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

CHAPTER 19

Joining the World of Celebrity Cats

Of course, Casper wasn’t the only cat who had gained fame for his travels, nor was he the only one who had discovered the pleasures of riding on the bus. A couple of years before Casper became famous, I read about a white cat called Macavity who was in the papers because he liked to get on the bus from Walsall to Wolverhampton most mornings and ride for 400 metres to his favourite fish and chip shop. Passengers commented that he was the perfect passenger: he was quiet, minded his own business and never distracted the driver – just like Casper. I wondered whether he and Macavity had known each other at some point earlier in their lives and discussed their love of buses.

They weren’t the only cats who had hit the headlines. I recalled reading about another called Kofi who’d gone missing for nearly four years. His owner had moved house from Nottingham to Sheffield, and, though she desperately missed her lovely cat, she’d given up hope of ever seeing him again. Little did she know that Kofi was both adventurous and determined. After he was picked up by the RSPCA wandering around Ipswich, looking lost and undernourished with an infected flea bite, they checked to see if he was microchipped. He was, and was soon reunited with his delighted owner. I guess that Casper clocked up a lot more than the 120 miles Kofi was estimated to have gone in his travels, but he did much of it in the luxury of a number three bus.

Plenty of other cats have been returned to their human families years after going missing, such as Dixie from Birmingham who took nine years to find her way back. Her mum said that her personality hadn’t changed one little bit since the day she disappeared, but I wonder whether these creatures have experiences that scar them in one way or another. For a domestic cat to survive in the wild for such a long time is a miracle – perhaps they are taken in at some point by another family, or perhaps they are the lucky ones. Whatever happens, it always lifts my heart when I read or hear of another little moggy finding its way home to the ones who love him or her.

Perhaps the most impressive journey of all that I’ve heard of was that of Sandi, the ginger and white cat from Portsmouth. When he went missing one Friday, his owners were frantic because he’d never disappeared before. They handed out leaflets and put up posters everywhere, hoping against hope that someone would have information about where he was. They couldn’t quite believe it when they got a call three days later to say that Sandi had indeed been found – in Spain!

He had been discovered onboard a P&O ferry, The Pride of Bilbao, on a Saturday night sailing from Portsmouth to the Spanish port. It was thought that Sandi got into a car that had then driven onto the ferry, then hopped out when it arrived in port. Thankfully, he had been chipped and was returned to his owners, otherwise the poor thing would probably have been put down, as no one would have known where he’d come from or whom he belonged to, and there may have been a fear of rabies. As it was, he was treated like a VIP, with a cabin to himself for the return journey home and meals of chicken and salmon. One report said that most of the staff had been in to give him a cuddle and would be sad to see him go.

Although there are always bad apples in the bunch, Britain is generally a nation of animal lovers, and I find that we do reach out our hearts to cats, dogs and all sorts of other creatures. When we stumble across them by accident, and somewhere we don’t expect to see them – a bus or a chemist’s shop, for example – it’s such a lovely surprise that I believe our good nature takes over and we can’t help but show kindness and affection.

Once Casper’s story started to get so much attention, I became interested in finding out more about other creatures who’d undertaken strange trips. I found more than I could have imagined and I’d love to share a few of them with you.

Throughout history, cats have done the most amazing things. Often their journeys are undertaken not out of curiosity or because they are lost, but to meet more basic needs, such as finding their kittens.

Over a hundred years ago, there was one remarkable creature called Daisy. Although apparently born in Ireland, Daisy was left at a transportation company in Oswego, New York, by some passengers who had left their homeland in 1871. Daisy was regarded as a welcome addition to the buildings, as she was an excellent rat catcher.

Rather like a lot of ladies with careers, Daisy was caught out by nature. One day it was discovered that she had given birth to two kittens, but, for some reason, she had disappeared. This was very strange behaviour, as the babies were barely a week old.

Daisy had been known for her lovely nature and diligence, so it seemed very peculiar that she would go against what her body would be telling her and abandon her little ones. One gentleman who worked for the transportation company, the rather appropriately (or inappropriately) named Mr Pigeon, took the kittens home and tried to raise them Sadly, without their mother’s attention or milk, they died.

Many, many weeks later, one of other workers in the company was crossing a bridge at the depot when he met – as is reported in a journal of the time – ‘the living skeleton’ of Daisy. The same report tells that she was covered in mud, torn and bruised, with her tail almost worn off. She headed straight for the office where she had left her babies all those weeks ago and ‘wauled’ for them. Her poor heart must have broken as she searched high and low for the little mites who had by then passed on. She was comforted by those who worked at the company but she wouldn’t settle.

Some time passed, and a ship came in from Ogdensburg, a place one hundred miles north-east of the depot. The captain saw all the fuss that was being made of Daisy and informed the workers that when he’d last left Oswego, he’d found Daisy was on his ship by mistake. He had put her ashore in Ogdensburg, not knowing what else to do. Apparently, she’d walked all the way back to Oswego, where she’d left her babies, no doubt panicking the whole way over the fate of her little ones. It may have happened well over a hundred years ago, but the power of a mother’s love comes across to this day. I so wish that Daisy’s tale had a happier ending.

More recently, a little male cat called Kuzya, who lived in Siberia, had the most amazing journey. He was only two years old when his family lost him They were living in another part of Russia for the summer holidays and thought the best thing to do was to take Kuzya along, but he ran away in a place called Yakutsk before they returned home to Olenyok. Incredibly, he turned up on their doorstep three months later – thin, exhausted, with bite marks and his claws worn away to almost nothing. Kuzya’s trek home had involved him walking 1,300 miles across Siberia, through woods and hills, crossing rivers and lakes – which rather puts Casper to shame!

Kuzya was by no means the widest travelling moggy, although he did seem to do it all by paw, unlike a kitty called Clyde from Tasmania in Australia. Clyde had been given to a little girl for her birthday, but had wandered off one day. The family got another cat, which unfortunately was run over. They decided they were unlucky and pets weren’t for them – until three years later, when they received a call from a vet in mainland Australia 2,500 miles away. Clyde had been found by a local nurse five months earlier when he’d wandered into a local hospital. She’d taken him home, but when she was moving house, she went to the vet to see if he could be re-homed. The vet discovered he had been chipped and could be returned to his original family. It seems likely that Clyde must have done some of his travelling by car or van, as it was such a long trip – and he made the return trip home by plane.

The capacity of cats to survive is unbelievable. One that was locked in a Cadillac by accident ended up being shipped from the US to Australia. The cat managed to survive for fifty-two days without any food, simply by licking engine grease and eventually eating the car’s instruction manual. I suppose that those were the only options available to the poor little thing.

Other cats have also had no choice but the most awful of options. A few years ago, a woman in California started to feed a group of feral cats near where she worked. They got to know her, and often ran to see what treats she had for them. Over time she started to distinguish one from the other and identify the various characters. She became concerned about one when she realized his whiskers had disappeared – they looked as if they had been burned off. When she investigated further, she noted that there was a big chunk missing from the fur on his rear leg, almost as if it had been bitten off.

The next morning, this young black and white male was in an even worse state. His entire left paw was missing. The lady contacted a pet rescue service and, together, they worked out what was happening. This little soul was gnawing off parts of his body that had been injured. He was slowly dying, even though he was trying to save himself the only way he knew how It was vital that he was captured and helped.

Every day he came to breakfast and managed to evade capture with the help of his mother, who would stand guard as he ate breakfast. The infection would surely kill him He had chewed at his feet so much that the front left leg was gnawed off almost to the shoulder, and the right rear leg to the knee. The fact that he was still eating and still trying to save himself was testament to an incredible survival instinct.

Finally, by following the cat, who was by now being called ‘Stubbs’, and his mum to where they slept, and with the judicious use of some Kentucky fried chicken as bait, they managed to capture him, take him to hospital and treat the injuries. It transpired that someone had set fire to him in a hideous act of cruelty. All four of his feet and lower back legs were terribly burned – so much so that the pain of gnawing them off had been more bearable than leaving them alone. Eventually, even with help, he did lose a back leg up to the knee, a front one to the elbow and a toe from the front, but his amazing will to live, a great deal of medical care and a new home meant that there was a happy ending.

These extraordinary stories show how determined and brave cats are. Casper was only one of many, and I’m sure there are hundreds of others with similar tales. What I was quickly discovering was that his adventures were making people open up about the many wonderful creatures who had shared their lives too.

One lady from Edinburgh wrote to me to say that, some years ago, she had got two little kittens from a rescue centre. She named them Harry and Maisie, and became very fond of them as they grew The two were completely different characters, despite being siblings. While Harry liked nothing better than to sit by the fire or on this lady’s lap, Maisie was never one to enjoy cuddles and seemed to come home only for food, sometimes disappearing for days on end.

The woman and her husband were planning to move house, and about a week before they left, she decided to prevent Maisie from going out. The cat was going walkabout for such long periods that it was possible she wouldn’t be back in time for the move if she got out. After three or four days, there was a knock at the door. Standing there was a burly man, who asked whether Maisie was at home. The lady had closed the door behind her to stop the cat from escaping and was rather bewildered by this request.

‘How do you know my cat?’ she said.

‘Everyone knows your cat,’ he replied.

It transpired that the man worked in a haulage business nearby and went on trips across Britain (Chris laughed when I told him this story). Maisie had been going with him on many of these journeys since she was a little kitten. Although she had popped into the cabs of other drivers, this man was her favourite. He’d become worried when she hadn’t turned up for a few days. He’d been on a trip to Nottingham and had fully expected Maisie to accompany him.

When the lady told the man they were moving, he seemed terribly upset. Maisie had been his little companion for so long and he would miss her. She wondered whether she could bear to leave Maisie behind, but she loved her too, and Harry would feel strange without his sister.

Once they moved to a rural area of Scotland, Maisie never wandered again. She settled into her new environment and became a hunter rather than a traveller. I teased Chris and said that I hoped he wasn’t being unfaithful to our cats by taking others on trips when he was working.

Cats are such individuals and they are so good at finding their way into our hearts that I don’t think I’ll ever be surprised by any feline adventure story I hear. They are courageous and wise, brave and sometimes foolish, warm and caring, but always, always their own masters. There was a part of me that hoped Casper’s notoriety would keep him safe so I could breathe a little easier than I had in the past.