A moment that changed me: I saw a big cat on Dartmoor – and no one believed me

Larger than any dog, let alone a house cat, the beast swaggered through the Dartmoor mist. My schoolfriends and I were entranced – until the adults who had slept through everything told us we were lying I was 11, with a handful of friends on a school trip to Dartmoor. We’d set up our tents near…