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Please Take Me Home: The Story of the Rescue Cat
In Dogs of Courage, Clare Campbell told the incredible journey of the dogs who conscripted to fight for their country. This time, she examines the plight of the nation's rescue cats, taking us from unsentimental horrors through to joyful happy endings.
In Please Take Me Home, Clare Campbell takes us on a journey with the nation's rescue cats, from being treated as pests throughout history to being the pet of choice today.
For a long time, stray cats in Britain were seen as a nuisance and hunted down as vermin. Having invited this wild, independent creature into our homes, humans did not extend their welcome for long. Over time, thousands of cats were subsequently abandoned and left to live on the margins of survival.
There were, however, the kind few who sought to help. But these good spirited people were often scorned, even derided as 'mad'. A Princess of Wales was even told to stop helping lost cats in order to avoid a royal scandal; the story was kept a secret of state for years. It would take over a century for strays to become the beloved rescue cats of today, with some now gaining celebrity status, such as Downing Street's Larry or Street Cat Bob.
Please Take Me Home is a fascinating and insightful history through the ages of the struggle for cats to exist in domesticity alongside mankind.
In Please Take Me Home, Clare Campbell takes us on a journey with the nation's rescue cats, from being treated as pests throughout history to being the pet of choice today.
For a long time, stray cats in Britain were seen as a nuisance and hunted down as vermin. Having invited this wild, independent creature into our homes, humans did not extend their welcome for long. Over time, thousands of cats were subsequently abandoned and left to live on the margins of survival.
There were, however, the kind few who sought to help. But these good spirited people were often scorned, even derided as 'mad'. A Princess of Wales was even told to stop helping lost cats in order to avoid a royal scandal; the story was kept a secret of state for years. It would take over a century for strays to become the beloved rescue cats of today, with some now gaining celebrity status, such as Downing Street's Larry or Street Cat Bob.
Please Take Me Home is a fascinating and insightful history through the ages of the struggle for cats to exist in domesticity alongside mankind.
- GenresCats
464 pages, Hardcover
First published October 13, 2016
11 people are currently reading
43 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 16, 2018
Interesting book about history of rescue cats
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March 25, 2017I wish I could like Please Take Me Home more than I do. It’s a worthwhile but troubling account of our relationship with cats. It’s full of interesting and unusual information. But there it stops. The problem with this book is its narrative arc, how it presents its argument, and the presentation of sources.
For a start, there’s no index. Unforgivable in this book and in many others that I read. How are you supposed to find that bit of interesting information again if you can’t look it up in the index? Yes, I write notes with a pencil on the pages; however, in doing so I do it not as an alternative to an index but in addition to one. An index is a basic ingredient in nonfiction books. Any without one automatically looses its credibility in my, er, book.
There are many references. They’re not presented in the way that I prefer but never mind. They’re there. But there are also many interesting points made without a reference. Where did the author find this out? I often found myself asking. Am I supposed to take the author’s word for it? Clearly, the author, Clare Campbell, is a cat lover, as she says so at the beginning of the Author’s Note. And I don’t doubt this for one moment. At the end she speaks passionately and proudly about the adoption of two rescued cats, Fergus and Luis. Her bio says she’s written other books, some about animals, along with her husband, a former defence correspondent at The Sunday Telegraph. Clearly, a lot of research went into the writing of this book; but despite all the references, I couldn’t help but note as I read through that I would periodically find interesting bits of information that were not referenced. The lack of an index and the mixed report on references makes it difficult for me to be able to use this book as an invaluable resource and reference.
There’s also a subtext to the narrative that just didn’t sit well with me. And it’s difficult for me to explain why. It is critical of cat advocacy, for want of a better phrase, and rightly so at times. But there are times when I think, “What’s the really being said here?” There’s a subtext to this text that doesn’t quite declare itself. So, what’s going on?
Well, at times, it’s unclear as to knowing exactly what the author is saying. The writing is sloppy at times. For example, "The climb of the cat into the sunlight of middle-class respectability had reached its balmy noontide just as the windows of British suburbia were being measured for blackout curtains." p. 189
Here’s an example of the framing that I found troubling. This is taken from the discussion on animal rights: "‘Rights’ meant doing something about changing the minds of people, by waving placards, writing books, sending hate mail, making death threats." p. 254
There’s a passing reference to animal ethics in which Peter Singer is referred to as “Mr Singer” and not Professor Singer. Nearby, she incorrectly cites Ingrid Newkirk as PETA’s only founder when Alex Pacheco was also there. She talks about, in another example of sloppy writing, the “Provisional Wing” of feral enthusiasts. Anyone seen a cat caretaker with an AK47 tucked under her arm as she carried bags of dry cat food from the car to the colony?
On page 266 she relegates to a footnote a reference to Phyllis Wright for "also coincidentally be a driving force behind the shift in the US to the use of sodium pentobarbital injection for small animal euthanasia."
This was part of an effort to stop the use of gas and the decompression chambers used in the 1960s, 1970s and even thereafter. Now, whatever you think about Phyllis Wright and The HSUS, I think this is a significant positive development for cats and deserves not to be relegated to a footnote. This point is particularly noteworthy given the author frequently disparages caring people who were doing their best to helping cats by taking action that we, in hopefully more enlightened times, would not do. In fact, the occasional footnote often felt like the absence of an important point had been discovered from the final draft and was stitched in at the last minute.
So, the citation problem and the troubling narrative are the reasons why I can’t think more positively about this book than I do.
Again, I don’t doubt the author’s commitment to cats and, albeit beyond the reach of this book, animals in general. Nonetheless, there’s an unnecessary amount of gratuitous remarking made about people, organisations, and activities that I could have done without. This is very much the author’s personal subjective account. It is at times an interesting read but it is not a scholarly history that can be trusted as a resource. Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with that.
For a start, there’s no index. Unforgivable in this book and in many others that I read. How are you supposed to find that bit of interesting information again if you can’t look it up in the index? Yes, I write notes with a pencil on the pages; however, in doing so I do it not as an alternative to an index but in addition to one. An index is a basic ingredient in nonfiction books. Any without one automatically looses its credibility in my, er, book.
There are many references. They’re not presented in the way that I prefer but never mind. They’re there. But there are also many interesting points made without a reference. Where did the author find this out? I often found myself asking. Am I supposed to take the author’s word for it? Clearly, the author, Clare Campbell, is a cat lover, as she says so at the beginning of the Author’s Note. And I don’t doubt this for one moment. At the end she speaks passionately and proudly about the adoption of two rescued cats, Fergus and Luis. Her bio says she’s written other books, some about animals, along with her husband, a former defence correspondent at The Sunday Telegraph. Clearly, a lot of research went into the writing of this book; but despite all the references, I couldn’t help but note as I read through that I would periodically find interesting bits of information that were not referenced. The lack of an index and the mixed report on references makes it difficult for me to be able to use this book as an invaluable resource and reference.
There’s also a subtext to the narrative that just didn’t sit well with me. And it’s difficult for me to explain why. It is critical of cat advocacy, for want of a better phrase, and rightly so at times. But there are times when I think, “What’s the really being said here?” There’s a subtext to this text that doesn’t quite declare itself. So, what’s going on?
Well, at times, it’s unclear as to knowing exactly what the author is saying. The writing is sloppy at times. For example, "The climb of the cat into the sunlight of middle-class respectability had reached its balmy noontide just as the windows of British suburbia were being measured for blackout curtains." p. 189
Here’s an example of the framing that I found troubling. This is taken from the discussion on animal rights: "‘Rights’ meant doing something about changing the minds of people, by waving placards, writing books, sending hate mail, making death threats." p. 254
There’s a passing reference to animal ethics in which Peter Singer is referred to as “Mr Singer” and not Professor Singer. Nearby, she incorrectly cites Ingrid Newkirk as PETA’s only founder when Alex Pacheco was also there. She talks about, in another example of sloppy writing, the “Provisional Wing” of feral enthusiasts. Anyone seen a cat caretaker with an AK47 tucked under her arm as she carried bags of dry cat food from the car to the colony?
On page 266 she relegates to a footnote a reference to Phyllis Wright for "also coincidentally be a driving force behind the shift in the US to the use of sodium pentobarbital injection for small animal euthanasia."
This was part of an effort to stop the use of gas and the decompression chambers used in the 1960s, 1970s and even thereafter. Now, whatever you think about Phyllis Wright and The HSUS, I think this is a significant positive development for cats and deserves not to be relegated to a footnote. This point is particularly noteworthy given the author frequently disparages caring people who were doing their best to helping cats by taking action that we, in hopefully more enlightened times, would not do. In fact, the occasional footnote often felt like the absence of an important point had been discovered from the final draft and was stitched in at the last minute.
So, the citation problem and the troubling narrative are the reasons why I can’t think more positively about this book than I do.
Again, I don’t doubt the author’s commitment to cats and, albeit beyond the reach of this book, animals in general. Nonetheless, there’s an unnecessary amount of gratuitous remarking made about people, organisations, and activities that I could have done without. This is very much the author’s personal subjective account. It is at times an interesting read but it is not a scholarly history that can be trusted as a resource. Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with that.
October 8, 2018
A really interesting subject topic on the history of rescue cats . It briefs us on the troubling account of our relationship with cats which goes a long way into the 1850s. I really liked this book as it was about animals esp cats and dogs but it was troubling to read about how the excess stray cat population was put to sleep in the most horrible way possible. It moved me to tears in many parts of the book . It was a really nice feeling when my neighbours cat ,Snowball (a fluffy white cat) came and jumped into my lap and saw the cover page of the book with an injured cat on it. Moreover she sat with me for 3 hours until I finished the book and whenever I flinched at the horrible treatment of cats in Britain and the US from the 1850s to the 1950s she was there to reassure me that this doesn't happen anymore (in England as there are no strays anymore) by licking my hand and purring softly. It is rightly said
'You just never know where a conversation with a cat might lead you.' - Hoyt Tarola
That being said I used to feed 4 stray pups when I was in college/university in Goa and was so happy to see them transform into big healthy dogs . I arranged someone to take them to the vet and after that they were found good homes .... I'm happy that in my small way i managed to change not one ;but 4 dogs lives.
'You just never know where a conversation with a cat might lead you.' - Hoyt Tarola
That being said I used to feed 4 stray pups when I was in college/university in Goa and was so happy to see them transform into big healthy dogs . I arranged someone to take them to the vet and after that they were found good homes .... I'm happy that in my small way i managed to change not one ;but 4 dogs lives.
January 4, 2018
I'm not sure what this book is trying to be? It's certainly not an academic account of animal shelters, yet it's not a fascinating page-turning journey through the history either. It reads like a tabloid journalist has been tasked with the subject but only given a short deadline. The referencing is atrocious! And, where's the index?!
I received this from a book club, presumably due to my love of John Bradshaw's books. However, I would urge readers to go for books written by experts rather than bother with this book.
I received this from a book club, presumably due to my love of John Bradshaw's books. However, I would urge readers to go for books written by experts rather than bother with this book.
December 2, 2021
This book tells the intriguing tale of how cats rose from vermin status to beloved pet. The first sixty percent of the book is fairly grim, with the only “good guys” in sight being cat ladies willing to kill unwanted cats in their thousands. It makes for difficult reading and emotional turmoil (I certainly misted up a lot), but I think it is an important story to tell (and to hear) all the same. It is within our natures to turn away from the crueller side of humanity, to pretend that we as people could never be so harsh. And books like this help us to humble ourselves.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 8, 2017
interesting to read how stray cats have been treated by humans over the years and what causes a change in attitude from killing strays to adopting them
October 11, 2021
Rescue cat
A most interesting history of the world of cats. The cruelty of history to today's loving care. Congratulations Cats Protection
A most interesting history of the world of cats. The cruelty of history to today's loving care. Congratulations Cats Protection
December 3, 2021
A must for cat lovers
November 2, 2017
The history of cat 'rescue'and 'welfare' from early Victorian times to now, uncovering the shocking history of our current well known animal charities. All the big names were originally set up to end the 'problem' of stray cats in cities, by rounding up and killing as many as possible, using only the most, modern, efficient scientific methods! Cat saviours with mobile gassing baskets, growling the dark cityscape, massive gas chambers, and as late as the 70s, electrocution cages, ending the scourge of the stray cat! This book delves into the convoluted histories of solo efforts, swallowed up by the big players like the RSPCA and Battersea Dog (and Cat) Home, the desperate chasing of legacies from kindly, and not so kindly, little old ladies, and their transformation into Rehoming Centres, rather than extermination camps, taking us on a parallel journey of the poor cat, from vermin controller to internet sensations.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews