My whole family is quite the cat family (okay but seriously, we have cats and pictures of cats and doorstops of cats etc everywhere), my mum has had various cats throughout her life. Her first cat was Bingo, a ginger cat, who from what I’ve heard was fairly vicious and liked to jump out at people from behind bushes.
Then where her and my Dad moved in together, they had a cat called Charlie, who they took care of after the owner couldn’t any longer, and then two male cats, Buster (short for Bustopher Jones) and Monty.
Buster was named after a poem by T. S. Eliot:
Bustopher Jones: The Cat About Town
Bustopher Jones is not skin and bones–
In fact, he’s remarkably fat.
He doesn’t haunt pubs–he has eight or nine clubs,
For he’s the St. James’s Street Cat!
He’s the Cat we all greet as he walks down the street
In his coat of fastidious black:
No commonplace mousers have such well-cut trousers
Or such an impreccable back.
In the whole of St. James’s the smartest of names is
The name of this Brummell of Cats;
And we’re all of us proud to be nodded or bowed to
By Bustopher Jones in white spats!
His visits are occasional to the Senior Educational
And it is against the rules
For any one Cat to belong both to that
And the Joint Superior Schools.
For a similar reason, when game is in season
He is found, not at Fox’s, but Blimpy’s;
He is frequently seen at the gay Stage and Screen
Which is famous for winkles and shrimps.
In the season of venison he gives his ben’son
To the Pothunter’s succulent bones;
And just before noon’s not a moment too soon
To drop in for a drink at the Drones.
When he’s seen in a hurry there’s probably curry
At the Siamese–or at the Glutton;
If he looks full of gloom then he’s lunched at the Tomb
On cabbage, rice pudding and mutton.
So, much in this way, passes Bustopher’s day-
At one club or another he’s found.
It can be no surprise that under our eyes
He has grown unmistakably round.
He’s a twenty-five pounder, or I am a bounder,
And he’s putting on weight every day:
But he’s so well preserved because he’s observed
All his life a routine, so he’ll say.
Or, to put it in rhyme: “I shall last out my time”
Is the word of this stoutest of Cats.
It must and it shall be Spring in Pall Mall
While Bustopher Jones wears white spats!
I hope to include this poem within my photo book, as I like its context in relation to the cats and how it obviously held significant meaning among my parents for them to name Buster after it.
After Monty and Buster both passed away, we decided to get two new kittens, Panda and Willow, these are the cats we still have to this day (there names weren’t so poetically chosen, but just seemed to fit them and their personalities) and they are a big part of our family.
