This page belongs to 'Sorcha' (Click the image to enlarge)

Sorcha is our foundation queen.    She has quite a "cosmopolitan" pedigree, as her maternal great grandmother, Kongsi Waltzin Matilda, was imported from Australia by Anne Rose (Seawind Abys) and Ann Watson (Wako Abys) under their joint Somali prefix of Tooannes to be mated with their Abyssinian, Gr Ch Seawind Swatamoth.  Today I believe I am the only person still breeding from this line.

From a showing point of view there are a lot of UK "firsts" in this line.   Seawind Swatamoth was the first usual Grand Champion Abyssinian.   Sorcha herself was the first female Somali Champion.  Her mother became the first female Somali Grand Champion (at the grand age of 7 years). Her daughter was the first Somali to win a double Grand title (Gr Ch & Gr Pr).   Her granddaughter was the first Somali to win a double title (Ch & Pr) and Sorcha again became the first usual and only the second Somali to win a double grand title.   We are very proud of all these achievements.

She has had 5 litters in her lifetime and is now a neutered member of our family.   Unfortunately we discovered that after she had her first litter of kittens we were going to have a constant struggle to keep her weight up to show standard - it was a losing battle and so we retired her.   In the next 5 years she was shown only twice (both times the show fell just after her kittens were 12 weeks old and she bloomed during pregnancy and lactation) and on both occasions she won the Reserve Grand.

After she reared her last litter, she returned to the showbench, in March 1998 at 8 years old.   In that year she gained her Grand Champion title.   She was entered in 10 Grand classes in that year and won 4 Grand Certificates and 5 Reserves, culminating in her winning the Best of Breed at the Supreme Cat Show.   She was then neutered and came back out on the showbench as a neuter in the beginning of 1999.   She gained her Premier title in 3 straight shows and her Grand Premier title in 3 straight show.  In that year she was entered in 8 Grand Classes and won 7 Grand Certificates and 1 Reserve - all at the "Grand" age of 9 year old.  We have taken her out once in 2000 to support our breed club show, where she won the Reserve Grand Premier Certificate (being beaten by Leyla, her daughter), the PC and BOB.

Her 1998 show year culminated in her being the second top winning Somali in the UK, but her 1999 show year saw her end her show career as the top winning Somali in the UK - an achievement I have to say I was very proud about, especially given the fact that she was by then almost 10 year old.

In her show career she has won a total of 4 Grand Challenge Certificates, 7 Reserve Grand Challenge Certificate, 14 Challenge Certificates, 7 Grand Premier Certificates, 2 Reserve Grand Premier Certificate, 12 Premier Certificates, 3 Intermediate Certificates, 34 BOB's and 93 First Prizes.  

Her other achievements are listed below:

Sorcha's (and our) first litter, sired by Tanoshimi Redshadow, was born on the 7th November 1991 and consisted of a usual male, a usual female and a sorrelfemale.   As this was the month that Freddy Mercury of Queen died and I am a great Queen fan, I decided that this would be my "Queen litter" so they all have the names of Queen/Freddy Mercury songs.

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Her second litter, sired by Ch Emanan Squirrel Nutkin, was born on the 24th November 1993 and this was my "Neil Diamond" litter!   "Nuts" is one of my all-time favourite Somalis - I just love this cat!  He has wonderful type and an absolutely superb temperament and what a wonderful smile he has!

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Her third litter, sired by Supatoft Silver Sundowner, produced Harry, born on the 16th January 1995.   As he was a single kitten, who I had no intention of keeping I called him the silly pet name of Harry.  Unfortunately by the time I realised I couldn't part with him, he had just become Harry and, as he was always such a happy chappy, he became Happy Harry, a name he has lived up to all his life and the aptness of which many judges have commented on.

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For Sorcha's fourth litter we again took her back to Supatoft Silver Sundowner and her kittens were born on the 16th November 1995 - this was our "Rod Stewart litter".

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For Sorcha's fifth litter and final litter we went back to our old favourite Ch Emanan Squirrel Nutkin and Floyd was born by caesarian section on the 12th January 1998.  His owner chose the name Floyd for him and I added Flamboyant, because he was such a show-off!