Felix The Railway Cat

23. The Battle for Huddersfield Station

‘Eh up, here she comes,’ said Dave Chin with a hearty chuckle, watching an exuberant Felix bounding along the platform towards him in December 2013. Beside him, Chrissie from the booking office was carrying a cardboard box that Felix recognised oh so well: it was full of the Christmas tree decorations. Every year, as soon as that box of decorations came out, Felix came out too. For it meant only one thing: game on. Party time. Let the merrymaking begin …

By now it was a well-established tradition that, every December, Felix ‘helped’ to decorate the Christmas tree that stood in the station concourse. Just as she had done as a kitten, she would dart up the bare trunk, right to the top, then sit there for ages, queen of all she surveyed. Just because she was now an older cat, it didn’t mean she had forgotten how to have fun: when she wanted to be, Felix was still just as playful as she had been when she’d first arrived at the station as a little kitten and had run riot over all and sundry. As the decorating commenced, she would determinedly wage war on the baubles and on the gold cardboard fairy that Dave and Chrissie tried to hang on the tall tree, playing football with the ornaments as she batted them across the ticket hall – to the great amusement of the watching customers. As soon as she saw Dave staggering about the station with the enormous Christmas tree in his arms, she was right there with him, and this year was no different.

Eventually, Felix shook the pine needles from her fur and left the twinkling tree behind. Time for a patrol outside.

She exited through the front doors. Felix perhaps liked the grand wooden doors best of all – though not just because they were the most fitting for Queen Felix’s regal appearances. Although Felix had heaps of character, her stage presence – in the opinion of the automatic doors, at least – wasn’t quite sufficient to trigger their electronic sensors and make them open. If she found herself shut in the ticket hall with her colleagues on the other side of the glass, she would have to wait for a cleaner or a member of the public to assist her. Far easier for Felix was the grand entrance, the central door, through which she could come and go as she pleased.

She trotted out and stood at the top of the steps, sniffing the cold winter air. The station’s façade looked as pretty as a picture: round its stately columns were wound strings of ice-white fairy lights; apt enough for this festive season, though in fact they were there all year round. Above Felix’s head, at the tip of the towering columns, was a traditional triangular gable, and at its centre was an old-fashioned black-and-white clock with Roman numerals. Though Felix couldn’t read the position of the hands, they always indicated the same thing anyway: time for adventure.

She scampered happily down the steps and headed out. Immediately in front of the station steps in St George’s Square, modern fountains burst sporadically from the ground in tall spurts of icy water; at night, they were lit in ever-changing shades of purple, green and blue. Felix, savvy as she was, neatly avoided the fountain holes that could suddenly spring to life with a shock of cold water, and headed off to explore.

Across the square, directly opposite the station, was a building that might just have caught her eye. It was the Grade II-listed Lion Building, and atop its soaring, three-storey silhouette was a life-size statue of the King of the Jungle. Leo stalked the rooftop with his enormous feline paws, looking as predatory and proud as his miniature relative did below, his luscious, moulded mane as regal as Felix’s own unique personality.

The Ashlar sandstone Lion Chambers were built in 1853 – but the incarnation of Leo the Lion that gazed down upon the railway cat that evening was a much more recent model. In the 1970s, after over a century’s accumulation of fractures, the original Coade stone lion was retired from duty and on 13 November 1977 a new, lighter, fibreglass model was installed. He certainly looked imposing as he surveyed his kingdom: at night, he was lit up like a Roman god in the floodlights trained upon his feline form, and he dominated the skyline – just as Felix dominated proceedings down below.

Felix was having a brilliant time at the station that Christmas. With her and Billy now the best of friends, Felix would contentedly potter around him when he was on shift. If he was sitting in the office, she’d sit with him while he did his work; occasionally, Billy would even pick her up and she’d snuggle into his lap. If he went outside, she would go too and twirl in and out between his legs as he worked, wagging her fluffy black tail. He’d look down at her as they were doing security checks, or she might even be allowed to join him while he laboured in the garden, dressed in his overalls, on his day off. ‘Y’alright?’ he’d ask her, with a bit of an unfamiliar twinkle in his eye.

Angie Hunte and Dave Chin watched with a sense of pleasant incredulity as Billy enjoyed a bit of a play and a tumble with the black-and-white cat. Felix, in her own special way, had undeniably brought out the soft side of Mr Grumpy. Even as the duo watched, Billy actually smiled at the little cat – a proper, Yorkshire beam of a smile – and Angie and Dave heard him laugh. Billy was laughing. They weren’t used to that.

And it was Felix who had made it happen.

The team at Huddersfield knew she was a very special cat. But what they hadn’t realised was just how many other people were starting to know it too. It had been quite a year for Felix, what with the bespoke cat flap being installed on her behalf and a stint in the limelight on stage in a major theatre of the North, not to mention her high-profile appearances in the local rag. But it was still a shock to Angie when she learned that Felix had been chosen as the cover star of the official TPE Christmas card of 2013.

Knowing nothing about the behind-the-scenes discussions at head office in Manchester which led to Felix being celebrated in this way, it came as a complete surprise to the Huddersfield team when they opened their envelopes with the official cards inside and found Felix, looking as happy as Larry, beaming out and wishing them season’s greetings!

The illustration was of a railway station and a group of carol singers. And there, right at the front of the picture, was Felix, sitting listening to the performance, wearing her pink collar and heart-shaped tag. The artist had caught her so well: the intelligent angle of her head, her pricked-up ears, her regal air that seemed to say, ‘Well, of course I’m on the Christmas card! Who else could it have been?’

Angie was beside herself; she was dancing forever and a day, holding the card aloft and telling everyone she met about her little girl’s achievement.

‘Have you seen it? Have you seen the card?’ she excitedly asked her colleagues, who had not yet opened theirs.

‘No,’ they said, wondering why their team leader was so enthusiastic about the annual Christmas card from head office.

‘Look, look!’ she cried, waggling it in their faces. ‘Take the card, take the card! It’s got our Felix on!’

They looked at it and their jaws dropped.

It was so lovely – and the perfect way to round off what had been an amazing year for the railway cat.

But there was someone who was none too pleased about the moggy’s masterful ownership of the station. Well before Felix had ever placed a paw on the platforms of Huddersfield station, another animal had once roamed the railway and claimed it for his own. He was most put out that this feline was getting ideas above her station. And one night in the winter of 2013, he decided it was time to do something about it.

Angie was over on Platform 1, midway through a night shift, when she saw him appear. She gasped and froze, for this creature could strike fear not only into the hearts of felines, but into human hearts too.

Weaving his way through the softly swaying plants of Billy’s garden on the opposite platform was a thin-nosed urban fox.

There was something about foxes that Angie couldn’t bear. She whispered frantically to her colleague, Carl, who was also on duty, ‘Carl, Carl. I can’t move.’ Even though the fox was on the other side of the train tracks, it didn’t matter to Angie how far away it was. The simple fact that it stood there, glowering at her, made her heart race and her palms grow sticky with sweat. She wanted to get inside as fast as she could.

The fox fixed her with a lazy look, and continued to prowl about amid the scented plants of Billy’s garden, picking his way through the tall grass, his reddish-brown coat brushing the bushes.

‘Get me inside, Carl,’ Angie whispered urgently to her colleague as they watched the fox asserting himself, as confident as could be, ‘get me inside.’

Carl just laughed at her, good-naturedly. ‘He’s not going to bother you,’ he said reasonably. After all, the fox was on the other side of the train tracks – they weren’t close enough for him to do them any harm.

Yet it wasn’t them whom the fox had come to see.

As Angie watched, a little black-and-white cat came trip-trapping her way along Platform 4, far out of Angie’s reach. Felix had not yet spotted the insurgent fox who had infringed upon her territory, wanting to claim it for himself. She had not a care in the world as she sauntered along, on her way to Billy’s garden where she had spent so many happy hours of late. She walked swiftly, eagerly, little knowing the danger ahead.

And it was a very real danger. Several years back, Jumper, the Manchester Oxford Road station cat, had been savaged by what was assumed to be an urban fox; it was a vicious attack, and the poor station cat had lost her back leg in the ensuing violence.

Angie felt the bottom fall out of her world. ‘Felix is over there!’ she cried to Carl in alarm. But there was nothing she could do for Felix – she was too far away and the fox could strike in seconds. As Angie watched, the fox turned his eyes away from the humans on Platform 1 and looked levelly at the approaching station cat. He took a stealthy step forward on one strong front paw. He was ready for this battle. He hadn’t even had to hunt her: Felix was coming to him.

Angie watched his preparations with a sickening, sinking feeling. ‘He’s gonna kill her, he’s gonna kill her, he’s gonna kill her,’ she whispered fearfully. The fox crouched down, as though preparing to spring, and bared his teeth: those sharp white incisors that Angie now feared were going to tear Felix apart before her very eyes. ‘Oh my goodness,’ she moaned in horror. ‘He’s gonna eat her. He’s gonna eat her, Carl!’

Then Felix clocked the fox. The two claimants to the station throne made eye contact – and Felix held the fox’s gaze. ‘What’s going on here?’ those assertive green eyes of hers seemed to say. This was her patch.

Neither creature moved an inch: they just stared, and stared, and stared at each other. And then Felix, perhaps channelling the King of the Jungle on the Lion Building outside in St George’s Square, decided she was not going to walk away from this battle. She was the Queen of Huddersfield station and, like so many monarchs before her, she was going to defend her crown.

As Angie watched in terror from Platform 1, she saw Felix’s fluffy black back begin to rise in the middle. Soon every hair on the cat’s body was standing on end. In cats, this can be a sign that they’re frightened – which, considering the fierce nature of the fox Felix was facing, might have been the case – but it can also indicate that they are really annoyed.

The fox had chosen to mess with the wrong cat. Felix was angry, and her body language was shouting, ‘This is my territory here!’

Felix’s ears flattened. Her back was arched as high as Angie had ever seen it. Tension radiated from the cat’s body as Felix stood her ground. This was her station – and the fox had to know it.

The stand-off continued. Angie felt her heart hammering in her chest. Cats’ hearts beat nearly twice as fast as those of humans, yet given her intense fear, Angie felt certain that, at that particular moment, her and Felix’s hearts were beating as one.

Still, the station cat and the fox continued to stare each other down. Felix’s back went up a touch higher – and the fox turned tail and ran. He vanished into the dark winter’s night, back to wherever his lair was located. The battle for Huddersfield station had been won by Felix the cat.

Seeing him go, the moggy relaxed and carried on with her plans for the evening, strutting along the platform on her way to Billy’s garden. The enemy had been vanquished, much to her satisfaction.

It wasn’t the last time the fox appeared on the station. At about four or five o’clock in the morning, every now and again, the night-shift team would see him pottering around and walking hesitantly along the platform, maybe on his way to hunt the tasty wild rabbits who frolicked at the bottom of Platform 2. But following their encounter, he and Felix had reached an understanding: the fox ignored her and she ignored the fox. They respected each other’s boundaries.

Nevertheless, the pest controller would watch him with a keen green eye as he made his way along the platform. She was in charge here, and if the fox put a foot wrong Felix would know of it.

Yet the fox always toed the yellow line. He now knew all too well what the team at the station had known for years: Felix was the Boss.