A CAT who was missing for more than two and a half years has been reunited with his owners.

Pensioners Jack and Joyce Povey from Llay had given up on ever seeing ginger tom Skippy again.

But a surprise call from a vet in Mold gave them the shock of their lives.

The couple, from St David's Crescent, Llay, Wrexham, couldn't believe it when they were told Skippy was alive and well.

The vet said he had been handed in by a woman in Mold who found Skippy asleep inside her car.

Mrs Povey, a retired factory worker, said: “Skippy just went out one day and did not come back. It was on a Saturday morning if I remember rightly.

“He cried that he wanted to go out early and my husband let him out.

“Skippy used to go out and then come back in for his breakfast – but he didn't come back this time. We could not work out why.

“We did everything we could. We looked for him and friends kept an eye out for him.
He was not the sort of cat you would miss – he was very pretty, ginger with long hair.

“When we heard nothing we thought he must have had an accident or something, that he had gone out and been run over.

“To be honest, we had given him up for dead. We missed him and still talked about him because he was such a nice cat.”

After a while the couple had a replacement black cat from a cattery – but that cat was quite elderly and in the end had to be put to sleep.

Mrs Povey said: “We decided that's it, no more cats.”

When Mr Povey, a retired quarry machine operator, and his wife were re-united with Skippy they found he knew them straight away.

Mrs Povey said their experience showed how important it was that cats were micro-chipped.

She added: “If we had not had it done, then we would never have had him back,” she explained.

“It clearly works.”

She said the whole family were delighted that Skippy was back home – but they just wished he could talk so that he could explain where on earth he had been for the last two and a half years!