Felix The Railway Cat

32. Back to Work

‘Oh my God, it’s her! It’s her! It’s Felix!’

Felix almost raised an eyebrow as she heard the excited voices. But she didn’t flinch or flee: this was a regular occurrence by now. She was sat on duty at the customer-information point, and the eager tourists crowded round her, smartphones out to take selfies with the famous railway cat.

In the light of Felix’s celebrity, Huddersfield station had suddenly become a key destination for her tens of thousands of fans.

They travelled for miles – Andy Croughan had met people from China, Germany and Canada who had come to see her. It was the same at home. English fans altered their travel plans so they could alight at Huddersfield in the hope of catching a few minutes with Felix; regular commuters came that little bit earlier in the mornings just to have some fun. Though people never fought over her, the team sometimes noticed looks of disappointment crossing people’s faces if Felix was already holding court with someone else when they walked by. At other times, especially if Felix was in a playful mood, whole crowds would gather around her as though she was a street performer in Covent Garden who had painted herself blue from top to tail.

That was the magic of the railway cat.

The team got a big kick out of seeing how happy customers were to meet her. Felix brightened people’s days. It could be a family walking through: a mum now with a beaming grin, her seven-year-old daughter skipping out of the station as she held her dad’s hand and chattered away about the beautiful cat. Or a young couple in their early twenties – a redhead in Doc Marten boots with her long-haired boyfriend – who might sit right down on the floor to feed the cat a treat. People would literally lie on the floor and clamber over benches and bikes to be near her. Others couldn’t believe their eyes.

‘Is Felix real?’ Andrew was asked by two girls from New Zealand one day.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked, somewhat taken aback.

‘Well, we’ve seen all the pictures, but it’s hard to believe something like that,’ they said doubtfully, as they chatted with him at the booking-office window. ‘Is it real? Is it all real?’

Andrew had just finished feeding Felix, so he knew she was nearby. He brought her out to show the girls that, yes, the station cat was definitely real. Their faces were a picture.

‘She does exist!’ they exclaimed in wonder.

Though Felix was happy to accommodate all this attention when she was on duty – ‘She handles it well,’ said Angie Hunte proudly, ‘she handles everything well’ – Felix was not, of course, just a celebrity. She was a railway cat: she had a job to do and platforms to patrol – and all-important catnaps to have. Her social-media fame hadn’t curtailed her independent explorations, nor changed the way she wrote her own rota for the day. Inevitably, on some occasions when excited fans turned up at the station Felix, sadly, wasn’t there to greet them.

Wanting to avoid any disappointment to her many admirers, she took to warning people of her busy schedule on Facebook, asking them to leave a five- or six-hour timeframe for their visit to Huddersfield if they really wanted to see her, in case she wasn’t on duty when they first called by. She hoped they would understand. After all, she was a cat, not a showgirl. She didn’t appear on demand – what cat would?

Luckily, most cat lovers knew that all too well. In fact, the unpredictability of whether Felix would be on duty or not made the joy of actually meeting her all the greater.

‘Finally!’ a lady cried aloud on the platform one morning when Angie was on shift. ‘I’ve finally seen Felix, the Huddersfield station cat!’

The best things come to those who wait.

Gradually, life returned to normal for Felix – well, as normal as life ever gets when you’re a senior pest controller with thousands of adoring Facebook fans. She settled back into her routine of helping the team leaders with the night shift and the morning rush, but she still chose to avoid the evening crushes and especially the rowdy customers from the Friday night Ale Trail. Once again, she took to settling in her favourite spot on the customer-information desk. It was a great little location, for not only did she have a prime view, she was also right by the door to the back offices, which meant any and every team member who went by could give her a stroke or a pat on the head as they passed – and they all did. It was as if they couldn’t resist her; but it had been that way from the start.

In the summer, Felix got involved in a charity fun run, wearing a GPS tracker on her purple collar to measure out her own 5k race; she raised more than £5,200 for a children’s charity. She was also present for the opening of Huddersfield’s new first-class lounge, and had a special grooming session to keep her cool in the summer heat. Her fans often paid attention to her grooming on Facebook – even commenting if her travels across the train tracks had left her with dirty feet – so Angie tried hard to make sure her baby always looked in tip-top shape.

Felix and Mark Allan still met regularly at 6.30 a.m. by the Head of Steam each working day. Mark was always pleased to see her, and was not ashamed to say it. It had become part of his morning routine, as well as Felix’s.

So fixed was that routine that when Mark went off on holiday for a week, he felt very weird indeed on his last day before his vacation. Felix doesn’t know I’m going away on holiday, he thought sadly.

Indeed, it was a very sad Felix the following day: Chris Bamford looked out to see her sitting in her usual chair on the metal bench, looking hopefully up towards the station entrance, but the tall man in the dark-grey suit never came. She waited every single day of that week for him. Chris felt so sorry for her that he went down to see her himself.

‘He’s not coming,’ he said helplessly. ‘I don’t know how to tell you.’

He gave her a few treats and they kept her going until Mark got back. When Chris looked down towards the Head of Steam on the day he returned, the routine was back up and running: the cat and the commuter were sitting side by side on the bench, Mark’s face lit up by a smile as he laughed at her playful antics.

So Felix continued to do what she had always done best: touch people’s hearts.

There came a warm day when Andrew McClements was out on duty. It was a Saturday, a day when the station was always full of people travelling to Manchester or Leeds for the weekend. It was very busy, about lunchtime, when he noticed a mother with a five-year-old son battling towards him on the platform. He approached, closing the distance to help them out.

‘Hello, there!’ he said in a friendly fashion to the boy.

But the child stared pointedly at the floor and refused to make eye contact with him.

‘Hello,’ his mother said. She wafted a hand around her face, which was framed by her blonde hair, gently fanning herself; it was a scorching day, and even in her cool summer dress she looked a little harried and hot. ‘I was wondering,’ she went on, anxiously. ‘I understand if we can’t, but can we see Felix, please? My son really likes Felix.’

Andrew glanced at the child again. ‘Oh, do you?’ he said jovially; but once again the child said nothing. He stood unmoving by his mother’s side, his eyes boring holes into the ground. He seemed really shy – or perhaps, Andrew realised, it was something else.

‘It would mean a lot to us,’ his mother said, speaking for her son again.

‘Let me see if I can find her,’ Andrew replied.

He fought his way through the daytrippers waiting on the platform and nipped into the back office to see if Felix was around. He really wanted to find her because it seemed to him that the child deserved this special treat of meeting her.

It had occurred to Andrew that perhaps the boy had autism. Maybe, just maybe, Felix could make his day.

Felix had just woken up from a beautiful sleep in the shower room and was more than happy to accompany Andrew back along the platform. ‘If you need me, I’m here,’ her merry walk seemed to say. The two of them made their way back to the mother and her son.

As soon as the station cat loomed into view, the child raised his head.

‘FELIX!’ he yelled exuberantly – the first thing Andrew had heard him say. ‘Felix, Felix, Felix!’

He started flapping his arms and grinning wildly. Andrew had never seen anyone so excited in all his life. The boy became incredibly animated and flapped his way over to the cat. ‘Felix, Felix, Felix!’ he kept saying, over and over and over again, as if in that one word were all the words in the world: love, hope, happiness.

His mum watched him with the purest, happiest smile on her face. She looked at Andrew above her child’s head and mouthed, ‘Thank you.’ She was so grateful that they’d got to meet the cat.

As for Felix, she stopped where she stood and waited for the boy to come to her. She fixed her big green eyes on him thoughtfully. Felix had an uncanny knack of reading people. She seemed to know instinctively who could be trusted and who posed a threat; who was after some playtime or who warranted a glaring look; and who just needed some understanding.

She blinked up at the boy as he stared obsessively back at her, still flapping a little, unable to control his limbs in his overwhelming excitement. As she stared at him, looking deep into his eyes, it was as though she was making a special, personal connection with him. The child reached out a still-flapping hand and patted her gently.

‘Felix,’ he said again.

She sat down next to him, wrapping her big fluffy tail around herself and settling in for a nice, long cuddle.

‘Felix,’ he said again as he stroked her, squatting down on the platform. His animation eased into a profound calm. ‘Felix.’