KITTEN WAS FED FROM FOUNTAIN PEN FILLER Crawley and District Observer, 27th November 1953
Blue Star Simon, the pedigree Blue Persian cat belonging to Mrs Grace Pond, of South Lodge, Buchan-hill, Pease Pottage, will be seen by Television viewers next Tuesday. Mrs Pond is appearing in Women’s Hour and is talking on the care of kittens. Simon will be of special interest since he was taken from his mother three days after birth and fed from a fountain pen filler by Mrs Pond. For day she had to get out of bed throughout the night to feed Simon, but she was eventually rewarded with a fine kitten which will grow into an even finer cat.

Mrs Pond is an expert on the breeding of all kinds of cats, but particularly Blue Persians. She has been breeding them for over w3 years. She has never shown a cat at a show without winning an award and this year she has been appointed show manager of the National Cat Club’s show at the Horticultural Hall, Westminster, on December 9. She will not be entering any of her eight pedigree Persians in the show this year, but in previous years she has been awarded the prize for the best cat in the whole show.

[FANCIERS: RICHARD WARNER] SPOTLIGHT TROUBADOUR IS AN ARISTOCRAT IN A LIVELY HOME. HIS SECRET JOY IS MAKING PHOTOGRAPHERS GO MAD Sevenoaks Chronicle, 15th October 1954
Spotlight Troubadour, famous great grandson of an equally famous great grandfather, YoY o, has earned himself the highest award of the year. It might sound a bit like a printer’s pie, but actually it means that a local cat has been awarded top marks at a cat show. Spotlight is a very aristocratic member of the feline fraternity. He is a Siamese cat, and of one of the very best families.

Five years ago, actor, Mr. Richard Warner, who is an enthusiastic breeder of Siamese cats, won the highest award with a cat called Clonlost Yo Yo at the Siamese Cat Show in London. Last Friday, Spotlight was awarded 10 first prizes plus the “best cat in the show” award. At Mr. Warner’s home near Bayley’s Hill, a “Chronicle” reporter and photographer found the air thick with Siamese cats, so to speak. Two met them in the drive. Another couple whipped through the door as they were taken inside. Several regarded them from various points of vantage in the lounge, whilst some delightful blue-eyed babies (cats, of course) awaited inspection in the “nursery.”

Spotlight is a beautiful cat, but he is so full of the joy of living that he exasperated the photographer by pretending to be a Chinese cracker whenever the button wash pushed. Many people will remember seeing him on the television screen some weeks ago when Mr. Warner’s daughter, Fern, exhibited him at Lime Grove. At the time, several people predicted that he would be a champion. Their opinions were fully justified last Friday.

Life at the Warner home is full of movement. There can be no idle moments for anybody. Young Mark Warner proved this by playing a smartish bit of jazz on the pianola as soon as the reporter took out his pencil and paper. When order had been re-established, a couple of cats fell to fighting in another corner, and when they had been parted and the fur swept up, Spotlight disappeared over the top of a wall into the bushed below and Mrs. Warner had to dash off in pursuit. No sooner had the errant been retaken than Mark once more made an appearance with a box of chocolate biscuits, insisting that everyone should partake. He absent-mindedly finished the remainder while the photographer was once again trying to get Spotlight lined up for a shot. At one time, he would gladly have swapped his camera for a double-barrelled duck-gun by the expression on his face.

LONDON. - Britain's King of Cats has abdicated. Saturday Evening Express, Launceston, Tasmania, 9th July 1949.

He is Mr. Cecil Yeates, 74-year-old Londoner and Sandhurst contemporary of Winston Churchill, who turned in a military commission to become Britain's No. 1 cat connoisseur. The Governing Council of the Cat Fancy, which he has "ruled" for two years, can claim mortal authority over twice as many animals as the famed Kennel Club. A sample cat census puts the population above six million, compared with fewer than three million dogs. But the Kennel Club’s influence is far stronger. For whereas a registered breed - the cocker spaniel - has overtaken the mongrel as Britain's most popular dog, all the pedigree cats put together are overwhelmed in numbers by unclassified alley-cats. This is no fault of the cat breeders. The fact is that to most folk who keep a cat for its happy-home symbolism rather than for classy companionship, pedigree does not matter. But Mr. Yeates still counts himself as going out on the crest of a cat wave. For kittens from recognised catteries are selling before they are born. His one regret is that the once favourite tabby, first ousted by the pampered Persian, then swamped by the lithe Siamese, shows no signs of comeback.

"It is a shame that the cult of exotic breeds has put the real English tabby - the most beautiful cat in the world - out of fashion," he says.

Exotic breed enthusiasts point out that the tabby is just as much a foreigner as the Persian or Siamese. Scientific evidence shows that it is certainly not directly descended from Britain's wild cat, and probably came from Egypt by way of Italy in medieval times. It was still! enough of a curiosity in the 1Sth century for one specimen - "Dick Whittington's" - to become a countrywide legend.

Mr. Yeates is on safer ground when he condemns the rebel breeders who are developing peke-faced cats - dog-like creatures with pushed-in noses and watery eyes. Apart from the Manx monstrosity, the cat has suffered little at breeders’ hands. Only 26 varieties are recognised by the Cat Fancy Council. But these are sufficient to cause continual bickering between the separate breed clubs which make up the woman-dominated Cat Fancy. Mr. Yeates’ parting gesture is aimed at stopping this friction. He has appointed a new secretary, whose knowledge of cats extends no further than friendship with a 12-year-old non-descript tom.