100 Cats Who Changed Civilization (16 page)

It’s hard to tell where the private life of renowned London conceptual artist Tracey Emin ends and her very public professional life begins. She’s worked in media ranging from paint to photography to appliquéd quilts. Her most famous piece was called, simply,
My Bed
. True to the name, it was her own unmade bed, surrounded by dirty clothes and other refuse. It caused an uproar in the art world, turning Emin into a celebrity. Today the piece is valued in the neighborhood of £150,000.

Clearly, almost anyone or anything can become part of her work—a fact that came back to bite her when her cat, Docket, ran away from home in 2002. Distraught, Emin posted handmade “lost kitty” posters around her neighborhood. Almost immediately they were taken down by collectors, who sold them for as much as £500. Flabbergasted, Emin put out the word that there was nothing in the least artistic about the hastily written notices. Fortunately, everything worked out in the end. The collectors got to keep their trophies, and Docket found his way home on his own.

FRANK

THE CAT WHO BECAME THE FIRST
FELINE INTERNET PHENOMENON

Many artists suffer for their work, but few suffered as much as Internet celebrity Frank the Cat. In 2003, the search engine Yahoo! declared his Web offering to be one of its top sites of the year. All Frank did to gain such plaudits was lie quietly in a cage. Oh, and almost get himself killed.

The unlikely story began in January 2002, when Frank, an English cat residing in Cambridge, was hit by a car. The accident broke his pelvis, requiring reconstructive surgery and a lengthy recovery. The feline spent his convalescence piled up in a cage at the home of his master, David Donna, the managing partner of a small Internet firm.

Donna had an idea. Ostensibly to test some company software—but also, perhaps, because he thought it might be cool—he created a Web site chronicling Frank’s ordeal, complete with pictures of his X-rays and a biography of his pet. As the
piece de resistance
, he rigged up two webcams so that surfers could watch every moment of Frank’s recovery.

What took everyone by surprise was just how many people seemed interested in the injured cat’s plight. Within minutes of going public, the site was getting two thousand hits per minute.
Unknown to Frank, who spent most of his time sleeping, close to five million people logged on to check up on him. But it couldn’t last forever. Once the feline regained enough strength to get around on his own, he would no longer lie obligingly in front of the webcams for his fans.

Shortly after Frank’s recovery, the live site was taken off the Web. In the aftermath, more than a few social commentators scratched their heads about what made it so popular. “It’s just one of those things that has been blown out of all proportion,” Donna told the BBC. The project did produce one unlooked-for benefit, however. A mysterious couple had assisted Frank shortly after his accident, probably saving his life. When they spotted him on the Internet, they got in touch with Donna, who arranged a meeting between the cat and his benefactors.

OTHER FELINES OF
DISTINCTION

GRIMALKIN: The celebrated pet of French astrologer Nostradamus. Grimalkin was also the name of the witches’ cat in Macbeth
.

DELILAH: The favored pet of Freddie Mercury, front man for the famed British rock group Queen. The female tortoiseshell was immortalized in the song “Delilah,” on the band’s 1991 album
Innuendo.
The lyrics, while enumerating her good qualities, also take her to task for peeing in the house
.

RUPI: The pet of Jethro Tull founder Ian Anderson and inspiration for the title song of his 2004 solo album
Rupi’s Dance.

JELLYLORUM: The feline owned by T. S. Elliot, who served as the inspiration for (and appears in) the book
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.
The collection of poems spawned the musical
Cats.

KAROUN: Cat owned by famed French writer and film director Jean Cocteau. The distinctly feline makeup used for the Beast in his famous 1946 version of
Beauty and the Beast
was reportedly influenced by Karoun’s features
.

SIMON

BRITAIN’S MOST-
DECORATED SEA CAT

Cats who live aboard ships need more than the usual amount of intestinal fortitude. They spend their lives surrounded by water, and if their ship happens to be a vessel of war, they may face combat as well.

Such was the case for Simon, who “served” aboard the British destroyer HMS
Amethyst
. He displayed such fortitude in the face of battle, loss, and injury that he became the first cat in English history to receive a medal for courage under fire.

He was born inauspiciously, on an island off the coast of Hong Kong. His sea service began in March 1948, when a sailor smuggled him aboard the
Amethys
t. He became a favorite of the captain, accompanying him on rounds and even sleeping in his cap. Simon was also an expert rat hunter, often laying out his kills at the feet of his commanding officer.

In 1949, the
Amethyst
received a new captain, who also appreciated Simon’s company. The ship then got a new, more dangerous assignment. Mainland China was in the throes of the communist revolution, and the ship was to sail up the Yangtze River to Nanking to guard the British embassy and to evacuate the staff if Mao Zedong’s forces took the town.

The
Amethyst
voyaged into a hornet’s nest. Gun batteries on the banks of the Yangtze opened up on the ship, killing more than two dozen crewmen and inflicting heavy damage. While trying to evade the attacks, the ship ran aground on a sand bar. The captain’s cabin took a direct hit, killing him and, everyone assumed, Simon as well. After a long struggle the crew finally refloated the ship and maneuvered out of range of shore fire. The wounded were evacuated and the dead buried.

About that time the crew realized that Simon had survived the destruction of the captain’s cabin. But just barely. His whiskers were singed, he was covered with blood, and he was dehydrated and suffering from four shrapnel wounds. He was taken to sickbay and patched up, though his chances of survival seemed small.

But the indestructible cat had other ideas. Slowly he convalesced, eventually regaining enough strength to go rat hunting again. There was plenty of time for this, because the
Amethyst
was trapped behind enemy lines. Food was running short, and the ship’s rodent population made desperate attempts to get at it. Simon, though hurt, was the first line of defense.

When not on rat patrol, the little cat was in sickbay, commiserating with convalescing sailors. His own injuries helped them relate to the cat and perhaps feel more at ease. He even managed to befriend the
Amethyst
’s new captain, who had made
no secret of his dislike for felines. When he came down with a fever that confined him to his quarters, Simon dutifully sat on his bunk beside him.

Finally, after two months bottled up on the Yangtze, the
Amethyst
escaped under cover of darkness. The crew members were hailed as heroes, as was Simon. He was awarded the Dicken Medal for animal gallantry—the four-legged version of the Victoria Cross. So far he is the only cat ever to receive the honor.

Unfortunately, he never lived to see it. While sweating out a six-month mandatory quarantine after reaching England, he contracted an infection and died on November 28, 1949. Today, a stone marker stands over his grave. It says in part, and with typical British understatement, that the little cat’s behavior “was of the highest order.”

FAITH

THE CAT WHO DEFIED
THE LONDON BLITZ

The first days of World War II were dark ones indeed for Great Britain. Nazi Germany had conquered almost all of Europe, leaving the residents of the island nation to fight on alone. From September 1940 to May 1941, Hitler tried to crush England’s will to resist by launching the Blitz—the indiscriminate terror bombing of cities, especially London.