HOW TO MAKE BEAUTY LAST...

The answer is that without the beauty in the picture there would be no Lola Is Beauty. Without Celia Hammond there would be no Lola - well there might be a Lola but she would have a different name and would probably not be allowed to sunbathe on her owner's sofa. She might even be dead.

For it was, one not very warm August day seven years ago that I entered the Celia Hammond Animal Trust with a brand new cat carrying case. I had been visited by the cat social worker to judge my suitability as a cat mama of course; plying her with cups of tea and tales of my many years of responsible cat ownership. Sweetly, they try to match you with the right cat, much like in any other adoption process. I said I didn't mind an adult cat, or one with issues. (Time to bring out the violins.)

The cat she was thinking of had a long list of previous and had been at the rescue centre for four months - about the cut off point for caged up insanity. She had been brought in by her owners because they hadn't had her neutered, she was pregnant and they didn't want the kittens. The Celia Hammond Animal Trust took her in, she had the kittens, they were all re-homed as everyone wants kittens, she was neutered (all free of charge) and they phoned her owners to say she was ready to be collected.
They didn't want her anymore.

This cat was displaying all the signs of psychological disturbance and they were pretty pissed off as had they known her owners wouldn't take her back they would have kept at least one of her kittens with her. This would have made her much easier to re-home and might have avoided the trauma of her trying to search, in a 2 foot cage, for her suddenly disappeared babies. She had been re-homed once and was brought swiftly back after attacking a child. They said I could come and see her and if I didn't want that one there were others I could look at.

Our eyes met across a crowded room - quite literally the small room was stacked floor to ceiling with cat cages, with some grouped in the middle. They do an amazing job there, but especially in the summer that place gets seriously overcrowded with unwanted cats. But I knew it was her straight away and she was looking at me wide eyed as if to say please, please take me away from here. I was only allowed to stroke her with a wooden spoon in case she bit me. I had tears in my eyes and was only able to look at the lady and nod. As we went off to do the paperwork the cat gave this plaintive miaow as if not again, how could I leave her?

Ten minutes later I was the owner of a very large, very psychotic tabby cat. After I'd struggled to lift the carrying case into the car I got in and looked at the cat I was going to call Matilda. She looked back at me with her mischievous look and right then I said no, you're a Lola.

So that's the story and it's all thanks to Celia Hammond, legendary sixties supermodel. It's always bloody Twiggy this, Twiggy that, not that I've anything against her and it's probably because she's still in the public eye that we selectively remember only her. But Celia Hammond was just as much of a big deal - if you look at Vogue covers from that era it's always her. And Jean Shrimpton was so, so amazing and was a sixties icon two or three years before Twiggy popped up with her every move and thought controlled by Justin de Villeneuve. Celia Hammond was protesting against the use of fur as early as 1967 and went on to set up her animal rescue centres. Jean Shrimpton left the limelight behind and now runs a hotel and restaurant in Cornwall.

{photos: Celia Hammond - Terence Donovan, Jean Shrimpton left - unknown, Jean Shrimpton right - David Bailey}