Tip workers expected the worst when they saw something squirming under a pile of rotting rubbish.
But it was a cat not a rat emerging into the daylight at Glossop’s Brookfield dump 30 years ago.
It must have been one hungry puss - its head was stuck inside an empty cat food can!
The amazing escape hit the Chronicle headlines in January 1990, when we told how one of the tip team found the black cat.
He said: “There he was with the Whiskas tin on his head.”
The cat was taken to Brian Moss’s veterinary practice on Gladstone Street where caring staff removed the can.
Checks revealed that the now purring puss was fit and well and remarkably healthy despite his ordeal.
The practice provided board and lodging to the quickly christened ‘Lucky’ until his owners picked him up.
How Lucky arrived at the tip was a mystery. One school of thought was that he sneaked into a wheely bin and had a refuse truck ride there. One cat life gone, another eight to go!
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