Fur richer, fur poorer
Pair who split over wife’s 10 cats marry again... even though she’s now got 40!
‘He’s much more relaxed now’
WHEN they divorced four decades ago, Trevor Howes blamed his wife Marlene’s obsession with cats for the split.
But now her love of felines has, amazingly, led to the rekindling of their romance. And whereas Mrs Howes, 72, had a mere ten cats when they split, she now owns 40.
Retired professor Mr Howes, 82, still wanted to remarry her but came up with the ideal solution to their different attitude towards the cats – the couple will continue to live separately.
They remarried last week, 50 years after their first wedding in September 1968.
At that time, his wife, who breeds Persians, had seven cats. He insisted they stay in a cattery in the garden rather than being allowed to roam the house.
The couple, who had met at Bristol Lawn Tennis Club, had two children but eventually separated as the effort she took to prepare her growing number of cats for shows placed demands on their time together.
Mr Howes, a professor of mechanical engineering, remarried and lived in the US for a time, but was widowed ten years ago.
He decided to get back in touch with his ex-wife after seeing her on a Channel 5 programme, The Woman With Forty Cats.
Their daughter Juliet, 47, played matchmaker, encouraging her mother to meet him.
‘I got a message from my daughter, that her father would like to go out for a meal with me,’ said Mrs Howes, of Whitecroft, in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. ‘I was really surprised and a bit hesitant. I said I wasn’t going but she kept on.
‘She said, “It’s a very nice pub, you’ll have a nice meal.”
‘I did go and we started going out regularly. We went off for drives into the hillsides of Wales, and to the seaside. It just became a regular thing.’
She was hesitant again when he suggested they remarry.
‘He proposed at Christmas and again at Easter, over the phone.’
She admitted that her fondness for the prize-winning cats she breeds helped cause their first marriage to crumble.
‘I’ve been breeding Persian cats since before I met Trevor,’ Mrs Howes said. ‘My auntie bred poodles and I used to show and train her dogs, until I was 17, then I took up cat breeding. Trevor is not a cat lover – he wouldn’t want them all around the house. When I met him, I had seven cats. It’s a lot to most people. He had a cattery built in the garden, so he didn’t have to share the house with them.
‘I put my life into my cats. There were various reasons but it did contribute to us splitting up. But I never stopped loving him.
‘Now we’ve agreed to forget the past. I want to make him happy for the rest of his life.’
Mr Howes, who is, she says, ‘much more relaxed now’ about her cats, lives about 30 minutes away in Whitelye, near Chepstow, South Wales. He said: ‘Marlene and I had lost contact altogether.
‘Then I just switched on the TV one evening and out of the blue, there she was. We met again, we got together and that broke the ice. We went out for a meal.
‘It was just like when we first met. She was a pretty lady then, and she is now.
‘She had six or seven cats when we met, and ten when we divorced. Now the current arrangement is that we live in separate houses.’
However, he confessed: ‘I’m open to the idea that we might share a house together.’
They remarried at Usk Register Office. As well as daughter Juliet and son James, 46, guests included the bridesmaids and best man from their first marriage.
Mrs Howes said: ‘It was a super day.’ The couple will spend their honeymoon in Crete.