WHY I HATE CATS!

almost as much as the arrogant, selfish brutes loathe me ...

WHEN I was three years old, I was taken to visit my grandmother, who was at the time in possession of a black cat. A photograph still exists of me, resplendent in tartan trousers, pottering around her garden and apparently holding out my hand to the cat in a gesture of friendship.

How well I recall, as a child, elderly relatives sighing sentimentally over that picture, which seemed to illustrate the innocent interaction of small child and domestic pet.

The reality was, however, somewhat different. I have no memory of the picture being taken, but I do remember my typical reaction to that particular feline’s presence — which was to find the best possible means of ensuring he went rapidly in the other direction.

The hand I am holding out to him in the picture is not seeking to stroke him, but to shoo him away — because I realised all too well, even at the age of three, the effect he was having on me.

My eyes were itching, stinging and watering, in that order. I would start to sneeze. I was not, at so tender an age, familiar with the word ‘allergic’, but that is exactly what I was. In short, cats and I were designed to live planets apart.

That first loathing for these selfimportant creatures had come about because my grandmother had become blind and for some reason — perhaps seeking to avoid the predictable option of acquiring a dog — took on a cat.

I had, at that stage, nothing against cats in themselves — apart from the fact that they sparked that violent physical reaction.

But as I grew older and understood the importance of giving these beasts the widest possible berth, I realised as well that there wasn’t really anything about a cat that I could bring myself to l i ke: in f act, quite the opposite.

I know this will outrage the nation’s cat lovers, but I felt that by prompting an allergic reaction in me, cats were doing me a favour.

THIS lifelong enmity meant that I read with some i nterest l ast week of a Cambridge University research paper which suggested the cat allergy suffered by 10 per cent of the population could soon be a thing of the past.

Dr Clare Bryant believes that a pill or an inhaler can be made to stop us sufferers responding to the allergy-inducing protein in cat dandruff that reacts with a chemical in the human body, and makes us sneeze and cry.

Perhaps for some of my fellow sufferers, such an invention will be a watershed moment.

It requires a leap of my imagination, but I am sure there are some of them who have lain awake at night longing for the moment — until now unthinkable — when they could, Blofeldlike, sit with a moggy on their laps and stroke it contentedly.

I, however, am not of their number. When I realised I couldn’t handle being anywhere near a cat, I am afraid it led to me finding plenty of other reasons why I wanted nothing to do with them. And I am sure they all feel the same about me, by the way.

Even if I could share my life with cats, I would still think them the most thoroughly antisocial animal.

You see, just as mankind is split between card players and chess players, or smokers and nonsmokers, or Canon and Nikon users, so it is divided, too, between dog people and cat people. And it quickly became apparent to me that I was a dog person, not least because I rather enjoyed t heir t r aditional attitudes towards cats.

The great advantage dogs seemed to have over cats was that they could be trained, and would do what they were told. Cats, by contrast, had a mind of their own.

But that was not all of it. Dogs, I realised early on, were animals with which one could have a conversation: often a considerably better one than one could have with a human being.

During respites from my hysterical sneezing and weeping, I have heard people talk to cats. However, I have observed that, unlike dogs, cats do not appear to be listening. That tedious arrogance has already allowed them to decide what they think, and are interested in, and it is usually not you.

In my experience, cats instinctively know when someone — ie me — can’t stand them.

They r ub t hemselves up against their enemy, doubtless in the interests of leaving as much of their toxic dandruff on them as possible.

They derive insane pleasure from walking over them, spiking them with their claws. Any signs of resistance, and they will scratch, and take great pleasure in so doing.

Dr Bryant describes t he offending protein as a ‘sticky’ substance. It adheres to clothes and shoes and can be transported around.

Occasionally, I have been somewhere free of an infestation of cats, but have started to get that familiar stinging feeling in the far corners of my eyes. It has then emerged that one of the people with me has been in the presence of a cat, and has brought to the gathering its revolting toxins.

Thus, moggies have a ludicrous way of inveigling their way into lives even of those who go to the greatest lengths to avoid them.

They also, unlike dogs, leave a l egacy. As Dr Bryant quite correctly points out, the allergy-inducing residue of a cat can linger on in a house for years afterwards.

We have been to stay with kind friends who, knowing of my difficulty with felines, ensure their own pets come nowhere near me during our stay.

It is to no avail. If the cat has so much as waved its tail in the room during the previous year, I am within a few minutes rubbing my eyes and preparing for a monumental sneezing fit.

I once went to visit a relative in August, and had no idea she had harboured a cat — a particularly long-haired one, I subsequently discovered, the nuclear weapon of the feline universe. It was only when, on the motorway driving home, that I had to pull on to the hard shoulder because I could not see, and was sneezing so much I could not concentrate, that I realised I had been a victim of a feline stealth bombing, using a delayed-action fuse.

Things are always worse in high summer. What in January is a mild irritation is, in July, like having had acid thrown in the eyes, having been forced to inhale sulphur, and having been made to sniff large quantities of pepper.

NOW, it might be thought that, were a pill or an inhaler available to stop me from having these terrible reactions, I would use them. But I doubt it: because to medicate against my cat allergy would be to allow me to get closer to the average cat, and I can confidently say that neither the average cat nor I would really want that.

So I shall keep my distance when this wonder drug is finally developed. Since cats and I have no desire to become more closely acquainted, there is no point my taking it.

And I would warn my fellow sufferers: think very hard about whether you want these difficult, self- possessed creatures to infiltrate more deeply i nto your lives.

We have, after all, had to reconcile ourselves, with some success, to managing without them — and it would not do to weaken now. That would only play into our enemy’s paws.