Nostalgia Operatic voice saves Figaro the cat

An operatic voice to go with his name saved Figaro the cat when he became trapped between two walls in early 1999, reported the Midhurst and Petworth Observer. He set up a mighty wailing when he heard Richenda Milton-dixon and her daughter, Isabel (eight), about to drive off from the family home at Carron Lane.

They traced the fur-midable sound of his meow to a four-inch gap between their nine feet high carport wall and their neighbour’s garden wall, and saw black and white Figaro trapped at the bottom.

Mrs Milton-dixon said: “He had fallen between the two walls and couldn’t get out.

“I wouldn’t have found him but I was taking my daughter to choir practice and I heard him crying as we went out to the car.”

Firemen from Midhurst had to chop a hole in the carport wall to free Figaro, who was taken to a vet and pronounced unharmed except for shock, bruising and grazed paws.

Mrs Milton-dixon said: “He is 15 months old and very adventurous, but I think that must be one of his nine lives gone.”

She added: “I have not had pets for years, but we have had Figaro and his twin sister for a year and I don’t know what we would have done if we had lost him.

“You do not realise how important a part of the family they come until something like this happens.”

The photograph to the right shows black and white cat Figaro in safe hands with Isabel and Samuel (seven) at their Midhurst home. Hopefully he was feline better after his brush with adventure.