GAVIN LLOYD WILSON: Winged Cat Adventure..

I was having an online chat with a friend of mine and we got on to talking about spineless hedgehogs and the like, and he told me that he'd once seen a winged cat but no one has ever believed him. I asked him for more details and his reply was as follows:

The Great Winged Cat Adventure.

The facts are a little fuzzy now, but I'll relate as best I can. This occurred around 4 or 5 years ago. A friend and I had been out one evening and had a couple of drinks, not enough to cloud our judgement I might add and as we wandered back to his house (in Hordle, Hants) on his driveway was a dark coloured, fluffy cat. It showed interest in us as we approached and got up to have a look at us.

It was then that we saw it had what looked like a whole bunch of extra 'material' on its back. We both walked up to the cat to have a closer look and were amazed to see two largeish appendages on it's back. Both of us were fully aware of winged cats and could not believe we had a real example of one right in front if us. We tried to examine the cat but it wasn't too happy with the attention and decided to wander off.

But in that time we were able to touch the 'wings' and as I recall they were firm to the touch (covered in fur of course) and were not symmetrical. I think they emerged from its back close to the front shoulders. Whether they were composed of matted fur or if there were fur covered fleshy growths we couldn't tell. I think they were maybe around 5 or 6 inches in length and about 3 inches wide and reasonably flat.

As I said it decided to wander off and by the time we had bundled in to the house to get a camera and got back out side it had gone. We have never seen it again. No one believes us! There endeth the story.

The images, by the way, are not terribly good, but do show a bona fide winged cat, once owned by our long-standing Surrey representative Nick Smith back in 1998..