A lost cat has finally been reunited with his owners ten years after going missing. Harry the white and ginger cat vanished from his home in Great Yarmouth, Suffolk, in 2008, when he was a kitten. His owner Mark Salisbury, 39, thought he’d never see Harry again – but never gave up hope of finding him, and kept his details up to date on Harry’s microchip. Mark bought Harry from a farm near Great Yarmouth along with his brother.
But one day he escaped from his garden. Mark said he always felt that Harry was still roaming the streets and never wanted to give up on him. He said: ‘He didn’t turn up one day when I was calling the pair of them in. ‘But after 10 years, you think that’s it and you make peace with that. ‘I could never quite bring myself to cancel the microchip though
Mark was shocked when he was told that the cat had been found after being taken to the Blue Cross animal charity 50 miles away in Ipswich, Suffolk. Though Harry had run away, he hadn’t been a stray. He’d actually been taken in by an elderly owner who had sadly passed away. It was when Harry was rescued and had a microchip scanner used on him that he was traced back to Mark. Susie Winship, from Blue Cross Suffolk, said: ‘Harry was brought to us by the neighbour of an elderly gentleman that had taken Harry in approximately 10 years ago.
‘The gentleman had sadly passed away and the neighbour was keen to find someone to look after Harry. ‘We scanned Harry for a microchip following his admission and found that he was chipped to a Mark Salisbury.’ Harry is now living with Mark’s mum Carolyn Clark, in Gloucester, because the family believed reintroducing the cat to his brother after ten years would be unfair.