THE
BIRMAN IN BRITAIN
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The story of the
Birman in Nouky de Mon Rêve,
the Seal male, was born 17 September 1964 and transferred to Mrs Fisher
on 21 November, arriving in this country shortly afterwards for his
quarantine period. He was
shown at the Herts & Middlesex show in September 1965 and then on
exhibition at the National Show at Nouky lived with
Margaret Richards after his arrival and the two girls with Elsie Fisher,
and they decided to breed them under the joint prefix of Paranjoti to
found the breed in this country. Their
first Birman litter of eight Seal and Blue kittens, from
Orlamonde, was born on With the birth of
kittens a new stud was necessary and in 1966 the well-known judge Mrs
Elizabeth Towe (later the first President of the Birman Cat Club)
imported another Seal point male from France, Pipo du Clos Fleuri,
handsome and beautifully marked, who also quickly became a Champion.
He was very closely related to By 1967 the
Paranjoti partnership of Elsie Fisher and Margaret Richards had
disbanded and each reverted to their own original prefixes of Praha (Mrs
Fisher) and Mei Hua (Mrs Richards).
In 1968 Mrs Fisher brought in another male, this time a Blue
point from Germany, Ch Ghandi von Assindia, a well marked cat
with a beautiful coat but uncertain temperament on the show bench, and
in 1970 Miss Betty Brown (Smokeyhill) imported Ch Solomon von
Assindia, a Seal point of a different lineage and show temperament,
although, again, both had Hamlet de Madalpour as an ancestor.
These cats made an enormous impact on our breed through their
many descendants. Later
imports in the 1970s who appear on many pedigrees included Shani de
la Valliere, a Seal female by Mrs Enid Holmes, Am Ch Rindy's
Haven Zandra, a Blue point female of Smokeyhill parentage brought
over from the United States by Betty Brown, and Badarene Blu Sinhtu,
a Blue point male (and Nouky de mon Rêve descendant) from Australia by
Mrs Vivienne Creasey-Smith. Elsie Fisher was by
all accounts a colourful and eccentric personality of whom many stories
are told, and a person of great determination in promoting the Birman.
She was the prime mover in forming the Birman Cat Club, which
convened it first meeting in January 1968 and was officially founded
just a year later with herself as Chairman and Betty Brown as Secretary
and Mrs Ursula Aggett as Treasurer. There were just seven members at the
start but about 50 joined in the first year, of whom the first were Mr
and Mrs Worth. It
is extremely sad that Mrs Fisher
did not live to see the Club's first Exemption show in 1979, as she died
of cancer in 1977. This
inaugural show was held at Birmans on the show
bench at that time were in the Longhair section, classed as Foreign
Longhair along with the Turkish Vans.
As the number of Birman breeders increased, more and more
appeared at shows and there were Champions in plenty by 1978, when the
GCCF granted Premier status to neuter cats.
In that first show season three Birman neuter males gained
Premier titles: Sagowa Mayo (owner Mrs Jan Beaumont, breeder Mrs
Joyce Price), Smokeyhill Cheong Su (owner Mrs Katharine Freeman,
breeder Miss Betty Brown) and Patrioona Caspar (owners Mr and Mrs
Knight, breeder Mrs Pat Blair. In
the large Grand and Miscellaneous classes Birmans were of course up
against the then very dominant Persians and other Longhair breeds.
The first Birman to become a Grand was
Stratheden Saroki Chio (incidentally Best in Show Male Kitten at the
first Birman Show) owned and bred by Mrs Teresa Cole, who achieved his
Grand Premier title in August 1982.
He was followed by the first Grand Champions, Tamandria
Truffles owned and bred by Joyce Price and Belleview Francesca
owned and bred by David Redtfeldt, who achieved their titles at the same
show, the Up to this time the
only Birman colours being shown were still the original Seal and Blue
points, but for the previous ten years a number of breeders had been
working to develop the so-called "experimental" colours which
are today firmly established, by mating Birmans with Persian
Colourpoints, Siamese and some non-pedigree cats. Mrs
Elizabeth Brigliadori (Shwechinthe) and Mrs Shirley Wilson-Smith (Mandessa)
were the first to begin breeding the Chocolate and Lilac points, in
1974, and Mrs Brigliadori writes in her article in Vivienne Smith's The
Birman Cat Worldwide (published in 1991) that it took over 15 years,
after many setbacks and disappointments, to fully develop these two
colours and achieve the size and lovely Birman type and open expression. The
very first Red points were bred by Margaret Richards: Mei Hua Firefly
and Mei Hua Firebird were born on Tabby
points were first developed by Mrs Pam Healey (Sibir) and Shirley and
Chris Stanton (Julipaul), and the first seen in public were brother and
sister Blue Tabby points Julipaul Enrico and Esmeralda who
were on exhibition at the Club's first Championship show in 1984. The GCCF having
granted competition to the experimental Birman breeds for Merit Certificates in
Assessment classes in1983/84, the 1984 Birman Show was a significant
landmark for another reason as it was the first year of these classes.
Five Hilken Red points entered on this occasion, but the
following year there were also Chocolates, Lilacs and Blue Tabbies.
Numbers increased year on year, with more breeders venturing into
the new colours, culminating in the 1991 Birman show at Leamington Spa
when an impressive total of 50 cats and kittens had entered the
Assessment classes. 1992
was the next important stage for the new colours: the Intermediate
certificates, and an even more impressive total of nearly 70 Adults,
Kittens and Neuters entered the classes at that year's Birman Show, with
the colours split into Chocolate & Lilac, Red, Cream & Tortie,
and Tabby points, as at present. Two
years later, in June 1994, the great achievement for the new colours –
Champion status at last. Three
cats gained titles at the first possible show, the Maidstone &
Medway on 16 July: Ch Addeilo Crystalromance (Blue Tortie Tabby
owned by Mrs Julie Keith and bred by Miss D Lewis); Pr Shwechinthe
Nuqui (Chocolate male owned and bred by Mrs Elizabeth Brigliadori
and her daughter Dr Kathryn Robson); and Pr Klassyklogs Red Duke
(Red male bred by Mrs Jane Tackley and owned at that time by her
daughter and son-in-law Rachel and Nick Riordan).
At
the Birman Show in November in Krackerjack,
a Grand winner on the day and Best in Show Adult, had actually already
attained his Grand Champion title three weeks earlier, the very first of
the new colours to do so. Hillbilly
Blue followed suit just a few months later as the first Blue Tabby
Grand, while Zarib, Zunetra, Nuqui and Samsora also went on to be the
first of their Adult & Neuter colours to become Grands early the
following year (Samsora the first However,
backtracking a little, 1992 had brought a huge change to the show scene
for Birmans and other breeds – the creation, after years of
campaigning, of the Semi Longhair section.
At this stage only Birmans and Turkish Vans had Championship
status and so Grand classes were at first rather small compared with the
previous daunting competition of the Longhair Section.
As the Somali and plentiful Maine Coon, Backtracking again,
the Birman Breed Advisory Committee was formed in 1982 with the
principal function of recommending to the GCCF changes in the Standard
of Points and the appointment and monitoring of Birman judges for
ratification by the GCCF. Its
members consisted of the members of the Birman Cat Club Committee, but
this changed after the formation of the other three Birman breed clubs:
the The GCCF publishes
on its website an Analysis of Breeds Registered by year dating back to
1988, covering more than 30 recognised breeds.
The Birman is among the most popular breeds in Janet Osborn
Copyright © Janet Osborn 2006
Sources
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