A FAMOUS BRADFORD CAT who hit the headlines for 'racing' with her owner passed away on Monday, at the ripe old age of nineteen.

Midge 'the one-eyed racing cat', as she was dubbed by the media, became a regular fixture in the news and even hit the big screen in a short film shown at Cannes Film Festival.

Owner Martin Humphreys, a parish councillor from Wrose, rescued Midge from a cat rescue centre in 1997. He describes Midge's passing as a "sad loss", but also sees it as something that "had to come eventually."

"Midge has done remarkably well to get to the age of 19. It's a good age for a cat. She passed away from old age, but she had a good and glorious time while she was here", he said.

Martin explains how one day, he was walking to a local shop, when Midge followed him. Midge would then have to jump atop a stone wall to continue her journey, and when she would leap back down, she suddenly gained an "impetus to run", Martin says, as the momentum from her jump caused her to sprint. When Martin would run after her, she refused to stop and instead chose to 'race' him.

It soon became a "regular thing" for Midge to race Martin, he says, and she saw it "as a game", before he humourously describes how a member of one TV crew who came to document their antics whispered "there's no way this is going to happen", before he looked on in amazement as Midge proved him wrong.

Midge and Martin's unconventional story soon made its way to the BBC, ITV, the Daily Mail and the Telegraph & Argus.

When he won £1,000 in a work contest, Martin turned Midge's story into a short film, wrote a soundtrack and asked a children's choir to sing - The Great Race was then screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009.

"The Cannes Film Festival was one of the most amazing things for me. I went there and stayed in France for a week and even got on the red carpet at one point. The festival is not an easy thing to get into, so that was amazing and a great memory."

Martin says his ambitions did not stop there: "I chased the dream. I wanted to make a full-length feature film on Midge. I flew to Los Angeles and attended another film festival there, where I'd sometimes even get recognised. People would point at me and shout 'Midge!'

"I even saw on the internet that The Great Race was screened in China. I saw a woman in traditional Chinese clothing talking about Midge, as she appeared on the screen behind her."

"But unfortunately, the plan for the feature film never worked out", Martin says humbly and acceptingly, before he says, "But it's all given me some incredible stories to tell."

He also explains how he trained Midge to respond to a whistle: "No matter where she was, if she heard me blow the whistle, she would run to me.

"If I lost her and I was worried about where she was, the whistle was very useful. I've never seen a cat trained to respond to a whistle like that before."

Martin describes Midge as a "brilliant and very intelligent cat" who was well-known in the local area, and, of course, internationally, after her adventures on the world stage.

"Her passing is sad, but that's life. This is now the end to her story."