"Kill your speed, not our pets"
Devastated cat owner's plea after his two animals are both hit by vehicles
A DEVASTATED pet owner has launched a campaign to reduce the speed limit in Wash Water after both of his beloved cats were run over by cars.
John Brodie is telling motorists to “kill your speed and not our pets” after his one-year-old cats Merlin and Tigger, were both struck by vehicles within 18 days of each other in Andover Drove, Wash Water.
Mr Brodie says that he and his girlfriend have been left “shocked, heartbroken and angry” by what has happened.
Now, Mr Brodie is calling on local councils to lower the speed limit and introduce traffic calming measures along the road to prevent more pets being killed.
Mr Brodie said: “They were brothers and that hurts so much.
“We watched them grow and they made us laugh and happy and they brought happiness in to our lives right up to the time they were both killed by a speeding driver.”
He said he was “brought to tears” when Merlin, a Maine Coon, was killed on the morning of September 11.
Mr Brodie said: “I don’t know if Merlin had suffered before he died or how long he suffered for, or if he tried to make his way home and did not quite make it home to me.
“I had to make a very hard phone call while crying my eyes out to my girlfriend to say that I had found Merlin dead by the field gate while she was at work.
“We both were raw with disbelief, shocked, heartbroken and angry that this had happened to our pet Merlin.”
To his disbelief, they then lost Tigger – a short-haired ginger cat who Mr Brodie affectionately called Tigg Tiggs – when he too was hit by a car on September 29.
Mr Brodie said: “With Tigger, I let him out at 9.30am and he normally comes back, but on that day I didn’t see him for over five hours, which was very unusual.
“As I walked up Andover Drove searching in the next fields and ditches I found my Tigger with horrific injuries to his body.
“I am so angry that the people responsible did not bother to knock on the doors close by to say ‘do you know who these cats belong to?’
“I can never get those images out of my head.
“I am so traumatised by what has happened.
“I cannot stop crying and can never forgive the driver/s who harmed our pets in the way they did.”
Mr Brodie suffers with bipolar, complex borderline personality disorder and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and said the ordeal has had a profound effect on his mental health.
He added: “Merlin and Tigger made me happy and forget the health problems that I have and at times I felt human when I had them both.
“Now, with the deaths of both our loving pet cats, I am back to where I was a few years ago and it is not a nice place to be in.
“I am finding it very hard to cope with what has happened.”
He has reported the incidents to the police and emailed Enborne Parish Council, which is intending to put the issue on the agenda for discussion at its next meeting.
He is also campaigning to get the speed limit changed on the road.
Currently, from the bottom of Andover Drove where the properties are, it is a 30mph zone until the point where it goes past the gate to the field, where it then becomes 60mph.
But Mr Brodie wants to see the whole road become a 30mph zone.
He said: “People speed down here as fast as they can with no care at all for anybody else that is on the road.
“There needs to be better signage and street lighting and speed reducing measures.
“There is no lighting and no footpaths for people to walk up or down, just verges.
“There are a lot of families here that have young children and a lot of dog walkers.
“There are also schoolchildren on their way to or from school and people walking from their homes.
“Andover Drove is used as a rat-run by people taking their children to school or going to pick them up from school so that they don’t have to drive on the Andover Road.
“I feel that Andover Drove should be made in to a private road so that no more pets, or wildlife, or even people are killed.
“Do we have to wait for more pets to be killed before the councils do anything?
“We need action here. Fast.”
