Missing cat is found eight years later, across the Channel

A cat lost eight years ago has turned up 200 miles away – in France. Marna Gilligan and Sean Purdy, of south London, were stunned by an email from a Paris animal shelter.

Staff said Moon Unit, a black and white short-hair named after the daughter of musician Frank Zappa, had been found in a train station. “We thought, it can’t be her – not after all this time,” Ms Gilligan, 39, told the Evening Standard.

The cat’s owners, who are no longer a couple, were tracked down via a microchip which was registered to their former Bermondsey address and they recognised its distinctive nose markings in photos. They both travelled to Paris to collect Moon Unit from L’association d’Aide et de Défense des Animaux en Détresse, and are now fundraising for the shelter.

Ms Gilligan, of Gravesend, had kept one of Moon Unit’s kittens so the onceferocious cat – now “a bit more mellow” – is living with Mr Purdy.