A Tale of Two Cats: Garfield Is Long Dead and Teddy Is Being Led Down the Same Path in Order to Soon Join Him

Garfield Spent the Last Seven Years of His Life at Sainsbury's

"It's almost as though the baton has been passed on. It's almost if he (Teddy) knows."

-- Hihine Lor

In 2007, the cathedral city of Ely, twenty-two kilometers north-northeast of Cambridge and one-hundred-twenty-eight kilometers due north of London, was gifted by the arrival of a good-looking, ginger and white tom. At some unspecified time thereafter he was adopted by David and Tina Villers who, in the tradition of Mark Twain, christened him with the long-winded, high-falutin name of Garfield Abercrombie Reginald Ferguson. Of course, no one ever called him that; instead, he was known to one and all as simply Garfield.

By 2012, if not indeed before, the Villers decided that they no longer wanted any part in his care and condemned him to spend the remainder of his days dividing his time between Sainsbury's and its dangerous parking lot. Who fed, watered, sheltered, and medicated him has not been so much as even broached in press reports but it would appear that he was pretty much left to scrounge around on his own for his daily needs.

Most importantly of all, he was forced to fight all of his battles alone against not only the elements but his species' multitude of sworn enemies as well. From the time that the Villers cruelly and inexcusably abandoned him, there is not so much as a shred of evidence in the public domain that a single, solitary soul in all of Ely ever took the slightest bit of interest in either his safety or well-being. A crueler and more unjust fate to have been foisted upon any cat is difficult to imagine.

According to Sainsbury's web site, its store on Lisle Lane is open from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Sundays. Garfield therefore apparently spent the vast majority of his days there lounging on a sofa in the lobby and in providing free amusement for the hordes of uncaring and exploitative shoppers who visited England's second largest supermarket chain. 

It has not been disclosed where he slept at night but the most logical guess would be that it was out in the elements somewhere near the store. Although the big shit capitalists at Sainsbury's were happy enough to have had him around during the day in order to have attracted paying customers, they were not about to have provided him with overnight lodging or anything else of value for that matter.

"I used to work security there at few years ago, and it always used to be a highlight of my day when the store closed and I had to carry him out to stop him getting locked in, telling him, 'Come on Garfield, time to go home'," JJ Senior, a former security guard at the store, testified to the Cambridge News of Waterbeach on July 2, 2019. (See "Ely's Much Loved Cat Mr. Sainsbury's also Known as Garfield Killed by Driver.") "One time we had a complaint that someone had left a cat in a shoebox outside the store; watching the CCTV back only to find that Garfield had jumped inside the box himself and closed the lid behind him."

From the general tenor of that testimony it seems safe to conclude that Senior did not want to know if Garfield had a home to go to or, if so, how that he was to have safely gotten there. That is the problem with all individuals like him in that they never want to know the pertinent side of any story.

Garfield Apparently Had the Run of the Supermarket

Based upon Senior's testimony, the Villers most assuredly did not even care enough about Garfield's welfare to have come and collected him at closing time. It is not even known if they ever stopped by the store during the day in order to have checked on his well-being unless, that is, such an expedition just happened to have coincided with their purchasing of provisions for themselves.

It thus seems perfectly clear that they did not care what he was doing or even if he were still alive. What they undertook instead was to establish the "Mr. Sainsbury's also Known as Garfield" page on Facebook in order to cash in on his growing notoriety. Over time, the page attracted a modest seven-thousand followers in Ely and around the world.

Since it is well established that cats who are fortunate enough to have owners who love and dote on them prefer to remain at home with them, the mere fact that Garfield sometimes attempted to get into the automobiles of shoppers as they were departing Sainsbury's attests to just how lonely that he was and how much that the longed for a real home and an owner of his own. The only notable exception to that rule are intact males who sometimes roam in search of females during Paarungszeit.

It therefore hardly came as any surprise to anyone when on July 2, 2019 he was run down by a motorist, presumably a hit-and-run one, in the parking lot of Sainsbury's. He was taken by an unidentified individual to a local surgery but he, allegedly, could not have been saved. He was only twelve years old.

His killer was never publicly identified, arrested, and prosecuted despite the fact that it is rather difficult for a motorist to run down and kill a cat in a parking lot unless he was acting with either malice aforethought or speeding. It likewise is a sure bet that the police never bothered to even look into his killing. What is another dead cat to those sworn ailurophobes?

"With great sadness, we have to report that Garfield died a short while ago. He was hit by a car in Sainsbury's car park earlier this afternoon and was rushed to the vet but they (sic) were unable to save him," one of the Villers announced on Garfield' Facebook page later that same horrible day. "Garfield brought joy to all our lives and his memory lives on. Give your cat an extra cuddle tonight and remember Garfy with love."

Garfield Did Not Have Much but at Least He Had Access to a Sofa

For the Villers to be dispensing such outrageous gratuitous advice to other owners when they never had so much as an ounce of love for Garfield in their black hearts is beyond hypocritical but perhaps that is the type of sottise that social media engenders in its users. It did, however, smooth the way for their subsequent naked exploitation of his memory.

Lauren Shereard, a patron of Sainsbury's, was a good deal more sincere. "This is so sad. He was a legend and will always be remembered," she told the Cambridge News. "I'm so shocked. I only saw him chilling by the doors just this morning."

His killing brought tears to the eyes of patron Sue Farrow. "Poor Garfield. Rest in peace beautiful boy. (I was) always thinking of you and you're always in my heart and always will be," she told the Cambridge News. "You gave me happiness and smiles."

"Happy memories, a sad day," security guard Senior added simply.

Even though there is scant evidence that the English ever have profited very much from their faith, they nevertheless like to pass themselves off as good Christians. So, it was anything but surprising that approximately four-hundred-fifty nominal animal lovers gathered for a blessing of the animals that was held in late September at ancient Ely Cathedral, the construction of which was begun by William the Conquer in 1083. This was not, however, a memorial service in honor of Garfield but rather for all cats, dogs, donkeys, ferrets, guinea pigs, and birds.

Not much time and effort therefore was put into eulogizing Garfield but author Cate Caruth of Bury St. Edmonds, forty-three kilometers southeast of Ely, did attend. Earlier in February of 2019, she and David Villers had published a tome about Garfield entitled What's THAT Doing There? A Garfy Book. It must be selling reasonably well because at last glance it was out of stock on Thrift Books but still available on Amazon.

As for Villers, he quite obviously had already started grabbing for shekels even while his cat was still alive. On the other hand, Caruth's appearance at Ely Cathedral afforded her not only another opportunity in order to flog her book, but also to showcase her morally warped and perverted soul.

Garfield Was a Big Hit with Little Boys...

"He was a pet for all of those who could not have no pet of their own," is how that she began her nonsensical homily according to the BBC's September 22, 2019 account of the proceedings. (See "Ely Cathedral Eulogy to Sainsbury's Cat Garfield.") "Garfield touched thousands of lives around the world. In remembering Garfield, we remember all those pets."

What she is really saying is that it is perfectly permissible for individuals to adopt cats on the pretext of being caring and responsible owners and then to turn around soon thereafter and do an about-face by abandoning them to the street in order to fend for themselves. It often has been remarked that a cat has the intellectual development of a four-year-old child and even in decadent old England anyone who abandoned a toddler to the street would not only immediately lose custody of it but likely wind up in jail to boot. So, why is it morally and legally acceptable to do likewise to a cat?

Secondly, those cretins who pretend to adore homeless cats like Garfield and those that are found at cat cafes are guilty not only of being outrageous hypocrites but they also are tacitly endorsing the abandonment, neglect, and naked exploitation of them. (See Cat Defender post of June 5, 2008 entitled "Teahouse Cats Are Given Shelter and Work but Precious Little Job Security and No Legal Protections.")

If any of them really cared so much as one whit about footloose cats they would either take them home with them or sic the authorities on the likes of the Villers and Sainsburys of this world. In reality, however, they only take an interest, and it is a passing and fleeting one at that, in those cats that they do not have to feed, house, medicate and, above all, be morally responsible for throughout their lives. 

Caruth concluded her spiel by denying all reality. "As the fictional Garfy might say, 'I'm not really gone'," she blew long and hard to the attendees according to the BBC. "'I'm just off on another adventure'."

Actually, Garfield is really and truly dead. He died a violent and painful death underneath the wheels of a murdering motorist on July 2, 2019 because absolutely no one is Ely cared enough about him in order to have taken personal responsibility for his well-being. He therefore died as he lived, alone and unloved.

Furthermore, he is not off on any new adventures and he definitely will not be coming back from the crypt as the Christians have long claimed that Jesus did all those years ago. The only thing that she got right is to have chosen Ely Cathedral as the ideal venue in order to have promoted the abuse, abandonment, and neglect of cats.

... and Especially Little Girls

"On New Year's Day (in) 1638, in Ely Cathedral, a cat was roasted alive on a spit in the presence of a large and boisterous crowd," John Gray disclosed in his 2020 book, Feline Philosophy. Cats and the Meaning of Life.

The English's long history of committing despicable acts of cruelty against the species is by no means however limited to what occurred in Ely Cathedral. Gray continued:

"A few years later Parliamentary troops, fighting against Royalist forces in the English Civil War, used hounds to hunt cats up and down Lichfield Cathedral (one-hundred-eighty-six kilometers west of Ely in Staffordshire ).

'During pope-burning processions in the reign of Charles II, the effigies were stuffed with live cats so that their screams would add dramatic effect. At rural fairs a popular sport was shooting cats suspended in baskets'."

It accordingly has taken the good Christians of Ely Cathedral only a measly four-hundred years in order to have advanced from roasting live cats on a spit to consecrating their abandonment, neglect, and abuse. At that exhilarating pace in another thousand or two years they could be worshiping them as the ancient Egyptians once did or, more likely, killing and dining on them as their Aussie cousins are doing today. (See Cat Defender posts of September 7, 2007 and November 18, 2016 entitled, respectively, "The Australians Renounce Civilization and Revert to Savages with the Introduction of a Grotesque Plan to Get Rid of Cats by Eating Them" and "A Clever Devil at the University of Adelaide Boasts That He Has Discovered the Achilles' Heel of Cats with His Invention of Robotic Grooming Traps as the Thoroughly Evil Australians' All-Out War Against the Species Enters Its Final Stages.")

Predictably, no mention has been made of what was done with Garfield's remains. It would seem likely, however, that the Villers did not want any part of them and therefore left them at the surgery for the veterinarians to have either incinerated or to have tossed out with the day's trash. Since they cared absolutely nothing about him while he was above ground, they were not about to have afforded him a memorial service, a proper resting place, and a suitable tombstone.

Moreover, Garfield has proven to have been significantly more lucrative to the Villers in death than he ever was in life. First of all, they hit up the public for £2,000 which they in turn gave to the local branch of Cats Protection which, although it most assuredly was fully cognizant of how horribly that they were neglecting and endangering him, did absolutely nothing in order to have saved him. If the charity had had any interest whatsoever of living up to its name, it would have taken Garfield from them, placed him with a responsible guardian who would have been willing to have safeguarded his life, and arrested the Villers and charged them with animal cruelty.

The Memorial Bench and Bronze Statue of Garfield in Ely Country Park

Failing to have done its job is not anything new for Cats Protection which regularly kills off cats instead of medicating them. (See Cat Defender posts of August 26, 2015 and February 16, 2016 entitled, respectively, "A Myriad of Cruel and Unforgivable Abandonments, a Chinese Puzzle, and Finally the Handing Down and Carrying Out of a Death Sentence Spell the End for Long-Suffering and Peripatetic Tigger" and "Cats Protection Races to Alfie's Side after His Owner Dies and He Winds Up on the Street, Swears It Is Going to Help Him, and Then Turns Around and Has Him Whacked.")

Earlier this year, its branch in North East Lincolnshire condemned "lots" of kittens to early graves long before their lives had hardly begun due to a lack of shelter space. The death toll was reportedly the highest in Woodhall Spa, Grimsby, and Horncastle and Louth. 

"Over the last few weeks we've not got to calls quick enough due to a lack of spaces in the branch, so when we've gone to meet the people and bring cats in there have been lots of kittens dead on arrival which is really distressing," the branch's Michelle Mohamed confessed to the BBC on May 31st. (See "Kittens Being Found Dead as Charity Flounders.")

The only way to interpret that admission is that neither Mohamed nor any of the hundreds of staffers that Cats Protection employs at its many shelters were willing to have fostered the kittens until shelter space became available. Saving so many young and innocent lives surely would have been worth the inconvenience if Cats Protection had cared anything at all about them.

Secondly, the Villers conned another £7,000 out of not only the residents of Ely but Americans, Thais, and Kiwis in order to retain the services of Sally Dunham of Soham, nine kilometer southeast of Ely, to sculpture a life-sized bronze statue of Garfield. Unveiled on October 14th of last year, it now sits, mounted on a plinth, and alongside a memorial bench in Ely Country Park, one-tenth of a mile southeast of Sainsbury's via Cresswells Lane. The engraving on the bench reads: "In loving memory of Garfy -- sit and relax for a moment with me."

"It's so overwhelming, just phenomenal," David Villers gushed to the BBC on October 16, 2023. (See "Bronze Memorial to Garfield the Ely Sainsbury's Cat.") "We started raising money for the memorial about a year ago, but I never thought we'd get there."

"We really hope people who loved Garfy will come along to the park sit and stroke his statue -- we're actually looking forward to seeing it worn a little from all the attention," Dunham, perhaps angling for another commission, told the BBC.

Since she had met him so many times at Sainsbury's while he was still alive, she easily could have saved his life if only she had acted. Instead, she bided her time until long after he had been violently killed so that she, like all the other vultures who swooped in and out of his life, could join the gold rush after his death.

Teddy Has Developed an Uncanny Affinity for Garfield's Bench

"I still miss the little fella, but the statue is amazing -- bittersweet because the memories come flooding back -- but wonderful to have a statue," Villers concluded to the BBC.

Three things need to be said about such outrageous hogwash. First of all, it strains all credulity that he could possibly still care about a cat that he abandoned to the streets a dozen years ago. Secondly, he could not possibly have very many cherished memories of a cat that he had not cared for and had only rarely laid eyes upon during the last seven years of his life.

Thirdly, he likely was sincere, however, in his praise of the statue. After all, it not only is enhancing his presence on Facebook but also bringing in the big bucks.

The limeys and the Scots (Irish) always have much preferred their cats to be dead and profitable as opposed to alive, healthy, safe, and at home where they had to take care of them and to be morally and legally responsible for their well-being and staying alive. For instance, Hamish McHamish's owner, former BBC producer Marianne Baird, and the citizens of St. Andrews inexcusably abandoned him to tough it out on his own in the cold and on the street for fourteen years without so much as a second thought as to either his needs or to what he wanted out of life.

Consequently, when he became ill in 2014 Baird had him killed off rather than treated. (See Cat Defender posts of June 20, 2014, October 18, 2014, and October 20, 2017 entitled, respectively, "St. Andrews Honors Hamish McHamish with a Bronze Statue but Does Not Have the Decency, Love, and Compassion in Order to Provide Him with a Warm, Secure, an Permanent Home," "Hamish McHamish's Derelict Owner Reenters His Life after Fourteen Years of Abject Neglect Only to Have Him Killed Off after He Contracts a Preeminently Treatable Common Cold," and "Beautiful and Noble Hamish McHamish Who Suffered Through Fourteen Years of Abject Neglect and Naked Exploitation Is Remembered as Cat of the Year for 2014.")

According to a December 3, 2023 posting on Garfield's Facebook page, the Villers are now raking in £350 apiece from their sale of miniature statues of the cat that they long ago abandoned. Individuals residing outside of England must also pony up an undisclosed amount in shipping and handling. Their take from these mementoes accordingly must make what they raked in from the book that he co-authored with Caruth and the bronze statue that now sits in Ely Country Park look like chicken feed.

Even more deplorably, the simply god-awful example that they have set not only by their abandonment and neglect of Garfield but their crass exploitation of his fame for monetary gain has found a copycat adherent in the person of Hihine Lor who has now placed the life of her three-year-old, ginger-colored tom, Teddy, in grave danger by deliberately grooming him to follow in their dead cat's pawprints. Specifically she has turned him loose in order to roam Sainsbury's deadly parking lot by his lonesome but it has not been disclosed if he is allowed inside the store. Actually, he would be far safer inside than outside.

Teddy Is Still Alive but Garfield Has Been Reduced to Bronze

"Teddy seems to love Sainsbury's and, like Garfield, he gets into customer's automobiles," she disclosed to the BBC on June 1st. (See "The Cat That Sits Quietly Near a Feline Memorial.")

Unlike the Villers, however, she does appear to be in possession of something remotely resembling a conscience, albeit a stunted, underdeveloped, and warped one. "It does worry me sometimes. He is a hunter and a wanderer," she continued to the BBC. "He has tags and a GPS so I can see where he is, and where he's been, but I've lost count of the times people have rung me to ask if I have lost my cat."

Also in marked distinction to the conduct of the Villers, she apparently still plays some minimally constructive role in Teddy's life. "I say no, I know exactly where he is -- but sometimes I do have to go and fetch him home," she quickly added to the BBC. 

First of all, knowing the occasional whereabouts of cat hardly qualifies as acceptable guardianship of it given that it only takes a split-second in order for either someone or some animal to kill it. Secondly, building an online presence clearly counts for considerably more with her than safeguarding Teddy's fragile life.

"This page is dedicated to Teddy, (a) little ginger cat that is getting well-known around the Ely area," she wrote in the introduction to his Facebook page, Teddy of Ely. At last check, the page has attracted three-hundred-eighty-two followers.

In addition to irresponsibly allowing Teddy to hang out in Sainsbury's dangerous parking lot where he has been photographed in front of passenger vehicles and delivery vans alike, she also is allowing him to roam the grounds of Ely Country Park where he now spends considerable time on the bench beside the bronze statue of Garfield.

Most astounding of all, Lor is the one who has put Teddy up to imitating Garfield. "I'd taken him there once to show him, then I took him home," she frankly admitted to the BBC. "But he kept going back and now he seems really comfortable there."

Minka on the Last Day of Her Life Before Daniella Gasda Had Her Killed Off

That admission raises the strong suspicion that she additionally is the one who introduced him to Sainsbury's parking lot by dumping him out there. She therefore is knowingly and intentionally playing Russian roulette with his life.

Being far too dishonest and mindlessly greedy, however, to admit such a thing, she is instead attempting to fob off on an equally callous public the absurd notion that Teddy's rambles are being motivated by something akin to either intuition or fate. "He could go anywhere but he's choosing these places, Sainsbury's and the park" she equivocated to the BBC. "It's almost as though the baton has been passed on. It's almost as if he knows."

Although cats often have been alleged to possess psychic powers, it is difficult to believe that Teddy could conceivably have any knowledge of a cat that was killed two years before he was even born. It is even more insane to think that he would have any psychic connection to either Sainsbury's deadly parking lot or to a bench and a statue in Ely Country Park.

The only connection that he has to both venues is Lor. Perhaps he is waiting for her to come and take him home with her and to be a proper guardian to him?

As if any additional evidence were needed as to what she is up to it can be found in the following revealing note that she posted August 3rd on Teddy's Facebook page:

"Teddy is out and about without his tracker for a week as we are away. Food will be left for him daily but I doubt he will come back. I think he will make the most of his freedom. Would love to see what he is up to whilst away so photos welcome if you spot him around." 

Considering the myriad of ailurophobes that there are in this world coupled with the seemingly endless number of calamities that have been known to befall them, leaving a cat alone for so much as a minute, even in a locked house or an apartment, is not totally without its risks, but to sashay out of town for a week while leaving a cat to roam constitutes the very epitome of irresponsible ownership as well as insanity. Nevertheless, that is precisely what fifty-four-year-old Daniella Gasda of Mühlgraben Street in the Volkstedt section of Rudolstedt in Thuringia also did with her two to four year old (press reports differ) tortoiseshell, Minka.

A Bronze Statue Is Hardly Any Substitute for a Live Garfield

When she finally returned home on September 27, 2020 she found her cowering in her basement covered in blood and with her rear paws cut off. Since she had been inexcusably left to roam while Gasda was away, she apparently had been abducted on the street, mutilated, and afterwards hurled into Gasda's cellar through a window.

Initially, Gasda had elected to have the attending veterinarian treat and bandage Minka's stumps but on October 11th she changed her mind and had her killed off. That was in spite of the fact that it would have been relatively simple and inexpensive for her to have had her fitted with a rear end support with wheels (a feline wheelchair) and with it she could have lived a long and relatively normal life.

Most importantly of all, Minka's eyes were bright and she certainly did not appear in photographs to have been in any pain. Cats are highly resilient animals who are fully capable of adjusting to just about any tragedy but they must first be given a chance in order to do so.

It is almost superfluous to add, however, that anyone who would go on vacation and leave her cat unprotected to roam the perilous streets was not about to care for her once she had become handicapped. As far as it is known, no arrest was ever made in this horrifying case; none ever is whenever the victim is a cat, no matter how despicable the crime. (See Thüringen-24 of Berlin, October 2, 2020, "Rudolstadt: Wer hat Minka das angetan? Katze erlebt abscheuliches Martyrium," the Osthüringer Zeitung, October 16, 2020, "Verstümmelte Katze gestorben: Rudostädterin sammelt Spenden, um Tierquäler zu ergreifen," the Wetterau Zeitung of Geißen, October 7, 2020, "Katze furchtbar verstümmelt: Polizei veröffentlicht Shock-Photo, das nicht nur Tierfreunde wütend macht," the Ostthüringer Zeitung, November 9, 2020, "Mysteriöser Katzen schwund in Rudolstadt-Schwarze," and Saalfeld Polizei press release of October 2, 2020, "Zeugen nach Verstümmeling einer Katze gesucht.")

Mercifully, nothing tragic happened to Teddy during the week that Lor was out of town and according to his Facebook page he was still alive and, apparently, in good health at last check on Tuesday, August 20th. In that same posting, Hihine revealed that he does sometimes come home in order to eat and sleep but she failed to disclose how often that occurs.

Since it is not known where in Ely she lives, it is impossible to speculate if she is endangering his life by allowing him to travel back and forth at all hours of the day between Sainsbury's and her house. As for the park itself, it poses all sorts of dangers for him with dogs and unspecified wildlife topping that list. Poisonous plants, kidnappers, and the machinations of ailurophobes are additional concerns.

Lor is right about one thing, however. The baton has indeed been passed but what she is totally unwilling to admit is that her cat is running in a relay of death where the only winner is destined to be the Grim Reaper.

Unless she has an epiphany and comes to her senses and immediately brings Teddy home and keeps him there, his days above ground are surely numbered. It therefore is not too early to begin a death watch for him.

Photos: the Cambridge News (Garfield on the floor and with a boy and two girls), the BBC (Garfield in front of an escalator and up-close), Dawn Sykes (Garfield on a sofa), Sally Dunham (memorial), Faye Moore (Teddy on the bench and beside Garfield's bust), and Daniella Gasda (Minka).