RICK WAKEMAN CAN’T HELP SAYING YES TO RESCUE CATS

Rick Wakeman, 67, former keyboard player with legendary prog-rockers Yes and now one of TV’s Grumpy Old Men, is a patron of both Oldham Cats Home and Feline Care in East Harling in Norfolk. Here he tells how rescue cats have slowly taken over his life...

‘Like many people, I wrongly thought cats don’t have much personality. Then I was visiting the vet one day with one of my dogs when he showed me a litter of homeless kittens. A few days later he brought one to see us. I was having a nap so my wife let him in. The next thing I knew I felt something on my chest. I opened my eyes and saw a tiny tabby kitten purring away, looking up at me. The vet went to take him away but I said, “No, leave him there. He’s so happy.” We named him Cookie, and that’s how my life with rescue cats began.

‘When I met my fourth wife Rachel in 2006, we inherited two cats from her parents called Scrabble and Teaser, who lived until they were 24 and 25. We bought our house in Norfolk shortly afterwards, went

straight to Rose Cottage Cat Rescue in Bungay and got two more kittens, one black and one tabby, and named them after Scrabble and Teaser.

‘Sadly, Scrabble the Second was run over aged two and I don’t think Rachel or I have ever got over it. One day we happened to see George, a black, semi-feral cat, on the Cats Protection website. They said

Rick at Cats Protection Bury

St Edmunds he’d be difficult to home, but we had to have him. When we brought George home he shot under the bed. We had to feed him there for weeks and he only came out for food and the loo. But he finally relaxed and let Rachel pick him up. She’s still the only person he’ll come to – if I’m lucky he’ll let me tickle him under the chin. Because Teaser was finding his playfulness tiresome, we decided to get George a playmate. I’d seen a kitten at Oldham Cats a few weeks earlier – he shot across the pen when he saw me, clinging to the wire as if trying to say, “Please take me!” I told Rachel I couldn’t stop thinking about him, and one day she said, “We’re going to Oldham.” She’d arranged to adopt him and we named him Harry. Our cats run the house in every respect – but it wouldn’t be a home without them.’ Felinecare.org.uk, oldhamcats.co.uk. Rick’s latest album, Piano Portraits, is out now.