A cat missing from its Canterbury home for 18 months has been reunited with its stunned owners after it was found wandering the streets of a village near Ashford.

Nine-year-old tabby Poppy disappeared from Westerham Close in March last year, devastating the family who had bought her as a kitten.

However, after a year-and-a-half on the road, she was discovered 15 miles away by an elderly woman in Sellindge.

Luckily, the missing moggy was microchipped so the RSPCA was able to track down owner Tracy Walsh, who says she struggled to believe the news.

“She was a bit scared at first but she’s settling back in and seems to know who we are. I’m really nervous about letting her go out now. I just want to keep hold of her" - Tracy Walsh

The mum-of-six said: “It was so, so bizarre!

“Even though she had been gone for so long we still thought about her, and only the night before I had been talking about her with friends.

“Within an hour or two of the RSPCA calling she was back home.

“I called my eldest son Daniel while he was teaching and just said ‘you’ll never guess what!’.

“He said he wanted to cry, but couldn’t at school.”

The woman who found Poppy had been feeding her for three weeks after she turned up on her doorstep.

But it was only when the helpful pensioner picked Poppy up and felt a worrying lump that her true identity was discovered by the RSPCA.

Full-time mum Tracy, 46, said: “It was pure chance really that the lady picked her up and really shows how important it is to get your pets microchipped.

“We’d have never found her otherwise. The RSPCA reckon she might have jumped into the back of an open van.

“Amazingly she was in a really good condition. She wasn’t haggard, she wasn’t thin, so hopefully someone had taken her in.”

Poppy is now settling in at home with Tracy, her partner Paul Hazelden and their two children, Lily, four, and two-year-old Jack, but she still needs an operation to remove the lump.

Tracy said: “She was a bit scared at first but she’s settling back in and seems to know who we are. I’m really nervous about letting her go out now. I just want to keep hold of her.

“I know it’s stupid because it’s a cat, but we were all so upset when she went missing.

“Now we’re just really intrigued about what she’s been up to for the last 18 months.”