The Local History Cats

There have been four Local History Cats. When we started the magazine in 1984, we were ably assisted by Coco, an aristocratic chocolate point Siamese, and Smokey, a grey and white young man who had come to us as a rescue cat. Wild and distrustful, with good reason, of human beings, he adored Coco and, after some initial hesitation, she took on the job of licking him into shape with the same attitude she adopted towards life in general, that of supreme confidence in her own ability.

Smokey's attitude to producing Local History Magazine was, as the picture on the right shows, relaxed. Coco, although she obviously never lifted a paw herself, knew instinctively how to manage the human staff and always made sure that production of the magazine never got in the way of really important jobs, like catering.

Unfortunately, just months after we began the magazine, Smokey died of heat stroke during a very hot summer. He was five and had become a most affectionate cat to those few human beings whom he trusted. Coco was devastated and when Rolo came to live with us shortly afterwards, she accepted him with good grace, but as far as she was concerned he could never replace Smokey.

Rolo was another grey and white young man, with brilliant iridescent eyes the colour of tiger's eye. He chatted volubly with all and sundry in a series of wonderful little chirrups and died tragically young, aged one year, when he was run over by a speeding car.

It was after Rolo's death that Miss Jenny Anydots was taken onto the staff. Saved from being drowned, she was the funny looking runt of the litter who grew into a beautiful tortoiseshell tabby with an outstandingly sweet nature. She and Coco never really got on, but Jenny was smart enough to realise that she had to appear to do what The Boss wanted and was able to get her own way in much more subtle ways than we ever realised at the time.

Coco had a stroke when she was nearly seventeen and she had to be put to sleep. She was our first cat, so that made her pretty special, but anyone who has ever had a Siamese will know how intelligent and affectionate they can be. It was a hard blow, but Jenny bravely stepped into her new responsibilities as Boss Cat and, as can be seen from her picture above, could often be found supervising business activities in the office. When we took delivery of a new computer system in 2000, she kindly showed Susan how to shrink down an old DOS program into an icon at the bottom of the computer screen by delicately pressing on the Alt key and the Space bar with her derrière; the fact that she wanted her tea and was trying to prevent Susan from typing was overlooked in the general joy which followed this demonstration of computer wizardry.

Just before New Year 2001 she had a stroke, from which she recovered very well. In August however we discovered that she had a malignant tumour on her spleen and both were removed in a major operation. Much to our surprise, for she was nearly fifteen, she bounced back from the operation and had a further two months of enjoyable life. In early October however, she started to fade away as the cancer returned and Susan especially had to spend a great deal of time with her as she became weaker. She died peacefully in her sleep in the early hours of 9 November.

So now The Local History Press office has no cats to supervise the human workers. There are no cat hairs getting inside the computer mice, no furry bodies lying across the keyboards, no small reproachful creatures whose body language expresses so clearly the opinion that, Sunday isn't a working day so what are we doing in the office? No doubt in the future there will be more Local History Cats, but for now a suitable period of mourning will be observed and Snofi, who diligently helps Barbara with the book reviews, will have to hold the fort alone.

An update — August 2003
We had become quite used to being without a cat when in March a young man decided to adopt us. Pusskin, as he eventually became, was a typical 'Felix' cat, between 1 and 2 years old, of a very affectionate and good natured disposition, although he had a very independent streak and tended to go 'walkabout' for anything between 2 and 7 days. We couldn't for the life of us understand how anyone could lose him and not frantically be trying to find him, but no-one responded to our newspaper and radio adverts, or the web page we set up for him.

In spite of the worry of seeing him in places which meant that he was crossing very busy main roads and even a railway line (gulp!), we settled down together and we two bipedals began to look forward to a life of servitude again. Sadly, it was not to be. A few weeks ago we noticed that he was unusually thin, even for the summer, his coat began to lose its shine and his breathing became laboured. A visit to the vet and a series of tests confirmed our worst fears - he was terminally ill with feline leukaemia and had a lymphoma in his chest. The vet thought that he must have had the leukaemia before he came to us - a product of his wandering and unsettled lifestyle. We cuddled him as the vet put him to sleep and buried him next to the 'boys' in the garden.

It's strange how such a little life can have an effect on us. Pusskin pretty much pleased himself where life was concerned, but when he was around us he gave his affection and trust freely and we felt privileged to receive them. Those of us who appreciate cats should never delude ourselves that we mean too much to them — the joke 'dogs have owners, cats have staff' rings very true — but nevertheless when a cat chooses a human of their own free will it still means a great deal.

A life without cats
We have to report (late 2006) that Snofi, Barbara's cat, is no longer with us and that The Local History Press is now officially cat-less. We (Susan and Robert) make do at the moment with talking in rather a childish manner through the kitchen window to a long-haired tortoishell and white cat who belongs to a neighbour (we don't know which one) and who recently had two black long-haired kittens — one of which is very bold and one very timid. Quite what they think of these two humans behind the window we don't know — they don't stick around very long if we go outside — but we do enjoy seeing them in the garden, even if the mother does pose a threat to the birds which Robert has attracted to the garden by dint of feeding them.

Raptors rule! (12 Feb 2007)
Last week another threat to the birds appeared in the shape of a sparrowhawk, which sat on our garden wall for about half an hour. Suddenly all the sparrows and dunnocks disappeared and a lone finch at the nyger seed feeder froze on its perch. We live about three quarters of a mile from Nottingham city centre, so we were pretty impressed to see the hawk, especially as the week before Robert saw a falcon in the back yard of our local florist's just round the corner from us.

Susan and Robert