It was a job to please a thousand cat lovers - or 35,000, to be more precise.

When Joan Bowell appealed for someone to replace her in the running God’s Little People Cat Rescue in Greece, nothing could have prepared her for the tidal wave of response.

Within days of posting the job on Facebook this August, Bowell’s alert went viral, sparking thousands of applications and a global reaction underpinned by raw emotion.

In a new interview with the Observer today, Bowell reveals that she and her husband have had to hire volunteers in order to help them sift through the tens of thousands of job entries they’ve received from over 83 countries worldwide.

“It’s been inspiring, sobering and quite distressing to read people’s reasons for applying,” says Bowell.

“We’ve had refugees wanting to find a way out of war zones and people from Russia and India who have reached a low point and feel unable to continue caring for their own animals, which they can’t afford to feed.”

Over 30,000 hopefuls apply for dream job on cat island in Greece