Missing Maida Vale moggie turns up in Waterloo after 14 years
A 20-year-old cat called Charlotte living a semi-feral existence on the streets of Waterloo was been reunited with her owner 14 years after disappearing from her Maida Vale home.
In her later years Charlotte had been fed by a Waterloo resident, who when the cat’s health took a turn for the worse contacted the RSPCA.
RSPCA inspector Jade Guthrie collected the cat from Greenham Close earlier this month and was able to track down her original owner, Vivien Tarlton, after contacting the London-based animal charity which implanted the cat’s microchip many years ago.
Soon Charlotte was the centre of attention at Vivien’s home where she was able to spend time with her owner and her son Harley, one of a litter of six she gave birth to a month before she vanished in 2010.
Sadly, the feline’s health had deteriorated to such an extent that the happy reunion was but a fleeting one. Vivien was advised by her regular vet that the prognosis for Charlotte was poor and that the kindest course of action was to put her to sleep.
Happily, cat-loving Vivien was able to shower her love on the missing cat for the last two weeks of her life and says she is extremely grateful to the RSPCA and the caller for making that possible.
“I’ve gone from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows, but the 16 days Charlotte was with me was lovely,” said Vivien.
“She was home and safe, although I suspected her time with me might be short. When she lived with me she was quite feral, but it is still amazing that she managed to get to the other side of London and had someone feeding her there - she must have jumped on a bus as it is quite a distance.
“I never gave up hope of seeing her again as she was an amazing little cat. She’d come into the house and always be near to me, although she didn’t really like being touched.
"I kept looking when she went missing. I had posters printed and placed them on doors and trees all around West London, but she was never seen. I even asked a psychic for help locating her.
“I was thinking recently that she’d be 20 or 21 now and wondered what had happened to her. She was so wary of people that it was a shock that she went out of my back garden. I kept two of her kittens; Holly died in 2019, but Harley is still with me."
