Thanks for the comments @wandrnrose7 :)

about a year after this we had another cat wander in , lol, a black one this time, it was a really nice cat, well fed and looked after, and followed me around like a shadow,
Looked up on a lost cat website and found a cat that fitted the description perfectly. Only thing is that the missing report was 10 months old !!
we rang the number and it turned out it was their cat, they came and picked it up.
This one stayed with us for 2 weeks and when it came time to go, really didn't want to lol