cat hippy

Sir Nevile Henderson with cat Hippy
by an employee of Spratt’s, the dog food company, and taken, in accordance with procedures of the time, to quarantine in West Hackwood for some six months. When collecting Hippy in March 1940 Henderson observed that this experience had affected the dog considerably: “His resilience and buoyancy were not there.” Hippy was to die shortly after from jaundice, causing his human companion to declare, “ For nine years and more he had been part of my life and a very big part of it, and when he died something went out it which I know that I can never fi nd again. None can ever take his place and I can hardly conceive of another life unless Hippy be waiting there to share it with me.”33 Despite the obvious importance Hippy played in the life of Henderson, the relationship portrayed in his moving book is defi ned by his offi cial biographer as an “ eccentric study,” apparently not being an appropriate show of emotion for a man of Henderson’s standing.34 The image of Hippy in the Daily Mirror 35 was in stark contrast to that included in the previous day’s edition of Baerchen, the Chow dog belonging to Ribbentrop when ambassador to Britain, who was apparently abandoned when the German embassy staff quit their London premises.

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