The fact that the Downing Street cat had gone missing might have seemed an irrelevant detail to many serious-minded Fleet Street hacks but Sheila Gunn, a cat lover herself, knew a scoop when she saw one. Working on The Times diary in the early 1990s, the cheerful career journalist who became a political correspondent of the paper and subsequently John Major’s press adviser, had great fun with her revelation about Humphrey.
Gunn had been talking to a Downing Street staffer during the Major government and had remarked that her beloved cat, Tom, had recently died aged 18. In reply came the revelation that Humphrey had been missing for six weeks. The next morning the paper declared on its front page: “Humphrey, missing presumed dead.” As