Cats we have had: Tiki Part 1

We named the first cat we had Tiki and ever since have had Maori names for our cats.  Because I knew I was somewhat allergic to cats we decided to get a Siamese as I had heard somewhere that, because they were short-haired, it was unlikely I would have an allergic reaction.  In those days it was extremely difficult to have either pets or a baby in rented accommodation so it was only when we bought our first house in 1973 that we realised we could have a cat.  We started to look for a Siamese although we knew absolutely nothing about the breed.  When we lived in Turin we had friends who had a Siamese but that was the only one we had ever known.  However, I did know I did not sneeze when we visited them, unlike our friends here with a moggie cat who used to have to clean everything before we went there.   I seem to remember we moved into our new house in September.  We were very broke as John had returned to university and we were basically living off my salary.  We decided that one way of saving money would be to spend a fortnight over Christmas with John’s parents in Derby as this would mean we could turn the heating off.  The heating was storage heaters.  We did not drive so went to Derby by train.  As we had not expected to acquire a cat, we did not have any equipment for bringing one home.  One evening I was looking at the local newspaper when I saw an advertisement for a litter of Siamese cats so I contacted the breeder.  I was told the kittens were still very small but if we waited until just before we returned to London, they would be eight weeks old and we could have the largest.  Following my father’s advice from my childhood, we insisted on a male but fortunately the one the breeder was willing to part with was male.

Tiki

We only have two photos of him because of the fire

Please note the 'boz-eyed' look'

The breeder lived in Codnor, a village up onto the moors between Derby and Sheffield.  It was possible to get there by taking two buses but remember it was the middle of winter and Derbyshire is famous for fog.  The breeder kindly said he would drive us back to Derby if we came by bus.  There was no way we could go and inspect the cat.  We waited until New Years Eve as we were returning to London on New Year’s Day.  We knew Tiki would have to spend one night with us in Derby.  The house was tiny and my brother-in-law was sleeping on a camp bed in the sitting room because John and I had the second bedroom.  There was also a largish dog but he turned out not to be a problem and for the rest of his life he and Tiki got on very well.  Both animals slept downstairs that night.

We made the outward journey without any problems.  My hazy memory of the house we went to is that it was full of animals as in addition to the litter of kittens there was also one of puppies.  We were told the cat’s pregnancy had been unexpected and we never did get Tiki's pedigree although I think that may be because the breeder did not have our address.  While we were there the fog began to descend and the return journey became something to remember.  It was not helped by the fact that the ring road in Derby was being rebuilt so there were various diversions.  The breeder had a small van and I think I must have held Tiki on my lap.  When we got to Derby the fog was incredibly thick.  We started driving round the ring road but missed the turning for the London Road south (off which John’s parents lived) three times.  We kept hearing the cathedral bells, sometimes louder and sometimes further away.  Finally we found the right turning and completed the journey.

Then we had to face the fact that we had no cat litter and no food.  I know we found a cardboard box lid and tore up newspaper as a loo, although Tiki was not keen on the idea of using it.  There was a lobby between the front room and the room where the cat, dog and John’s brother were to sleep so we put the ‘tray’ in there and shut the doors.  I cannot remember what we did about food.  Our train was not until the afternoon and we realised we would have to take a taxi from St Pancras all the way to Tooting, not something we could normally afford but there was no way we could have taken a kitten on the underground.  And all the shops in Derby were closed by the time we returned from Codnor and not open on New Year’s Day.  We found a cardboard carton and put the cat in it but he objected and soon got out.  John had a jacket lined with false sheepskin so we put it on my lap and the kitten was happy to sleep on that.  It was bitterly cold as we used to have much colder winters than we have now.  When we reached St Pancras we had to join the queue for taxis, still with Tiki on the sheepskin coat in my arms, but after waiting some time, we did make it back to the house in Tooting which of course was freezing cold.  So Tiki spent his first night in the bed with us.

We were quite strict with him initially.  We used to lock him in the sitting room when we went to bed and then hear him knocking a ping-pong ball about.  He was not allowed in our bed after the first night but I am afraid that stopped because John used to get up much later than me and would let him into the bed after I had got up.  We fed him on a mixed diet.  There was tinned food but also things such as heart because Tooting had a good covered market with very traditional stalls.  We did not know about dry food which in the early seventies was somewhat dubious and was said to cause kidney problems.  He was a very fussy eater, though, and we were forever having to change the brand of cat food we fed him.

From the beginning he never went to a cattery.  Our holidays were strange affairs.  One year we had to holiday separately because of work commitments.  My first boss arrived from New Zealand and stayed with Tiki for the three days when our holidays overlapped.  Otherwise John’s parents looked after him.  Initially they would come to London and housemind.  Later we used to take him up to Derby, drop him off and then continue to our holiday destination.  We did not go abroad much.  We heard of one occasion when John’s parents let him out and he nearly got lost but otherwise the system worked well.

In the very hot summer of 1976 we lost him.  We lived in a terrace of two-up, two-down houses.  It was just off a main road (the A24) with lots of traffic and the area was very built up.  We used to leave a window open at the back when we went to work and we knew that occasionally he got out a window at the front.  One time John and a friend were in the sitting room when they saw him descending past the window!  He had got out the upstairs bedroom window.  When we lost him in the summer of 1976 I spent ages hunting under all the parked cars.  Then John walked round the corner from the main road and he fell out of the engine of one of the parked cars.  What relief!  However, John was wearing a white shirt and white jeans so he was very dirty.  So was the cat. We phoned the vet and asked what we should do.  The advice was to get as much of the oil off him as possible.  We had to start by rubbing him with butter.  We were then told to shower him.  Not something a cat fancies but we managed to hold him in the bath and use the shower head.  He emerged very bedraggled and very angry and retreated to the top of the stairs where he sat trying to clean himself properly.

He was a cat who had many adventures.  He also was not insured.  On one occasion he got in a fight and ended up with an abcess.  I cannot remember if that was the occasion that prompted us to change vet.  He had to be admitted to the second vet.  He was put on a drip for several days and of course refused to eat.  In the end I cooked chicken on the recommendation of a colleague and took it to the vet.  He still would not eat.  Finally the vet said we could take him home for twenty-four hours to see if he would eat there.  He held out for nearly the whole time but then did start nibbling so we breathed again.

Then there was the time when we took him to Guildford to stay with my sister while we went to Heathrow for some reason.  When we returned there was no sign of him but then we discovered he had got INTO the mattress and was hiding under the scrim that lined it. We even took him out to tea to friends who lived in a flat.  This was not a success so we did not repeat that sort of excursion.  Nor did we train him onto a lead, although we did do that with the next pair.  We were beginning to learn how far you can push a cat to do things it does not want to!