Proven innocent
Humphrey, the black-and-white stray cat of Downing Street has died
Humphrey is innocent.
For 12 years I have been harbouring a guilty secret as the journalist who gave Humphrey, the former Downing Street cat, his reputation as a feline serial killer.
The cat was a good mouser and did help to keep under control the mice and rats which infest the cellars underneath Nos 10-12 Downing Street and the Cabinet Office.
But he gained his notoriety for what became known as the Downing Street massacre, allegedly killing a family of robins nesting in the gardens of No 10.
On June 7 1994, John Major, who was then the Conservative prime minister, had called me to the Cabinet Room at Downing Street for an interview before difficult elections to the European Parliament.
He was excited that robins were nesting in a window box on a terrace just outside. He had already been reported as proudly showing the nest to several previous visitors, and insisted on having the door to the Cabinet Room opened so that I and The Daily Telegraph photographer could see the fledglings.
Officials were summoned to unlock the newly-reinforced doors, a couple of years earlier they had been blown in by an IRA mortar bomb that landed in a cherry tree in the garden, and we trooped out on to the terrace.
The shirt-sleeved prime minister walked across to the window box and parted a clump of pansies.
But instead of four yellow beaks eagerly pointing upwards, there were four very dead robins slumped in the nest. It was obvious that the nest had been abandoned and the young robins left to die.
The prime minister looked embarrassed and we quickly moved on to the formal interview, which ranged from plans by the government to introduce identity cards to his vision of a multi-speed Europe.
But it was the fate of the Downing Street robins that caught the public imagination.
The following morning, the diary column of The Daily Telegraph, carried a lead item headed: "Why life is not cheep in Downing Street." "Who killed cock (or hen) robin? Humphrey, the Downing Street cat is under suspicion," the item said.
That, I admit, was a piece of journalistic licence. I had no evidence that Humphrey was responsible for the massacre.
My personal suspicion was that Mr Major, now Sir John, might well have been unwittingly responsible for disturbing the nest and possibly frightening away the parent birds.
But how could I accuse the prime minister of being responsible for the death of the robins?
At the time he was besieged with problems. There was civil war within the Conservative Party over Europe, the party was losing by-elections and a new charismatic politician, Tony Blair, had just been given a clear run at the Labour leadership after Gordon Brown stepped aside.
Being labelled a robin killer would have been the last straw. Possibly, neither Sir John nor Humphrey was to blame. The robins could have been run over, eaten by one of the many foxes that prowl Downing Street from nearby St James's Park or might even have been killed by a bird of prey. No jury would convict on such flimsy evidence.
Humphrey deserves a posthumous pardon.
High-profile
- A life in the political spotlight
- In 1997, the British Government was hit by news of a high-profile departure from Downing Street. Humphrey the cat bowed out of front-line politics after eight years at Number 10.
- A Downing Street spokesman said Humphrey had been suffering from a kidney complaint and had lost interest in food. A vet advised he would be better off living in the peace and quiet of the London suburbs away from the cut and thrust of political life.
- After the May 1997 general election, the new Labour Government quickly denied reports that Cherie Blair was allergic to cats, or found them unhygienic.
- "This is Humphrey's home and, as far as the Blairs are concerned, it will remain his home," said a spokeswoman at the time.
- However, rumours of Cherie Blair's allergy persisted among insiders.
- Whatever the facts of that case, the black and white cat has in his time enjoyed the attentions of many admirers.
- While Humphrey lived at the Cabinet office, his food is understood to have been on the department's budget.
- One of his favourite occupations was to stroll down to Downing Street and perch atop a vent to enjoy the hot air from Number 10.
- However, his relaxed manner was not without danger and shortly after the election he narrowly avoided becoming the Downing Street "splat" under the wheels of then US President Bill Clinton's two-tonne bullet-proof Cadillac.
- Humphrey the cat was named after the character Sir Humphrey Appleby in the BBC television comedy Yes, Prime Minister.
