Casper the Commuting Cat: The True Story of the Cat Who Rode the Bus and Stole Our Hearts

CHAPTER 17

Casper Goes Global

‘Our Casper story goes worldwide!’ screamed the Plymouth Herald the next day – and it was true. The story had exploded.

Casper the commuting cat became a worldwide celebrity within hours of appearing in The Herald. We yesterday reported how the carefree feline regularly travels around town on First’s number 3 bus from his Barne Barton home. Having proved a hit with drivers and passengers, Casper’s story has captured the attention of media far and wide. The headlines came thick and fast as the Plymouth puss featured on websites from England’s tabloids to the USA’s mystate-line.com. The Sun declared that ‘Stowaway Cat gets busted’, while The Press Association went with ‘Joyrider Casper given a puss pass’. Teletext merely stated: ‘Cat enjoys free bus rides’. He also appeared on a diverse range of other websites including Yahoo, Virgin Media, The Sheffield Telegraph, Bury Free Press and thisislancashire.

I did a quick search and found the story on the BBC website, the Daily Telegraph, and the Daily Mail – they had all picked up on what Edd had written and put their own twist on it. Some papers had even covered the tale in their editorial columns, usually with excruciating puns. They were all very positive and kindly disposed towards Casper’s hobby, and I felt as if he were being taken to the hearts of the nation. People from the four corners of the world commented on online versions of the story. The story was taking on huge proportions.

The response that day was incredible, but it was nothing compared to a few days later, when he appeared in newspapers and websites in Holland, Australia, India, China and South Africa. A newspaper in New York said:

Not all pets prefer to travel by foot – some find taking public transportation a better way to get around. In the English city of Plymouth, 12-year-old Casper the cat has been surprising his fellow commuters by riding the bus by himself.

No one was more surprised by all of this than me.

By the end of the day after Edd had published his first article, I felt like I was living in the middle of a whirlwind. I almost expected a public relations guru to call, offering to represent Britain’s newest star. My address was very easy to find because of the mention in the paper, and my telephone number quite simple to get too. As a result, the phone never stopped ringing. I found myself agreeing to all sorts of people coming to meet Casper for more interviews and filming. I was doing what I had done all along, which was to agree to things for an easy life. I’d had such a positive experience with Edd that I became less wary of dealing with journalists. Thankfully, I never had this positivity challenged, and everyone who has dealt with Casper’s story from beginning to end has been a delight.

I wasn’t keeping track of what I was agreeing to and a few days after the Plymouth Herald piece, I woke up one morning with butterflies in my tummy. It didn’t take long to realize why: I’d said that I would give some interviews to Today and even do some filming with Casper for news programmes, and everyone was scheduled to come at pretty much the same time. So much for my organizational skills!

I pulled on some clothes and managed to get downstairs just as the doorbell rang. Standing outside was a whole gang of people, all jostling for my attention, all calling my name and asking for Casper. There was a film crew from the BBC and the director of First Devon and Cornwall. As well as Karen, the PR lady, and Jo, her assistant, there was a filming team from another BBC section called ‘Spotlight’, Devon Radio, photographers, journalists and goodness knows who else. It was pandemonium as they debated who would film what and when.

Thankfully, Karen from First bus had arranged for one of their drivers to come along to stand in some more pictures, as I hated that side of things. This young chap was also called Rob, and he got on very well with Casper. As they stood there, posing for the photographer, I did have a slight fluttering in my tummy about how many people seemed to be interested already, but I told myself that whatever was going to happen would happen, and there was nothing I could do about it. It still didn’t seem that important, which was partly due to the friendliness of everyone; they made it seem so natural that it made me think that everything would calm down very soon.

A young chap, who turned out to be from the ‘Spotlight’ team, stepped forward and introduced himself. He said that a bus had been arranged through Karen, and they were hoping to take Casper on it for some filming. I was a bit shell-shocked but agreed. They were like bees round a honey pot. Then I suddenly realized that I had no idea where Cassie was.

I looked round frantically and was relieved to see one of the photographers lying on the floor with him, tickling him and being ever so friendly. He had such a way with Casper that I felt fine about turning my attention to the others while I heard the young man’s camera clicking away. As I kept talking, he quietly picked Casper up and smiled at me, whispering that he was going to get on a bus with him I felt quite relieved that my celebrity cat was being taken away from all the madness so I wouldn’t have to worry about him getting spooked while all these people were here.

By the time he brought Casper back, I’d done lots of interviews and was starting to feel guilty that I didn’t have something new to tell each person. The honest truth was that I didn’t really know what Casper got up to every day; in fact, since the story had run, I was finding out more than ever before. Everyone said that I was doing well, but by the time I had to pick Cassie up and get on the bus with him for some filming, I was shattered. I’m no film star and I’d never thought I’d be signing up to have my face on screen first thing in the morning.

Driving round the number three route was odd. There were no real passengers; instead the bus was full of journalists and photographers all desperate for their piece of my little cat. We did a few circuits so that they could all get the shots they wanted. By the end, I was happy to collapse at home, with Casper in my arms. As I put the kettle on, I laughed at the fact that he looked exhausted too, and certainly showed no inclination to go on another of his daily bus rides.

‘Well, Cassie,’ I said to him, once I had a cup of tea and he had some turkey roll, ‘that was certainly a very odd morning, wasn’t it? I’m not sure you and I are cut out for this lark. Never mind, it’s back to real life for us now You’ve had your five minutes of fame.’

If I believed things would stop there, I was proven totally wrong. Once the new newspaper articles were published and the news clips aired, I started to get letters from all over the world. People were so drawn to Casper and his story, they wanted more information, more snippets from his life. It was also as if he were filling some terribly sad void that many of them had in their lives, as they told me of pets they had lost, families who had moved on, loneliness that filled their days.

One lady wrote:

Since I read about Casper, I cannot help thinking about the cats I have had over the years. We had kittens in the family when I was a little girl and I’ve always liked having a cat to come home to. I lost my husband of fifty-six years last Christmas, and our lovely tabby Hetty had died a few months earlier Now that all of my children are grown up with families of their own, I would love another cat to keep me company but I just cannot have one. I don’t have long myself and I would feel it so unfair to leave behind a cat or to think that one of my children felt forced to take it in. The story of Casper brought a smile to my face – as well as a few tears, and I wish you many happy years with him.

These were lovely sentiments. I was delighted that people were taking time out of their busy lives to write to me; the least I could do was repay the compliment. I wrote back to every single person who contacted me by post, and tried to tell him or her interesting little things about Casper, so that they would feel as if they knew him.

The media coverage continued: I was contacted by women’s magazines, pet magazines, columnists and websites. Casper’s fame was growing, but he was the same cat to me. He was still naughtily stealing food, not always washing, not paying attention to me and disappearing for hours on end. At least I now knew what he was up to when he disappeared. One of the newspaper articles worked out that if the drivers were telling the truth about how often he was on the bus and how far he rode, he had already travelled about 20,000 miles.

The stories kept coming and I was getting to hear more and more, although the information came in snippets. People all over Plymouth were talking about Casper. One woman I knew who worked on the taxi buses, was laughingly discussing his adventures when a passenger said that she saw him lots and had never really thought anything about it until she read his story in the paper. That appeared to be of the experience of many locals. Perhaps it’s part of the British desire not to get involved. If Casper’s appearances on the bus were treated as normal by everyone else, then no one wanted to be the first to draw attention to him So, in turn, everyone thought it was fine, and Casper believed that he was entitled to go about his daily journey without interruption. I was so lucky that he always seemed to be meeting the right people and that he had never once come across some ‘Jobsworth’ who thought that little Casper shouldn’t be on public transport and kicked him off.

The Casper phenomenon was particularly strange for Chris, as he wasn’t around very often. He had to take long-distance jobs as and when they came up; he never knew if he would be in Scotland or Spain from one week to the next. He would tell people a few bits and pieces about what our strange cat was up to, but, to begin with, they all thought he was pulling their leg. Once they started reading about it in the Sun, the Guardian, and pretty much every other paper in the country, they realized that, bizarre though it may have sounded, he was telling the truth.

Once, when Chris was driving to France, he had the radio on and heard Sarah Kennedy on Radio 2 talking about Casper. That’s my cat, he thought proudly. It didn’t change their relationship. Cassie didn’t suddenly develop airs and graces; he was still the same boy who jumped into the car beside Chris as soon as he pulled into the drive after a trip away.

Casper made people happy: me, Chris, the drivers, everyone who read about him Despite the redundancies, the constant talk of recession and the unemployment figures rising, he put a smile on people’s faces. Rob said to me at one point that life’s just too serious. Lightness helps us all and you need to find happiness wherever you can. Casper gave everyone a bit of a break and reminded us that we can still find a bit of fun in our day-to-day lives.

He was taking it all in his stride but I wished that someone had told me what to expect and how to deal with it. There seem to be no guidelines handed out to people who are suddenly thrust into the media spotlight, and I would have welcomed some dearly.