A STOWAWAY French kitten took a death defying journey all the way to Bucks when it secretly hitched a ride beneath the bonnet of a car.

The young feline, thought to be aged around six weeks old, slipped into Alan and Audrey Plumpton's (corr) vehicle during a stay at a holiday home in Brittany, and returned home with them to Amersham last Wednesday.

Mr Plumpton said: "I was going to call the kitten "Petrolhead," but my wife wouldn't let me. She thought "Lucky" would be a better name."

He explained how the feline adventurer must have climbed aboard at the holiday spot in Missillac, in La Briere national park, Brittany.

He said: "We share a cottage in France with some other people, and where we park the car there were a few wild cats around. They keep them on the estate to keep the mice down."

Mr Plumpton did not think much about the feral cats when he began his homeward journey. He drove to Saint Malo, then took a ferry across to Portsmouth. Before reaching his home at Stubbs Wood he even stopped off at Tesco in Amersham to do some shopping. The journey, which included an overnight stay, took two days in all. Along the way, Mr Plumpton had heard a faint noise, but thought nothing of it.

He said: "I heard a squeaking on the way, but I thought it must just be the brakes. Then I lifted the bonnet at home and I saw the kitten under the engine."

He immediately called the RSPCA to rescue the trapped male kitten. He said: "They came out and couldn't get it - it was blacked out by then. But they put a trap out, and some food, and eventually it came out."

The cream and grey coloured kitten has now gone into quarantine at a cattery in Staines, where it will stay for six months. And the Plumptons, who plan to give Lucky a new home afterwards, are footing the bill. Mr Plumpton said: "It's costing an arm and a leg, but we won''t have it destroyed under any circumstances - we just couldn't. It's a lovely little kitten, but its like a pin cushion now, with all the injections it's had. But it's been examined, and it's nice and warm and comfortable now."