Tiger Tim

This is my long departed cat, Tim, or Tiger Tim as some of my friends used to call him. He was a lovely old thing, not much of a lap cat, but very loyal, and followed me absolutely everywhere.



He was also a very intelligent cat, and often stood at the window airing his disapproval of human behaviour. One night, an argument erupted outside the Uplands house in which I was living at the time, and old Tim gave a huffy snort and stalked straight to the bay window of the bedroom, to look out. The more the two guys outside argued, the more his fluffy plume of a tail swished, and the more he huffed and snorted. The guys began to fight when the more drunk of the two tried to get into his car, and his more sensible friend snatched the keys off him. Enraged and indignant, Tim began to growl and snarl, breaking off to purr if I spoke to him, before resuming his growling.

He absolutely loved people, greeting anyone who came to the house, by rubbing around their legs and swishing his great plume of a tail around them. But he despised other cats, the only exceptions being the two he lived with. No feline was allowed to cross our garden, or it would get a good slap. They rarely returned, as he was such a large, robust cat. I often wondered if he was part Maine Coon, give his coat and his size. Dogs got even shorter shrift. I caught a boxer dog pooping in my flower border one day, and Tim set about it with such force, it ran off yelping, and never dared foul my garden ever again.

Sadly, he suffered kidney failure at the age of eleven and a half, and had to be put to sleep in September 1998. Even as I handed him over to the vet, all he could do was purr very loudly, as sick as he was. I hadn't seen these old pics for years, until I rediscovered them yesterday. These images of him are not the best quality. The originals were snapshots taken by my mother on an old film camera, and she knows zilch about photography. As I don't have a scanner, the versions here are essentially photographs of photographs, taken with my little digital camera, which I've enlarged and enhanced.



It's a shame this old marmalade man died two years before Leo arrived - he'd have whipped the little bugger into shape. He was a much nicer colour than the pics show - a much paler red, with lots of creamy-blonde stripes. To get an idea of what a formidable chap he could be to anyone who gained his disapproval, I could hear him scrapping with another cat one night, and I was worried he was being hurt. My friend Pete was at the house, and he said to me, "don't worry. Knowing that cat, he's probably shoving a firework up some skinhead's arse'. RIP Timmy.