Once I gave him the head of a Salmon and he went out and brought back a rat. I think the way he saw it – he’d given me a present in return. Early evening he would often fuss my wife for about an hour. Lots of kisses and paws touching noses etc, he was affectionate – but only usually with the wife.

We have other cats and kittens and Billy was protective of these. While Dusty was feeding the kittens, he kept a supply of mice up to help her!
When the kittens were born – he had play fights with them and generally taught them things. There’s a aggressive Tom that lives local and Billy would stand up to it and take a beating to protect the other cats of the house. He was the ‘boss’ cat in our house.

On the 9th of August – a Thursday – he didn’t show for his tea. We had seen him in the morning – although he was late arriving back. We didn’t worry as occasionally he did skip the evening meal, especially if he was hunting. The next day he didn’t show up, but we were out early and so we expected to find a very sad Billy when we arrived home late on Friday night.

No Billy.

We started to search, called the local vets, we ‘roped’ the local kids into looking, leaflets, posters, and emails, the internet, and we made house to house enquiries. We drove around local area, going wider and wider. We had one phone call of a possible sighting, but this was never verified properly. We doubt it was Billy as we found a similar cat in that area.

We had visitors on the Thursday he went missing – people from Sheffield – collecting a boat that we’d sold on eBay. I didn’t see Billy in the boat or around their car, but what if he got in their car? And ended up between here and Sheffield – what if he got in some one else’s car? We have started to widen the search to a national search as we all feel he may still be alive, but we don’t think he’s in the Helsby area. No body and no reports of a Road Kill gives us hope.