Kintyre kitten cadges a lift to Helensburgh
A stowaway kitten travelled more than 100 miles before being discovered under the bonnet of a car at Helensburgh Toyota garage – much to the bewilderment of his Tangy owners!
How the three-month-old cat, who was nicknamed Gasket by the garage’s staff, made the journey is as much a mystery to his owners Kerry Gilchrist and Kevin McMillan, of Rathlin View, seven miles north of Campbeltown, as anyone else.
Kevin explained that the kitten, whom they named Honey, had arrived at the family’s home at the end of November with his mum and brother.
‘The mother arrived at our door and I started feeding her,’ he said,’ and then two kittens appeared – one blackand-white and one ginger. I emptied out our wood store and made a bed in there for them. They came in the house during the day but slept outside.’
The three cats stayed at Kevin and Kerry’s house for about three weeks, before their neighbour, Ruth Smith from Drumalea Farm, who is a vet, took the mother to be neutered.
‘The next night, the wee black-and-white cat appeared but the ginger cat had gone,’ Kevin said. ‘I was down the road with a torch the next night, to see if he had been run down but there was no sign of him. We searched for about four or five nights, checking all round the area, but we couldn’t find him.
‘He was last spotted at a rope swing just up the road on December 22 but we never saw him again. We assumed someone had either taken him as a pet, or he had fallen in the water or been run down.’
On Monday, Helensburgh Toyota appealed on Facebook to trace the owners of a kitten, matching Honey’s description, which had leapt out from under the bonnet of a car that had been traded in. Kevin and Kerry spotted the post and said that everything suggests the moggy is the one they lost, from his markings and colourings, to his estimated age.
‘What are the chances of losing a cat here and then it turning up in Helensburgh? But it’s too much of a coincidence for it not to be the same animal,’ Kevin said.
‘He used to crawl up the wheel on the car here, so I don’t know whether someone parked down at the main road, and he went into the engine, or we took him into Campbeltown and he transferred into another car ...
‘Someone said they spotted a wee ginger cat in Dunoon getting attacked by birds, and a car came into the garage from Dunoon, so that could be how he ended up in Helensburgh.’
Used car manager Gavin Wilson, who was one of the garage staff who discovered the cat, took him back to his Helensburgh home – where his daughters Claire, 10, and Laura, eight, fell in love with him – until his owners could be traced.
Kevin and Kerry – whose daughters Taylor and Korri are also aged 10 and eight – decided the kitten, now named Gasket, could remain with animal lover Gavin and his family, who already have two cats.
‘We decided that he would be better to stay there in case he got run down on the road here,’ Kevin said, ‘as we’ve lost three cats here already.’
All three cats which appeared at Kevin and Kerry’s house now having loving homes – the black-and-white kitten, now named Bolt, at Drumalea Farm; the mother with her original owner, who lost her six months ago from a house a quarter of a mile away; and little Gasket in Helensburgh.
‘They were becoming a part of the family,’ Kevin said, ‘but I’m quite happy that they’ve all been homed.’
Taylor and Korri will be Highland dancing in Alexandria in February and it is hoped that they will able to pay a visit to Gasket in nearby Helensburgh at the time.