Ginger nuts

Winston Churchill was but one in a long line of fans of marmalade cats

IBLAME Kathleen Hale for my ginger fixation. The moment I saw the late author’s famous creation, Orlando, rising like a purring sun across the cover of a library book, I yearned for a marmalade cat of my own. I was influenced, too, by Thomas O’Malley, the big red tom from The Aristocats, who duets so winningly on Everybody Wants to be a Cat.

It took me a good few years to achieve my ambition, but when a cat gap appeared in my marital home, I went out and procured a ginger kitten. No matter that he had a vast scab across his wild face, where a bigger cat had swiped him. His silky, soft coat rippled every shade of orange, from a delicate apricot to a rich tangerine.

My husband named him Wavell, after the World War 2 field marshal, and he soon proved equally intrepid. The kitten Wavell would perch on my shoulder like a parrot and, as he grew bigger, would travel in our car with his front paws on the dashboard, like a nosy terrier. When the wind blew from the southwest, his tail would shoot up like an orange pennant, and he’d roam for miles. I once picked him up from the other side of town on my bicycle. He sat in the basket, pleased as punch, as I cycled home. “Is that a tiger?” asked one impressed jogger.

So I was glad to learn Winston Churchill was an even bigger ginger nut than I am. For the great man’s 88th birthday, his private secretary, Sir John “Jock” Colville, gave him one such beast, which was promptly installed at Chartwell and named for its donor.

Ginger “Jock” was such a hit that Churchill and his family stipulated that a doppelgänger should be sought when puss went to the great hearthrug in the sky — and thenceforth into perpetuity. This week, Jock VI, who possesses the requisite white bib and paws, just like the original, took up loafing duties at the wartime leader’s Kentish seat. Doubtless he’ll prove popular: recent research conducted by the University of California showed that ginger felines are the most popular among cat owners, because they are perceived as friendly and lovable.

The yoking of ginger to “tom” means people tend to assume all reddish cats are chaps, but this ain’t necessarily so — although 75% of ginger beasts are male. They need only have the orange gene on their sole X chromosome to be born red. Females need it on both chromosomes.

Where would popular culture be without marmalade cats? Orange-striped Garfield is practically a cult, Audrey Hepburn croons to a ginger tom in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and amber-striped Jones is the only being other than Ellen Ripley to survive the first Alien movie. Proof, if any more were needed, of the ginger cat’s talismanic superiority. — Rowan Pelling © The Daily Telegraph, London