The Allez Cat
Missing moggy turns up after eight years … 200 miles away in Paris
LONDONERS Marna Gilligan and Sean Purdy had not seen their beloved black and white cat for more than eight years.
So when an email arrived last month, claiming their pet had been found, they didn’t get their hopes up — especially as it said she was not in London, or even the UK, but more than 200 miles away in Paris.
“We just couldn’t believe it,” Ms Gilligan said. “We thought, it can’t be her — not after all this time.”
Somehow Moon Unit, the domestic shorthair they had named after Moon Unit Zap pa, the actress daughter of musician Frank Zappa, had crossed the Channel and ended up in the French capital.
Last Friday her owners, who are no longer a couple, set off on their own journey to Paris to fetch her. “We don’t know what happened to her or where she has been but she wouldn’t have survived if she’d been a stray for eight years,” said Ms Gilligan, 39. “We never thought we would see her again.”
They adopted Moon Unit more than a decade ago —despite her tendency to bite and scratch — after spotting her hanging around Mr Purdy’s work in east London. The cat, then about five months old, moved into their Bermondsey home and soon gave birth to kittens. But, after a New Year’s Eve part y in 2008, she vanished.
Ms Gilligan and Mr Purdy launched a desperate search, handing out flyers and calling animal shelters. “We searched for months and had numerous tip-offs but they were never her. We moved on eventually, and she was just part of our memories,” Ms Gilligan said.
More than eight years passed, until last month they received an email from UK microchipping database Pet log. A Parisian shelter, L’association d’Aide et de Défense des Animaux en Détresse, had taken in a cat found wandering around a suburban French railway station, which had a chip linked to the Bermondsey address. In disbelief, they exchanged photographs and instantly recognised Moon Unit’s distinctive nose markings.
They travelled to Paris by Eurostar to be met by two women from ADAD, who handed the cat back. She was, said Ms Gilligan, “the same but a bit more mellow”, and had lost all her teeth. She and Mr Purdy brought her back on Saturday via ferry.
Since Ms Gilligan, a programmer who now lives in Gravesend, had kept one of Moon Unit’s kittens, Roswell, they decided she should stay with Mr Purdy, 46, in Deptford. He said: “I was anxious about having a cat again, because I haven’t looked after one for a couple of years. Moon Unit was quite ferocious in her youth.” But, he said, “she’s been a perfect sweetie, following me around all day purring”.
The pair have set up a crowd-funding page to raise money for ADAD. Mr Purdy, who works in IT, said: “ADAD have been amazing — tracking us down, with difficulty, from out-of-date microchip information, sorting out vet care and a pet passport for little Moon Unit.”
crowdfunder. co. uk / moon-unit-says-merci