Oscar

Sadly I seem to have very few photos of Oscar. I suspect this is because I was using film when I had him, and I still have a lot of negatives to scan. All the photos I have are from 1999.

Oscar came from the WRPCC as a large kitten. He had been homed before but the original owners ‘couldn’t cope’. I thought that was weird until I had him, and found he would sit right behind my feet. It occurred to me that if they were not steady on their feet they might have worried about tripping over him. He was a very handsome ticked tabby and white, with a lovely warmth in his colouring and cute ‘buttons’ along his tummy.

He settled in quickly and was happily snuggling up with Sooty. I was fostering a litter when I got him, and he was a great playmate to them once their mum left me – she had a digestive problem and had to go on a drip, then went straight to a new home.

He was a success shown in the Household Pet section, and made it to the Supreme in 1996 by dint of winning the overall Whiskas class at one show, which is the hard way to get there! I was thrilled to bits, and still have the lovely statuette which turned out to be of a fairly similar cat to Oscar.

Sadly in 1999 he vanished without trace. I put almost 500 leaflets through doors, rung all the rescues, took leaflets round the local vets, all to no avail. I hope he simply voted with his feet – Sooty was terminally ill and Billy and Janice had recently arrived as young and energetic kittens. This is one of the last photos I took of him, and Sooty’s tumour shows as the lump on the back of his neck.