Cats U.K. were a British four-piece

all-female band An all-female band is a musical group in popular music that is exclusively composed of female musicians. This is distinct from a girl group, in which the female members are solely vocalists, though this terminology is not universally followed. While ...

who had a hit with the single "

Luton Airport London Luton Airport is an international airport located in Luton, Bedfordshire, England, situated east of the town centre, and north of Central London. The airport is owned by London Luton Airport Ltd (LLAL), a company wholly owned by L ...

" in October 1979. The record, which reached No. 22 in the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

, was inspired by the 1977 Campari television commercial in which cockney model and actress Lorraine Chase responds to

Jeremy Clyde Michael Jeremy Thomas Clyde (born 22 March 1941) is an English actor and musician. During the 1960s, he was one-half of the folk duo Chad & Jeremy (with Chad Stuart), who had little success in the UK, but were an object of interest to American ...

's romantic line "Were you truly wafted here from paradise?" with the reply, ''"Nahh,

!"''. The band featured Deena Payne, who coincidentally went on to appear with Chase in the long-running

soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...

'' Emmerdale''. The lead singer was Bea Rowley as Lorraine Chase did not want to sing the song. The track was written by Paul Curtis, known amongst UK

Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...

fans due to his many and varied attempts at writing the UK entry each year, and John Worsley. The writers approached Jill Shirley about finding suitable singers for the group. Shirley had been involved with the UK heats for Eurovision for a number of years and would go on to form

Bucks Fizz Bucks Fizz were a British pop group that achieved success in the 1980s, most notably for winning the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Making Your Mind Up". The group was formed in January 1981 specifically for the contest and comp ...

, Gem and Bardo. The group had to rename itself to Cats U.K. because of the existence of the Dutch band

The Cats ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

. However, this still does not uniquely identify them because of the existence of the reggae band of the same name, who were also from the UK."Swan Lake Different Yet (Ballet and Swan Lake in Popular Culture, Vol. 3) from balletphotography.com
/ref> The group went on to record their second single "Holiday Camp" in 1980 with a third single "16, Looking for Love" ending their singing career.

References

English girl groups English pop music groups {{UK-band-stub