We are Siamese if you please....

Erol Flynn with a Siamese

Siamese are one of my favourite breed of cats, in fact any animal. I find it very sad that they're much maligned as evil….I think it's often due to this both racist and cat-ist clip…

I've always been fascinated by them because of my mum's stories about her beloved childhood siamese, Ming, that she had when growing up in India. Ming, mum & uncle Chris would all play hide and seek in the huge plantation gardens, or pirate ship in massive greengage trees - Ming would proudly sit at the stern, miaowing. She had some kittens with a wild cat, but the kittens would never be tamed and ran off.

There's no photos from this period so I will post a picture of the Nilgiri Hills and an old Siamese cat:

We also had siamese cats in the slightly less exotic setting of Lower Morden. First there was Leo, who was half siamese, a very handsome chap and sadly run over after only 6 months with us. (I made that scratching post)

Then my favourite family cat, Max….aaah. He'd been bullied by his brothers and given away……God I loved that cat, but no one else did. We were both excessively long, ugly, gaunt and socially inept. My horrible older brother was mean him, making him miaow the most ugly miaow all the time, and piss everywhere. One day, without telling me, mum took him back to the rehoming centre…he even starred in the rehoming bit at the end of 'Pet Rescue' one day, looking extremely unhappy.

A fascinating siamese cat myth:

In the book 'Animals and Man' it says that siamese originated through interspecies mating caused by boredom on Noah's Ark, with the ape falling in love with the lioness. The siamese produced had the attributes of apes, and the bravery of the lion.

Ava Gardner with a Siamese