Did you know that, in the 1970s, there was a famous fat cat who lived in the women’s lavatory in London’s Paddington Station? I did not, until I discovered these pictures in Getty, which inform that this is Tiddles, “the famous fat cat which lived in the public lavatories at Paddington Station, London,” a caption which seems to assume that this cat’s existence and celebrity are common knowledge.
I’m sorry to say there is no proper biography of Tiddles, truly a worthy subject of book-length treatment, but there are traces of his substantial existence scattered across the internet. The closest thing to in-depth coverage is this little snippet from the Daily Mail, the sidebar to coverage of a modern famous fat cat:
One of the most famous fat cats was Tiddles, a 32-pound cat who lived in the lavatory at Paddington Station in London for 13 years. He was adopted in 1970 by June Watson, who kept him plump on a diet of chicken livers, rabbit, and steak. He was named ‘London Fat Cat Champion’ in 1982 at 30 pounds.
Several responses to this tweet also attest to Tiddles’ existence, fame, and enormous bulk. An exemplar of the famously fat cat form.
