JESS the cat went out for as night on the tiles . . . and ended up spending three nights trapped on a cold factory roof.

Even the fire brigade could not manage to coax him down. His escapade only ended when his owner, 44-year-old Linda Hoskings, volunteered to climb the firemen's ladder and rescue the cat herself. It was a great escape for Jess who was a whisker away from starvation.

The cat went missing last Thursday from his home in Longworth Street, Tonge Folde. On Friday, Linda spotted him on the roof of the former Haslams sheet metal works in Hilton Street. She called the RSPCA and was advised to wait 48 hours to see if Jess made his own way down. But Jess stayed put -- and on Sunday the RSPCA arrived and called out the fire brigade.

Firefighters went up on the roof, but Jess kept giving them the runaround.

The rescue mission was on the point of being abandoned when Linda volunteered to climb the ladder herself -- after first being helped over the metal railings of the shutdown factory.

But once she was up the ladder, Jess recognised her -- and Linda was able to snatch him to safety.

She said: "I think he has definitely used one of his nine lives with this one. It was very high, but I just had to go up."

A fire service spokesman said: "It was a difficult job because we had to get over the fence before we got on to the roof. When we found the cat, it moved away if we moved.

"We were about to call it day when the owner asked if she could go up -- and with our supervision she was able to get on the roof and get the cat into a basket."