Churchill and Roosevelt Loved Cats. Hitler and Napoleon Hated Them.

The title is a sentence from Tom Cox’s book “The Good The Bad and The Furry“.  Tom Cox likes cats and lives with cats. He also writes in his book:

..people who hated cats were often control freaks who think the world owed them a living. People who expected other people to be eager and compliant, no matter how poorly they treated them.

Tom Cox has also written a recent article for the Guardian in which he describes how a series of stray ginger cats have come to his home. They always seem to be ginger. I wonder if there are more ginger stray cats in England than other coat colours. Or perhaps it is that ginger strays have the character and intellectual strength to enter his house and take his food. It takes guts to do that and gingers are leaders, it is said.

One of the ginger strays, he named “Alan” with nicknames: Mister Man, Little Sod, Alan Balls. Alan was a good eater! He ended up being adopted by Tom Cox’s neighbours. I have taken the liberty of publishing Tom’s photo of Alan here in return for a link to his blog.

What about Churchill, Roosevelt, Hitler and Napoleon?

Churchill

His secretary, Grace Hamblin, writes that he loved cats:

He loved cats. So do I and he knew it. He always had a cat, if not two.

Roosevelt

The Roosevelt family kept a menagerie of pets including two cats: Tom Quartz and Slippers. I think a more accurate statement would be that Roosevelt loved animals or at least his family did.

Hitler

The general view is that Hitler despised cats. He preferred dogs. His German Shepherd “Blondi” is well known. There is a humorous website that takes the mickey about of Hitler based on cats that look like him.

Napoleon

He was an ailurophobe. He feared cats and hated them because of that, it seems to me.