How four Siamese cats became fixtures and fittings

by Michael Broad · August 25, 2020

If you have buried your deceased cats in your back garden and if you are an elderly person who thinks that it is about time that you wrote your will, you might consider putting something in the will about your buried cats because if you don’t they will be in the back garden when your home is purchased after it is sold by the executor to your will. Is that what you want? It might be advisable to have the remains cremated and the ashes placed with yours. These instructions could be in your will.

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Siamese and Oriental cats. Photo copyright Helmi Flick. These cats are from Ranchcats Cattery.

A letter to The Times newspaper describes a slight variation to the scenario that I have described above. The executor to the will of a former English master, Anthony Maycock, tells us that the teacher buried his four deceased Siamese cats in his mother’s garden in Sussex.

When she decided to move home he dug them up and re-interred them in plant pots. He placed the plant pots on the balcony of his flat in south London.

Although Mr Maycock ensured that he had a will, he did not put in it any instructions about his four deceased and buried Siamese cats.

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As a consequence the executor treated them as fixtures and fittings on the sale of Anthony Maycock’s home (as pot plants would normally be described). You might know that “fixtures and fittings” are items such as lights and shelves fixed to a wall inside the home.

I wonder what happened to the plant pots. We’ll never know. Mr Maycock clearly loved cats in particular Siamese cat. He wanted them close to him. I understand that because my cats are cremated and the ashes are with me in my living room.