About Us
My name is Shanthi Proctor and I have always been passionate about both cats, dogs and various other animals through my father's influence. As a young child, I helped stray Queens raise their kittens and also raised orphan kittens.
Through doing this I realised that cats are tougher than we realise, the queens gave birth in obscure places like the top of shed roofs and the kittens I raised had no fancy feeding equipment.
My passions and interests have always been very varied. I got into university to study civil engineering, but was awarded a scholarship to study cello and piano at the Royal Academy of Music 4 years so did that instead. I subsequently qualified as a chartered accountant and have worked as an auditor for many decades.
Chrysolite is run jointly with my son Daniel, who also has diverse passions, he is a very talented musician but a mechanical engineer by trade.
Our love for British Shorthairs began in 2016 when we were looking for a replacement for our beloved black Moggy cat Teddy who had just been diagnosed with chronic kidney disease and given just 6 mths to live (He actually lasted over 1.5 years with carefully controlled daily and monthly medication). I had just an advertisement on television featuring British Shorthair kittens and completely fell in love! Daniel was apprehensive as Teddy, whilst very loving indoors absolutely despised other cats and scared the living daylights and tried to kill any he encountered outdoors, but I didn't think he would want to upset me by trying that on any indoor kittens. I was proved right, our Teddy was a complete gentleman with Lola our first British Shorthair despite having to put up with a LOT, like her playing with his tail relentlessly and the cat flap now being shut one way so she couldn't get out. We obtained Leo, as a companion for Lola and both she and Teddy, loved him to bits, for different reasons, from the outset. Lola because she now had a playmate and Teddy because Lola left him alone after Leo arrived!
Leo subsequently became a phenomenally successful show cat, still our best, and was instrumental in my getting interested in breeding as I got to meet many very experienced breeders at shows. The driving factor for getting into breeding was our boy Joey though, I obtained him originally as a pet as Teddy was now nearing the end and I fell in love with his breeder's high white cats. He started doing so well in his kitten shows and was such a fabulous cat with a fantastic harlequin pattern, I thought it would be a shame to neuter him, so obtained breeding rights from his breeder. Joey eventually became a very succeSsful, high ranked show cat too, and shows at the same level 'imperial' as Leo. Joey has been pivotal in our breeding programme and continued interest in the beautiful high white British Shorthairs. We have bred many lovely high white kittens including Billy, our Best of Variety adult winner and our first homebred titled cat.
Showing our cats
At Chrysolite we have always been dedicated to showing our cats regularly both to meet other breeders and learn from their experience and to see all the other beautiful cats on show. We welcome the judges reports on our cats as we are always striving to improve.
We have shown all our cats apart from Diana and Cara, and this is only because they are marginal on the GCCF white ratio for bi colour 'with whites' which requires 1/3 white.
All our cats have done well, but we are immensely proud of Leo and Joey for reaching imperial showing status and Coco and Billy, much younger, who are working their way up.
Showing really isn't easy though, many of the shows are far away requiring very early starts and long drives. We have a big dog pen in the back of our cat with a litter tray and water in it to make things easier for our cats.
To reach the higher levels the cats need to have good temperaments in addition to complying with the Standard of Points, all our cats have demonstrated this.
To reach the high level Leo and Joey have you need:
1. 3 championship certificates to become a champion, competing against British Shorthairs in same breed type, so for example Joey and Coco just competed against other van/harlequins at this level.
2. 3 grand champion certificates against all British Shorthair breed type
'champions!
3. 5 imperial grand certificates against all British Shorthair breed type 'grand champions'
4. At imperial level cats compete against 'imperial' cats of all breeds for
Olympian certificates.
We hope our continued commitment to showing will improve the quality of the beautiful kittens we breed further. We are currently focusing on showing our home bred cats and are delighted Billy has done so well in his short showing career.
Our Prefix
Our prefix commemorates Shanthi's Father and Daniel's Grandfather Chrys, who died when Daniel was just 6 months old. He knew that Daniel, his first grandchild existed, but unfortunately never got to meet him as Shanthi's family lived in a different country where she had grown up. It is one of Shanthi's greatest regrets that he never met his 2 grandsons, Daniel and his cousin Deshaka himself a very talented sportsman, but she is certain he would be very proud of what they have both achieved.
Chrys was multi talented, he was a superb table tennis player who was national champion and dominated the 1950's national table tennis scene and represented the country many times internationally. There are table tennis tournaments that commemorate him even today, many decades after is death.
He also obtained a degree in English, which is unusual for the highest calibre sportsmen even today, and worked first as a journalist and then as a market researcher and analyst focussing on economics. His final job before his untimely death was as the chief editor of the countries leading economic journal at the time published by one from of the largest banks in the country.
To get to the top of any sport (or anything like playing a musical instrument to a very high levell) needs a huge amount of discipline from a very young age, and to combine it with academic achievement even more so. Chrys always encouraged Shanthi, his eldest daughter in her varied interests and potential vocations, engineering, Music and then Accountancy and in other interests such as fostering strays, reading, cooking and plants. He did not live to see Shanthi qualify as an Accountant and her interest in cats only began nearly 3 decades after his death, however she is certain he would have encouraged Daniel and her in this latest very diverse pursuit. Breeding and showing cats while working full time in very pressurised jobs in Auditing and Engineering like we both do at the moment needs a lot of 'dedication, devotion and discipline', one of Chrys' mantras, and we hope to be able to continue to apply it to the breeding and showing of our beautiful cats.