nudging his door open and letting light into his darkened room. Newton asked a carpenter to cut a cat-sized hole in the bottom of the door and nail a flap of black cloth over it, so that the cat could go in and out as it pleased without disturbing him. He asked the carpenter to cut a second, smaller hole to allow the cat’s kittens the same privileges – apparently unaware that the kittens would follow their mother through the original cat-gap.
A century later, two repaired holes remained in the bottom of the door of his former room in Trinity College – one cat size and one kitten size. Even if the story isn’t fully documented, I’d like to believe that Newton took time off from working on light and gravity to invent the cat-flap, to accommodate a cat’s need to be in, and out, and in….
LUCKY SAVED THE DAY
In 1981, two very nervous thieves went into the post office in Abbots Morton in Worcestershire and told the postmistress to hand over all the cash in the drawer. Before she could react, her cat Lucky woke up from his snooze on the chair by the door and leapt onto the back of one of the thieves, digging in his claws. Both men fled without waiting for the money. Lucky appeared on Blue Peter with his owner, Dorothy Kennedy. He received an award for bravery. though Mrs Kennedy said that Lucky whacked people with his claws “just to invite them to play.”
SIMON OF THE ‘AMETHYST’
In 1948 Simon was a thin young stray on the Hong Kong dockyard. A teenage Ordinary Seaman called George Hickinbottom smuggled him aboard the HMS ‘Amethyst’, hiding him until after the ship had left port. The Amethyst’s captain, Ian Griffiths, appreciated the cat’s work in catching rats and adopted Simon as ship’s mascot.
Simon was living in the captain’s cabin by July 1949 when the ’Amethyst’ was attacked by field guns from the banks of the Yangtze River. The captain was killed and Simon was seriously injured. When he emerged from hiding four days later, Simon was rushed to the infirmary. The medical officer had time to deal with Simon by then, removing four large pieces of shrapnel. Simon recovered enough to continue hunting rats and resting alongside injured sailors. Anyone who loves cats will understand how much comfort those sailors may have felt from having a cat curled up beside them as they lay injured and far from home.
The ’Amethyst’ managed to evade capture and returned to Plymouth in November 1949. Simon was given the fictional rank of Able Sea-Cat and awarded three medals – the Naval General Service Medal with Yangtze clasp, the Blue Cross and the PDSA’s Dickin Medal for animal bravery. Simon is still the only cat ever to receive the Dickin Medal.
Sadly, Simon died from his injuries and a viral infection while in quarantine in Surrey. He was buried in the PDSA’s cemetery in Ilford with the crew of the ‘Amethyst’ in attendance.
CARDINAL WOLSEY, CAT-LOVER
Cardinal Wolsey is famous for being the religious leader tasked with untangling Henry VIII’s first marriage, but his other legacy is still on the news five centuries later. Living in a time when cats were regarded as familiars of witches, Thomas Wolsey insisted on bringing his cats to his official residence at York House, London. He saw his cats as essential rat catchers and companions, and took them on state visits. A bronze statue of Wolsey in Ipswich features a cat sitting beside his chair.
After Cardinal Wolsey’s death in 1530, Henry VIII confiscated York House and built Whitehall Palace on the site – where Downing Street stands today. The first Downing Street Cat was Gladstone, but the first official ‘Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office’ was Humphrey in 1989, followed by Sybil in 2007. Today the Chief Mouser is Larry, a tabby and white stray adopted from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in 2011. On a slow political news day, journalists film Larry catching pigeons, chasing off foxes and waiting patiently for the police officers on guard to summon a doorman to let him in.
Cats. Downing Street or Sible Hedingham, they expect to be treated as royalty.
