Woman gives 18,262 tins of cat food to pet charity

A "cat woman" who collected a tin of cat food for every day of her first 50 years of life has donated the tins to charity.

Six years ago Ella Christopher set herself the target of raising the equivalent of one tin for every day of her life, including leap years.

Ms Christopher from Boscombe, Dorset, has now donated all 18,262 tins to the Bournemouth branch of Cats Protection. The charity worker from Boscombe in Dorset is known locally as "cat woman".



Ms Christopher, 56, who lives with her two rescue cats Cybil, five, and 12-year-old Wizzy, estimates that she has saved the charity about £10,000 in cat food.

"It's one tin for every day of my life," she said.

"I did it instead of having birthday presents and Christmas presents because when you get older there's no point having loads of things. The next step will be to get 3,650 tins by the time I'm 60."