By Adam RIvers
October 31 2019, 17.25
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A Wandsworth family have issued a fresh appeal to find their missing cat.
Owners Rebecca Gethings and her partner, Tom Brass, are appealing to residents to provide any information about their missing grey tabby, who disappeared from their Earlsfield home on 9 September.
The one-year-old cat, who is microchipped, has not been spotted since.
Actress Ms Gethings said: “Our hope is that someone has taken her in or is at least feeding her but hasn’t yet got around to having her scanned at the vets.
“With the colder weather and fireworks night coming, I’m just praying that she is safe and warm somewhere.”
The couple got Tilda and her sister, Enid, as kittens last September to keep their older cat, Louis, company.
“He was initially really displeased with our decision,” said Ms Gethings.
“However, he did come around and we would often find them all curled up together.
“In fact, having two kittens in the house seemed to give him a new lease of life and he and Tilda are particularly close and would play and rough and tumble together.”
Since Tilda went missing, the family have distributed hundreds of leaflets and searched their neighbours’ gardens and sheds.
Ms Gethings said that everyone has been kind and supportive.
“People have empathy for loss even if they aren’t particularly ‘cat people’,” she said.
“Tilda is a member of our family and we miss her every day.”
There are thought to be 7,000 cats currently missing in London, according to Petlog, a lost and found database for microchipped pets, while charity Cats Protection estimates that there are nine million stray cats living in the UK.
Barbara Read, coordinator and founder of Feline Friends London, a charity that helps to reunite missing cats with their owners, said that ensuring cats are neutered and microchipped gives them the best chance of being found, as well as executing an intensive poster campaign.
“When a cat goes missing, blitzing the area with posters is really important,” she said.
“Go knocking on doors and let at least every house on your street know, as well as the adjoining streets and the ones behind yours.”
Missing cats will often end up in a neighbour’s garden, she said.
“The thing that often happens is people take cats in.
“I’ve reunited a cat that was missing for six years, so people shouldn’t give up.”
Set up in 2013, Feline Friends London gives advice to owners about their cats and helps to track them down when they go missing.
Ms Read said: “There’s an estimated half a million stray and feral cats in London alone, and an estimated two million across the UK.
“When you put that alongside the fact that cats are the single most popular topic of internet searches worldwide, and yet the animal who most needs help, if only those people who drool over cute photos of cats and kittens on the internet would do just one single thing to help, then it would make a huge difference.”
Contact Rebecca Gethings with information on 07961 131544.
