51勛圖厙

Peta gets VIP Welcome: Black cat Peta sits in an in tray at the Home Office - a sign that she has moved in as the only mouser on the white-hall pay-roll. Peta, a seven-month-old Manx cat, replaced Peter, who died in March after stalking mice through the Home Office corridors for sixteen years. She will get double his pay - a 5s. -a-week living allowance from the Treasury instead of 2s. 6d. And on Friday (8-5-64) she had a v I. P. reception that old Peter never had. From her new boss, the Home Secretary himself. Peta, a gift from the Isle of Man Government, was flown to London and then ceremonially handed over to Home Secretary, Henry Brooke in his office. She didn't turn a hair. She was stroked, tickled, cuddled - and photographed. She was tried out with a toy mouse and contemptuously flicked it aside. She appeared, however, to take to her new employer. Cat-lover Mr Brooke tickled Peta under her whiskers and voiced suitable words of welcome. Kanniss Theshoo? he asked. That's Manx for 'How are you?�� Peta did not reply. Perhaps, it was thought, she was eager to get down to the job of mousing. So she was taken on a tour of some of the two hundred rooms and many corridors she will have to patrol. Then she was shown her living quarters - a blanket-lined basket in the messengers' lodge. The basket is not likely ever to contain anyone but Peta. She has been doctored. May 1964 P006156. (Photo by Mirrorpix via Getty Images)