Percy and Orlando meet the catnappers

November 20, 2014 • 3:22 pm

by Matthew Cobb

This is an apparently heartwarming story – David Allinson was reunited with his cat, Percy, after 10 years apart. Percy went missing in 2003, and David gave up hope of ever seeing him again. But Percy had moved 15 miles down the road, where he lived with an old lady. When the old lady died, a woman called Ruth Hart took him on, and decided to get him chipped. But Percy already had a chip – showing he was David’s cat. And in one of those amazing twists of fate, it turned out that Ruth was one of David’s work colleagues. The Guardian reports:

Allinson said: “After I called Ruth, we arranged a meeting so I could be reunited with Percy.“He was afraid and was hiding behind the sofa, but when I called his name he came running into my arms. I burst into tears – I couldn’t believe it, it was my Percy.”

Here’s a picture of Allinson with Percy:

Allinson decided to leave Percy in his new home, and goes to see him regularly. A lovely heartwarming story.

Or is it? The old lady was clearly a CATNAPPER. This is a phrase that strikes horror into me, as when I was a child I read Orlando the Marmalade Cat books, large-format, beautifully-illustrated books and in one of these (Orlando – His Silver Wedding), Orlando was catnapped.

Orlando was written and drawn by Kathleen Hale, who died in 2000 aged 101. She was heavily influenced by Japanese art. Here’s a picture of the Catnapper, who was in fact (like Percy’s oldlady, no doubt) a kindly soul. He was just addicted to cats!

https://acebourke.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/katnapper.jpg

Orlando was saved from the cat-napper by his Wicked Uncle Truffle (not so wicked really), who was a scary-looking black cat:

The Orlando books were very popular in the 40s and 50s, and I grew up reading them, and made sure my children read them, too. In 1968 he went to the moon (before Armstrong and Aldrin). In the 1990s, he even got a stamp!

One of my favourite books is Orlando Goes on a Camping Holiday. Here’s a picture from that book of Orlando and his wife Grace playing their instruments, while their kittens – Blanche (white, obvs, Tinkle (black) and Pansy (tortoiseshell)  join in. Some of the local wildlife are in the picture, too. (Notice where Orlando wears his watch.)

https://booksaroundthetable.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/orlando-kathleen-hale.jpg

If you want to see some of the books, here’s a list with pictures of the covers. Many of the books were reprinted in the 1990s and can be found at reasonable (ish) prices. The originals are, of course, pretty pricey.

23 thoughts on “Percy and Orlando meet the catnappers”

  2. This is one of the many reasons why cats should be kept indoors. People often think that the kitty that comes around every day looking for snacks and pets is a stray that’s been abandoned.

    1. Yeah, I wonder if the old lady was secretly knowing what she was doing or if she really did think the cat was a stray.

      It’s a nice story but also sad as Dave & Percy spent all those years apart when they were geographically so close by! I would hate to lose a pet like that.

    2. Percy had gone 15 miles from home. I expect he wandered off and got lost, and by the time the old lady found him he really was a stray. If she’d taken him to the vet to check his chip she’d have found his owner, but I guess she didn’t think of that.

      1. A lot of people still haven’t heard of microchips. I think in the country people just assume an animal has been dumped. One of my friend’s had a dog get loose and was gone for months and traveled quite a distance. Cat owners assume their cats will just wander around the neighborhood but dogs and cats can go quite far on their own

  3. What a charming book! I never heard of it.

    It looks like both a cautionary tale for those who think all “stray” kitties are strays — and some comfort for a child who has lost their cat. Maybe they were taken in by someone who loved them too much (as opposed to being run over by a car or otherwise doomed.) The “wicked catnapper” is actually a best case (or at least pretty good) scenario.

    1. I lost a beautiful Maine Coon not so long ago, I definitely hope she was taken in by someone rather than the grim alternative.

  4. I live in an apartment building that has a backyard area where we park our cars. There’s a stray marmalade cat that has been there every since I moved in two years ago. He’s a sweet kitty, and seems to enjoy his life outside. We all feed him. But I often wonder if he’s lonely out there – since he tends to meow at the window of my downstairs neighbor who’s cat sits at the window.

  5. Thanks for explaining a minor mystery of my childhood, Matthew.
    A ginger tom lived with the doctor down the street when I was in the early grades of primary school, in the early 60s. His name was Orlando, something that my mother (a great cat-lover) thought was hilariously high-falutin’ – she figured that the doctor (another ailurophile) had thought that only a fancy name would do for his cat. I’d always wondered a bit – there was Orlando Furioso, the Renaissance romance figure, and Orlando the Virginia Woolf character, but neither of these seemed likely, and it isn’t a common name. But it’s clear now that Orlando the Sheppard Square cat did after all have a literary namesake that I never knew about.
    Funny that this came up now – I remembered just the other day seeing the real-life Orlando sunning himself on the roof of his house as I walked to school.

  6. Glad that they check the chip and found the original owner and that he actually wanted the cat. Most all humane societies chip everything, so they will get it back if the new “owner” abandons it. Which happens far more frequently than you’d hope.

  7. Why do we think the cat was “napped” rather than just having moved on its own? Do little old ladies go around grabbing other people’s cats very often? I’ve never heard of such. Or is it that anyone who adopts a stray that turns up at their house is automatically a cat napper? Why isn’t this described as a case of the cat capturing a new servant?

        1. When my kids were toddlers someone gifted us a children’s book called Skippy John Jones. I had never heard of it. It is about a young male siamese cat who constantly day dreams about amazing adventures while picturing himself as a chihuahua.

          This book is hands down my favorite of any of the stories we collected during my kids early years. We, my wife & I, a couple of the kids uncles & a grandmother, laughed our asses of reading that story for the first time to the kids. It is hilarious.

          The kids loved it too, so they often asked for it. There was a passage that for a while they just didn’t get the joke. I would read the passage very slowly & distinctly hoping they would get it, “Sí, I love mice and beans!” I had nearly given up hope when one night they both got it for the first time. They were so excited about that. There is nothing that can put a smile on your face faster than hearing little kids unrestrained laughter.

          Anyway, if you haven’t already heard of the story, give it a try. There are a series of stories, and they are all good, but the first one is pretty special as far as children’s stories go.

  10. I grew up on Hugh Lofting’s Doctor Dolittle books, starting out with “Doctor Dolittle’s Island.” You young whippersnappers may never of heard of them; they’re about a
    “Doctor” (of what?) who can talk to animals,
    and his/their adventures. I’ve often wondered how much those books may have influenced my later life. I didn’t grow up to be a biologist (though I considered it)but I’ve had a close relationship with and concern for animals since my pre teens.

    1. I started on Lofting when I was 7, but also first read T.H. White the same year, Willard Price a couple of years later, then all Gerald Durrell’s books up to “Catch me a Colobus”. Apparently I was never going to be anything but a zoologist.
      I’ve tried reading Dr Dolittle with my kids, but it doesn’t really work any more.

      1. Lofting, E.B. White and G. Durrell here, too. 🙂

        My kids loved the Doolittle books; at that time I had yet to learn that they’d been deemed “racist.” Stupid pomo-rons.

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