Driver Mike Sweeney, 31, said he heard the ginger and white moggy meowing aboard his lorry, eight hours after a stop in Northampton.

He found her clinging to a bar underneath the lorry, inches from the road.

"The poor thing must have been holding on for her life," he said.

The cat made its epic journey sitting on a battery

"We were going over speed bumps along the way. I certainly wouldn't like to do it.

"I went through Coventry, Birmingham and Solihull before I noticed.

"I stopped off for a delivery in Redditch and I heard a meowing."

The cat, renamed Convoy, is believed to be from Northampton after being seen at the lorry depot there.

'Horrendous journey'

Convoy was taken to a local vet for a check-up and is being cared for at the RSPCA's Worcestershire re-homing centre.

Sandra Terry from the centre said Convoy is lucky to be alive: "It's a pretty horrendous journey for a small cat and very precarious where it was because it could have dropped off the lorry at any time."

Animal collection officer Steve Davies hopes the cat's owners can still be found: "She had a silver collar and a bell on, but if she had been micro-chipped we could've contacted the owners straight away, so the importance is, get your cats micro-chipped."