100 Cats Who Changed Civilization (7 page)

The new addition to the household immediately became a great favorite. Jock was allowed to perch on Churchill’s knee during formal photos that were taken for the wedding of one of his
grandsons. But their time together was brief. Jock was only two years old when Churchill died in 1965. He actually sat on the bed with his master as the great man breathed his last. He remained at the family residence, Chartwell, until his own passing in 1974. He lies buried in a pet cemetery on the grounds.

But that wasn’t the end of the story. Churchill’s will left Chartwell to the government, which turned the estate into a national monument. There was, however, a stipulation: The property always had to have a marmalade cat named Jock in residence. Currently the job is handled by Jock III. Not surprisingly, having a cat roaming around a historic landmark can be somewhat of a pain. The home’s conservators make sure the current Jock doesn’t try his claws out on the furnishings or get at the bowl of goldfish that resides perpetually in Churchill’s old study. Mostly he spends his days outdoors, catching the occasional mouse, sunning himself in the garden, and enjoying the largesse of a kindly master he will never know.

AHMEDABAD

THE CAT WHO SPARKED
AN INTERNATIONAL INCIDENT

At the beginning of the 1960s, famed U.S. diplomat John Kenneth Galbraith served for twenty-seven months as ambassador to India. During his tenure at that sensitive diplomatic station, he handled everything from the American response to the 1962 Sino-Indian war to disputes over his country’s relationship with Pakistan. But those important developments pale in comparison to the embarrassing international incident touched off by a member of his own household—who wasn’t even human. The greatest firestorm of Galbraith’s tenure erupted over a misunderstanding involving his pet cat, Ahmedabad.

It began in 1962. During an official visit to the Indian state of Gujarat, Galbraith’s two young sons were each given Siamese kittens. One received an utterly innocuous name and is forgotten by history. The other got what at the time must have
seemed
like an equally forgettable moniker—
Ahmedabad
, to commemorate the town in which it was born.

This probably would not have been a problem. Unfortunately, the Galbraith family shortened it to
Ahmed
. This, as they were soon to learn, is one of the many, many alternate names for the Muslim prophet Mohammed.

And that, as it turned out, was a
big
problem.

Shortly after the cat was innocently mentioned in a newspaper article, riots erupted across neighboring Pakistan, where the feline’s name was taken as an insult to Islam. American facilities were stoned, U.S. personnel were attacked in the streets, and mullahs across the country called for Galbraith’s head. “I do not think the Pakistanis were particularly sensitive,” Galbraith wrote in his memoirs. “In the darker reaches of our Bible Belt, there would have been criticism of a Pakistan ambassador who, at a moment of friction between our two nations, had, however innocently, named his dog Jesus.”

The crisis was finally ended when the diplomat explained, repeatedly and at great length, that the kitten was in no way, shape, or form named after a person—especially a religious prophet. Furthermore, to defuse any subsequent misunderstandings, it had been renamed Gujarat. Thus, with a meow rather than a roar, the incident faded away. “Amateurs will never understand how much can turn on the name of a kitten,” an amused Galbraith wrote.

SMUDGE

THE CAT WHO JOINED A UNION

In Europe, it can be very hard to get ahead without belonging to a union. Such was the case for one beleaguered employee of the People’s Palace, a museum and indoor conservatory located in Glasgow, Scotland. The worker in question was a former stray cat named Smudge. From 1979 until her retirement in 1990, she worked as the facility’s mouser. Smudge became a celebrity, serving as the spokescat for various local groups and issues and lending her face to museum gift shop items ranging from ceramic statues to T-shirts. In 1987, when she vanished for three weeks, pleas from local dignitaries, including the Lord Provost of Glasgow, led to her discovery and return.

But Smudge’s greatest claim to fame was her union card. First the museum staff put her up for membership in the National and Local Government Officers Association as a blue collar worker, but she was rejected. So instead she signed on with the General, Municipal and Boilermakers Trade Union, which happily included her in its ranks. She remained a staunch supporter of organized labor until her death in 2000.

HUMPHREY

ENGLAND’S MOST
CONTROVERSIAL CAT

English prime ministers have a long history of sharing No. 10 Downing Street with felines. There’s more to it than mere affection, however. The sprawling government complex has something of a rodent problem, so the cats have always earned their keep.

A mouser named Humphrey was no exception. Found by a civil servant and named after a character on the popular British television show
Yes, Minister
, he started work in 1988 during the Margaret Thatcher administration, replacing a recently deceased tomcat named Wilberforce. For a government stipend of 100 pounds per year, Humphrey made life as hard, and as brief, as possible for the building’s vermin. He served throughout the Thatcher administration and straight through that of her successor, John Major.

It was good that Humphrey had work to serve as a distraction from the numerous crises and controversies swirling around him. In 1994, the press accused him of killing a nest full of robin chicks that occupied a window box outside Major’s office. The government, adopting peculiarly strong language, called the charges “libelous.”

That was nothing compared with what happened in June 1995, when Humphrey suddenly vanished. The situation grew so grim that on September 25 the prime minister’s office issued a memo lamenting the cat’s assumed death. But shortly thereafter he turned up at the Royal Army Medical College, where he’d been adopted as a presumed stray and renamed PC (short for Patrol Car).

The most serious dustup took place when Major’s conservative government was replaced by the administration of Tony Blair. Rumors quickly spread that the new prime minister’s wife, Cherie, either didn’t like Humphrey or was allergic to him. Finally, in November 1997 it was announced that the cat had been given to an anonymous elderly couple so that he could enjoy his “retirement.” This in turn sparked stories that Humphrey had been euthanized—a tale that was squelched only when photos of him standing beside some current newspapers were taken at his new (and secret) residence.

The various controversies faded when Humphrey went to his final reward in March 2006. Happily, throughout his eventful tenure, the veteran mouser remained blissfully oblivious to it all.

BLACKIE

THE CAT WHO COULD
TALK—AND SUE

U.S. law books are filled with groundbreaking civil rights cases. One of the most entertaining concerns a talented black cat from South Carolina. According to his owners, Carl and Elaine Miles, they acquired him at a rooming house in the late 1970s, when a girl with a box of kittens asked if they wanted one. “I said no, I didn’t want one,” Carl recalled during court testimony. “As I was walking away from the box of kittens, a voice spoke to me and said, ‘Take the black kitten.’ I took the black kitten, knowing nothing else unusual or nothing else strange about the black kitten.”

But things would soon get very unusual. A few months later Carl, inspired by what he called “the voice of God,” became convinced that the kitten was attempting to talk to him. So he tried to help the process by developing what amounted to a speech therapy program for cats. First he taped the sounds Blackie made, then played them back to him. He also encouraged his pet to watch his master’s lips as he spoke.

This effort paid off. The cat began, haltingly, to “talk” at six months. Shortly thereafter it could utter a grab bag of phrases clearly enough to become of interest to promoters. He talked (for a fee) on radio
and television, and even made an appearance on the network program
That’s Incredible
.

But then the feline thespian’s fame subsided. By May 1981, the Mileses were reduced to exhibiting Blackie on the streets of Augusta, Georgia, where he would say things like “I want my mama” and “I love you” to passersby in exchange for handouts. Unfortunately, the local constabulary was less than charmed and insisted that the couple purchase a $50 business license. They complied, but then sued the city, stating that the law didn’t specifically mention talking animals. This was enough to make the case interesting. But then the Mileses went on to assert that the fee
violated their right to free speech and association
. Not just theirs, but Blackie’s too.

It was an interesting argument, to say the least, and one that might have eased the lives of noisy alley cats and chatty Siamese everywhere had the courts agreed with it. Unfortunately—though, perhaps, predictably—they didn’t. The couple lost their case in district court, which stated that even though Augusta’s business ordinance didn’t specifically mention talking animals, what the Mileses did was certainly a business, and therefore in need of a license.

The case was then kicked upstairs to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh District. It, too, agreed that the couple needed to pay Augusta the contested $50. And in a footnote, the three-judge
panel saw fit to address the issue of Blackie’s free speech rights, such as they were—or, in this case, weren’t. “The Court will not hear a claim that Blackie’s right to free speech has been infringed,” they said. “First, although Blackie arguably possesses a very unusual ability, he cannot be considered a ‘person’ and is therefore not protected by the Bill of Rights. Second, even if Blackie had such a right, we see no need for appellants to assert his right
jus tertii
[as a third party]. Blackie can clearly speak for himself.”