THE rescue of a young boy’s beloved friend has been described as “like something out of Toy Story” by his grateful mum.

Eight-year-old Charlie Taylor was distraught when Loobiloo - a glove puppet bought for him by his grandmother when he was a baby - went missing last week.

Charlie’s mother Sophie Morrison said she spent the weekend searching the house, but realised Loobiloo had been taken away for destruction when YorWaste came to collect their old sofa.

She said: “She had fallen down the side and got tucked in.”

Her mother-in-law Collette Taylor, who bought the puppet, died in 2010, making the toy all the more special for Charlie.

Sophie phoned YorWaste on Monday, and spoke to Bill Wilson, a transport planner, explaining the situation.

However, she was told the sofa would have been crushed.

Sophie said: “He said they don’t even look at what’s taken away, it just goes straight into the machine. I was in tears.”

The company deals with more than 500,000 tonnes of waste each year, but Bill and his colleagues wanted to help.

Bill said: “Most of us in the office have children or grandkids, so when I spoke to Sophie, I knew how upset she was and how much it meant, so we wanted to go the extra mile to try and help her out.”

He told Sophie he would try to track down the container the sofa remains had gone into - along with seven tonnes of other household waste, but warned her not to be hopeful.

In preparation for just such a loss, Sophie and husband Stevie had once tracked down the brand of toy - bought in a French supermarket almost eight years ago - and purchased a duplicate, but despite the best effort of LoobiTwo, and Charlie’s older brother Finn, Charlie remained inconsolable.

Sophie said: “LoobiTwo is a toy, but Loobiloo is real to him. He breathed a soul into a toy, and he was just lost without her.”

After tracking down the container, its contents were emptied at the YorWaste site in Harewood Whin, Rufforth, then broken up with a bulldozer before Bill and his colleagues Tom Richards, Ian Aikman and Lee Walton scoured the pile.

Bill said: “We saw a blue piece of material which turned out to be an armchair, then saw another bit, pulled that out, and lo and behold, the glove puppet was there, in one piece - but in need of a wash.”

Sophie said: “Bill phoned me at 9am on Thursday and said ‘I’ve got someone here who’s going to need a really good bath’.”

Bill said: “Ninety-nine point nine per cent of the time, unless it’s something huge, it’s nearly impossible to retrieve anything. Sophie was really nice, so appreciative. She sent us a photo on Thursday night of her son holding the toy, and a lovely message thanking us for our efforts.”

Sophie said: “The guys have been fantastic, they’ve worked really hard. This will go down in family history. I don’t know a better way to thank them.”