CATS IN THE HOUSE
THE CATS IN OUR LIVES, by Pamela and James Mason; Michael Enflish Price, 8/6. T may be well known to the film fans that James Mason and his wife Pamela have a family of assorted cats-and now, I believe, a daughter, though she does not appear in this book-that they spend a good deal of their non-film time writing books either together or separately, and that this happy state of affairs has been going on now for about a dozen years, before the war and through the war and out the other side of the war. All of this was fresh and new to me when I read their latest joint book, The Cats in Our Lives, written chapter about, fair’s fair for space, and illustrated with line drawings by James Mason. The dust jacket is the first pleasant surprise, and certainly a jacket to remove for safe-keeping: it is embellished in front with a picture of the happy authors with two of the basic members of their cat family, the black Siamese (yes, Pamela Mason explains, this can really happen among purebred Siamese) Topboy of Addington, and the milkman’s cat, Whitey. And that’s not the end of the dust jacket’s charms: it is covered all over the back with the faces and figures and eyes and ears and tails of the population of the book and perhaps of friends not mentioned. Cat drawings are often charming; I have never seen a more charming Iot than the ones in and about this book. * James Mason begins.the story, explaining how he came to own his first two cats, Topboy and Lady Leeds (he found her, a stray tabby kitten, on the. railway station at Leeds, and gave her a home.in his dressing-room at the theatre), after he had met Pamela Kellino at a party in 1936 and soon afterwards her pedigree Siamese, Gamma Moon of Tara. It was Pamela who encouraged him to go ahead and have Topboy live with him in his flat; but it was James himself, no encouragement from anyone, who adopted Lady Leeds, a person of great charm still living as a member of the family when the book was being written at Beverly Hills, California, in 1949, Pamela then takes over and. explains how she came to be a collector and fam-ily-builder of cats. When shé was 14 and had an allowance she made a habit of spending the whole of it on buying all the kittens in Selfridge’s pet department: the prices ranged from 6d to 2/-, and Pamela gave herself plenty of 4
trouble, living in a London flat and searching for homes for her saved kittens. There were many cats, and there still are. In 1938 James Mason and Pamela Kellino were married and rented a house in Berkshire; with the house went a housekeeper called Violet Tay- | lor and her cat ontinued on next page)
BO DKS
(continued from previous page) called Tich. They all lived in the house for four months with Topboy, Lady Leeds, Tree, Bingy, and Tich Taylor, till the three-man film they were working on (I Met a Murderer) was finished. Then the house, Violet, and Tich Taylor reverted to the owner end the Masons moved here and there, Topboy, Lady Leeds, Tree, Bingy and all. But, to finish just that one story, in 1946 Violet Taylor finally extracted herself from Berkshire and came to housekeep ever more for the Masons and their family, in London, New York, Hollywood or anywhere. The book is dedicated to her. Every reader who shares life with a cat, or cats, or a succession of cats, will ‘want this book not to borrow but to keep; it is, for one thing, full of practical hints on simple treatments for ailing cats, nursing mothers, and wobbling kittens. There is good advice about feeding-don’t give too much, cut it up small or scrape it, remember to give water to drink, and always try to give natural foods: "Most experts think beef is the best food for cats, though it can’t possibly be their natural food. (Whoever heard of a cat catching a bull?)" This is a happy sentence; but in strict regard for historical probability, I must suggest that beef may be a natural food of cats, At any rate Pamela Mason feeds her cats beef, but she scrapes it. The Masons agree with T. S. Eliot’s views on the naming of cats; they say Nigger and Blackie are names which show that the owners just arrived cas-ually-Whitey was the only cat of that description in their story. Their other cats have always had a number, and a puzzling array of names: Trée, for instance, was Harold, Harold Haddock and just Haddock, and later Albert, Baby and La Baby-all added gradually and used at various times during
‘the 12 years of his life.
J.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 544, 25 November 1949, Page 15
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814CATS IN THE HOUSE New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 544, 25 November 1949, Page 15
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