Full Steam Ahead, Felix

11. Fun and Games

On 17 May 2017, Angela Dunn walked into work with a lovely lightness in her heart. Today was a very special day. Today was Felix’s sixth birthday.

For days beforehand, gifts and cards had been arriving for the station cat from her many admirers. Angela’s first job that day, as Felix’s lady-in-waiting, was to gather all those gifts and open them up. If anyone had enclosed an SAE with a request for a response, it would be Angela who would ‘help’ Felix to ‘write’ a reply, just as the Queen of England’s personal secretaries do. Angela planned to put up all the birthday cards in the booking office, where passengers would be able to see them.

After a lovely greeting with Felix, who had decided that her sixth birthday merited a day-long snooze, Angela turned her attention to the gifts. Goodness me, she thought, as she surveyed all the presents and unopened envelopes. What a popular puss she is! Undeterred, she gathered up a precarious armful of gifts and cards, and made her way along the back-office corridor towards the booking office, where she planned to open them all.

Just then, Geoff, the team leader, unexpectedly stepped out of the team leaders’ room. Angela, her arms piled high with presents, only just managed to stop herself from running into him.

‘I’m so sorry, Geoff!’ she cried. ‘I didn’t see you there with all this stuff in my arms.’

‘What is all that?’ he enquired in his gruff voice.

‘Well, Geoff, it’s all Felix’s birthday cards!’ Angela exclaimed proudly. ‘Will you just look at all these presents, Geoff? Isn’t it nice for Felix to …?’

But Angela suddenly found her voice trailing off. Because although Geoff was known for being taciturn, the dark look that crossed his face at her words was quite something to behold.

‘I am fed up,’ he said crossly, ‘of being upstaged by that bloody cat.’

Angela’s brow creased in confusion. ‘What on earth do you mean?’ she asked. She couldn’t think why he could be so cross. Geoff and Felix had a well-known love-hate relationship: Geoff would dramatically ban Felix from the office when he was on shift, for example, shouting at her to ‘Get out!’ But at his command, Felix would scamper away in delight, her movements playful, for this was a game she had played with Geoff of old. The cat seemed to enjoy the back-and-forth banter between them: he would shout and she would scamper. But she always came back for more. There was seemingly no banter in Geoff’s complaints today, though.

‘It’s my birthday too!’ he suddenly exclaimed, unexpectedly. ‘That cat has stolen my birthday!’

Angela’s lips formed a silent ‘o’. Although the team at Huddersfield celebrated big staff birthdays – when team members turned thirty, or forty, or fifty, or any number with a zero at the end – Geoff had not had such a birthday since he’d started working there, and so the team had not known when it was.

‘I had it first!’ he went on, grumbling – and he was only half joking. ‘Whose idea was it to make her birthday today? That’s what I want to know! I want proof. I think it’s rubbish, personally. I think they made up that bloody date. She has stolen my birthday: end of. That bloody cat …’

And with that Geoff banged out of the back-office door, still grumbling.

Oh dear, thought Angela. She felt terribly bad – even more so when she opened card after card for Felix and saw that there were none for Geoff. For all his words, too, Felix’s birthday date was set in stone, because Chris Briscoe, her ‘grandfather’, knew exactly when his beloved cat Lexi had given birth to Felix. Geoff may have had it first, but he was going to have to learn to share …

Felix did not have a birthday party – but the younger contingent of the Huddersfield team were determined that fun and games were nonetheless on the agenda. That, to their minds, was one of the best things about having a station cat: the games you could play with her when you were on duty.

In true diva form, she was very selective about what she would deign to play. Team leader Dan had been a bit disappointed to discover that she wasn’t a cat who was interested in all toys. She had discerning tastes. After he’d started working there, he had tried on occasion to throw a ball down the long back-office corridor to see if she might chase it, but it was very, very rare that she would. She would usually look blankly at the moving ball as though it was utterly underwhelming, before looking wearily back at Dan as if to say, with cutting derision, ‘What was that? What do you think I am, Dan, a dog?’

However much Felix might try to style it out, she hadn’t always been that way. As a kitten, she had loved to chase her favourite brown bear up and down the corridor when it was thrown for her – but as Felix had matured, so too had her love of games. She was over the ‘kid stuff’ now. Dan and the others would have to mix it up if they really wanted to retain her attention.

And so they did. That spring, Dan schooled her in perhaps the nation’s favourite game of all: football. Well, not football per se; in truth, it was more like goal-keeping training …

Dan discovered her talent between the posts entirely by accident. On a night shift one evening, he and Felix had both been on the concourse: Dan standing by the computer on the gateline, near the booking office, while Felix was at the opposite end, about thirty feet away, close to her cat flap. As had happened with Mark Allan and others before him, Dan found that he happened to have a packet of cat treats in his pocket (Felix had a funny way of making this a common feature of her favourites …). Though the team asked Felix’s fans not to feed her, the staff were still allowed to hand out snacks every now and then. Having discovered the cat treats in his pocket, Dan thought he’d throw one for her.

‘Felix!’ he called, to get her attention.

Her head snapped round at once, eager to know what her friend wanted.

The moment she laid eyes on him, Dan released the treat towards Felix, sliding it across the tiled concourse floor at speed. Felix ran for it instantly, her eyes trained on the ‘ball’. With a scattering of paws on the shiny surface, she scrabbled towards the flying treat, her paws outstretched heroically in a spectacular skid. And she nailed it: nothing was getting past her posts.

Oh, it was a sight to see! She could have been a goalkeeper for England, if the ball was made of Dreamies. Dan tried it again soon after; impressively, Felix still kept a clean sheet. They could never have played this game during the day – Felix would have ended up sliding under some businessman’s briefcase and tripping him up – but when Dan worked the night shift he would occasionally put Felix through her paces, staging a penalty shootout session that she always, always won.

Nor were her tricks limited to just football that spring. One cloudy afternoon, Sara called out on the platform, ‘Felix! Felix, catch!’ The railway worker’s long blonde hair cascaded over her shoulder as she looked down at the station cat.

In response, Felix balanced carefully on her hind legs and sat up to attention, like a begging dog at a circus show. She may not have been willing to chase balls down the corridor for Dan, but when treats – such as the one in Sara’s outstretched hand – were involved, Felix was always game.

The cat kept her green eyes fixed firmly on the treat, as Sara continued to instruct her to catch. Milliseconds after Sara released the cat biscuit, Felix caught it nimbly between her two front paws, stopping the treat in its tracks as it descended. It seemed she had a future career not only on the football field, but also on the cricket green. With gratitude, Felix swiftly gobbled it down and looked up at Sara, hoping for more …

A short distance away from this scene stood Karl, Sara’s colleague. Through smiling eyes, he observed not only the game but also his friend’s affection for her feline colleague. Sara had so much love to give, he thought. As Felix successfully snatched a second treat, Karl and Sara shared a smile over Felix’s head, like two siblings enjoying a well-worn joke.

Further down the platform, team leader Dan watched them too. He soon came over for a natter. He was a joker himself – albeit the cracker of bad ‘Dad jokes’, as Sara liked to tease him – and it wasn’t long before the three of them were giggling away at something Felix had done. Dan bent down to stroke Felix and the cat curved her head lovingly into his hand.

Sara watched the two of them somewhat shyly, the last traces of her laugh still showing in her smile. She thought it was really, really sweet, the way Dan and Felix were together – whether they were cuddling or staging penalty shootouts on the concourse. Not all the blokes at the station were into the cat, but Dan wasn’t ashamed to show how much he liked her. Through his affectionate cuddles with the famous Felix, Sara could tell that he was a really loving and truly kind man. As if in agreement, Felix purred loudly as Dan rubbed firmly behind her ears.

Just then, the team leader’s radio crackled into life. ‘Base receiving,’ he answered, standing up from Felix and walking off back down the platform to attend to his work, raising a hand in fond farewell to his two friends as he went.

Sara watched him go without saying anything. She was still watching when Karl came over to her side and not so subtly coughed.

‘Nice bloke, isn’t he?’ he said knowingly.

Sara blushed. ‘He’s all right,’ she said – knowing that she didn’t need to say any more. Sara and Karl had no secrets.

Karl nudged her with his elbow. ‘“All right”, eh?’ he teased. ‘Whatever you say, princess.’

That small seed in Sara’s heart was not the only thing beginning to blossom at the station that spring. Felix’s multi-platform media career was also sprouting new buds – as Mark Allan, who was always looking for ideas to pep up her Facebook posts, now began screening Felix’s antics via Facebook Live.

He had wondered for a while what that button on Facebook labelled ‘go live’ did, and so he decided one morning at 6.30 a.m., as he was hanging out with Felix on the platform waiting for his train, to give it a try. What was the worst that could happen?

Famous last words. When Mark pressed ‘go live’, the first, alarming thing that occurred was that he saw his own face looking back at him. It turned out that his default camera setting on Facebook Live was for selfie mode! Rather than a beautiful pussycat filling the screen, being broadcast to hundreds all around the world, his own ‘ugly mug’ instead took centre stage! He did a rapid recoil and flipped it round, to where Felix was sitting patiently, ready for her close-up.

For that first video, he filmed her chasing after a treat – but despite the movie’s simplicity, it went down really well. As it was live, fans could engage with her in real time, and Mark noticed that her international fans in particular – for whom it wasn’t 6.30 a.m. – were especially enthusiastic. ‘Greetings from Sydney!’ came one message; ‘Hello from Oregon!’ was another; a third declared: ‘Just going to bed in Utah. Goodnight, Felix!’ A wave of hearts and likes swept across the screen, so fast that Mark couldn’t keep up with them.

After that, he and Felix often ‘went live’ during Mark’s early-morning commute. The whole experience was a learning curve for the mild-mannered commuter. During one ‘broadcast’, Mark’s train arrived while he was still mid-shoot. Rushing to catch his service, he completely forgot to press ‘stop’, so that Felix’s global fans were treated to a rather perplexing video of Mark’s fellow passengers’ legs. He had crowded on to the busy train and set off for Manchester, all without realising that he was still broadcasting live to over 400 of Felix’s fans! On other occasion, he was busy filming a train coming in when Felix suddenly decided to jump down into the four foot – the railway-industry name for the deep man-made valley in which the train tracks run.

What do I do? thought Mark, panicking. Felix was perfectly safe, and he knew that she would get out of the way of the incoming train in plenty of time, but he was worried about the safety message her antics might send out. So, as soon as Felix had leapt into the abyss beyond the platform edge, he abruptly stopped recording.

Her fans, of course, had no clue as to what had happened to their favourite feline friend. Had that train that they’d seen coming in actually made contact with the cat? Was that why Mark had ended the film – because of a terrible and tragic accident? It didn’t bear thinking about it – but they had to know. Felix’s Facebook page was soon flooded with messages from worried fans.

‘I’m all right!’ Mark wrote on her behalf, as soon as he realised their concerns. ‘I just had to go and scare off some pigeons!’

The love that her Facebook fans felt for her was simply beautiful. Mark tried hard to make her Facebook page a place of warmth and goodwill and the fans responded in kind. People came for a laugh and a smile – and, increasingly, to chat with their fellow fans. It wasn’t long before a sense of community sprang up between the ‘Friends of the Floof’ (FOTF). They had their own affectionate acronyms and words (flooftastic, pawsome, Huddersfloof station …), as well as regular traditions such as ‘pub o’clock’, 4 p.m. on a Friday, when Felix would officially declare that the weekend had begun. Too often these days the online world could be combative and full of rage, with trolls appearing more and more, but Felix’s Facebook page was ‘a beacon of friendly, cheerful, fun-filled light’ – as one fan, Barbara Blackie, put it – and this loving community of fans soon found that friendship with Queen Felix opened up all sorts of other opportunities too. Across the ether, new friendships formed and hearts were healed, all thanks to Felix the cat.

Felix brightened up people’s days. She entertained them. She made them smile – even at their very darkest times. People wrote to tell Felix that she had helped them through their breast cancer treatment, or made them feel that life was worth living again after they’d struggled with depression. ‘I get very down sometimes,’ one friend, Jennifer Adele Berry, confided in her, ‘with depression, anxiety and panic attacks – but I don’t tell people, really, as they always say things like, “Cheer up, it might never happen.” I’m grateful to be here, but sometimes I just want to shut the door and close the curtains. Yet hearing your stories and seeing your beautiful face makes me smile from the bottom of my heart.’

Alyson Meadowcroft, meanwhile, found that when she was struggling desperately with having lost the man she loved after he tragically passed away, Felix was of incalculable help. ‘On those days when I feel it most,’ she said, ‘Felix lifts me up.’

The sheer healing power that Felix had, even through a screen, was truly special. She touched hearts across the globe. She brought happiness to thousands. Some felt their involvement in her life, as they followed her trials and tribulations online, was like owning a cat by association; Felix had many international ‘aunties’. Quite simply, they were her family, and she theirs.

And with such a depth of feeling focused on Felix, her fans kept on coming to meet the flooftastic one in person …

One afternoon in the summer of 2017, Angie Hunte’s radio crackled into life.

‘Base receiving,’ she answered.

‘Angie, there’s somebody here to see Felix.’

‘No problem,’ she said. ‘I’ll be right out.’

Tap, tap, tap went Angie Hunte on the door of the ladies’ locker room. ‘Felix …’ she called gently. ‘There is somebody here to see you …’

But when Angie tiptoed into the room, she saw that it was empty. Felix wasn’t there.

Not to worry, thought Angie. I’ll check some of her other favourite spots.

Felix did have a habit of getting all over; though she had a bed laid out for her in the shower room, she rarely used it, preferring to find another cosy spot for a catnap. Sometimes they found her in the old announcer’s office, where the conductors still kept their in-trays; at other times, she would sneak into the former lost-property office, whose shelves were now lined with maintenance log books and blue-flashing mobile revenue devices set to charge.

‘Felix!’ Angie called now, as she stuck her head into the old lost-property office and looked for the cat. She was careful to scour the uppermost shelves of the room too, where a series of black conductor bags lay. On one occasion, when Angie had thought she’d lost Felix, the cat had, in fact, crept in there and curled up, way up high, on top of a conductor’s bag on the third shelf up. So high had she been, and so well camouflaged – her black fur indistinguishable against the black bag – that Angie had not spotted her for ages. In the end, it had been Felix’s ears that had given her away. As they always did, they had pricked up upon hearing Angie calling to her, and the slight movement of those pointy ears peeping above the bag had revealed to Angie exactly where her baby girl was hiding.

But while she had hidden there before, she was not there today.

‘Dear, oh dear,’ Angie muttered to herself. ‘Where can she be?’

She went out on to the platform to greet the person who wanted to meet Felix. Today, it turned out to be a softly spoken lady in her sixties with short cropped hair. She hesitantly asked Angie if she might be able to see the cat.

‘I’ve brought something for her,’ she explained, holding out her hand. In it, two white ping-pong balls nestled. It turned out that the lady, who was from down south, had been attending a table tennis tournament at Huddersfield University – and she’d brought the balls that had been used in the contest for Felix to enjoy.

‘Well, she’s not in the back,’ Angie told her. ‘But let me see if I can find her for you out here.’

Angie had already checked the little lobby as she came out of the office, but she now scouted out the bike racks and the benches – to no avail. Felix did not seem to be around. Angie looked high and low, but could not find Felix. She asked Chris Bamford, who was out on duty, if he had seen the cat – but he had not.

‘Felix!’ Angie called with increasing desperation, but there was still no sign of the station cat.

Just then, an announcement interrupted proceedings – it was Andy Yarwood, a TPE colleague, who was working on platform one.

‘Please stand clear of the incoming train,’ he intoned in his deep voice on his portable microphone. Though the announcing system was now fully automated, for safety reasons the team still kept a portable capacity for making those announcements which required immediate delivery – and it was this system that Andy now used. ‘Please keep back behind the yellow line,’ he continued.

Angie scurried swiftly over to him as the scheduled train arrived and then departed, accompanied by the timid lady who so longed to meet the cat.

‘Oh, Andy,’ Angie exclaimed. ‘This woman has come all the way from down south to meet Felix and I can’t find her anywhere. Have you seen her?’

Andy was a well-built, characterful man in his fifties, with a cheery voice that always brightened up the station. When Angie asked him how he was of a morning, he would sometimes reply in his Lancashire drawl, ‘Living the dream, Angie Hunte, I am living the dream …’

But, to her disappointment, she found he could not help this particular visitor live her dream today.

‘I’ve not seen her, Angie,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders helplessly.

Angie put her hands on her hips, wracking her brains. She’d seen the cat earlier that shift, so where could she be now? ‘She can’t be too far off …’ Angie said.

Just then, her eyes fell on Andy’s portable microphone, which hung round his neck on a black lanyard. It was a black tube, about six inches long, on which Andy could press a red button to speak to the whole station. An idea suddenly struck Angie – an idea that was a little bit crazy and a little bit kooky, but also an idea that might just work.

‘Andy,’ Angie said slowly, ‘would you put out a staff announcement for Felix for me please?’

Andy looked at her askance, his big brow furrowed.

‘You know,’ Angie said with increasing enthusiasm, as he looked rather lost, ‘just put out a staff announcement: “Will Felix please contact the station supervisor?” Let’s just see if she comes.’

Andy chuckled aloud, shaking his head at the silly idea. Nevertheless, he did as his boss had instructed. In his booming, jolly voice, he intoned into the small black tube, ‘This is a staff announcement. Would Felix please contact the station supervisor?’

He, Angie and the lady all fell about laughing. But then, to everyone’s surprise – including, it seemed, Felix’s – a little black-and-white head suddenly came poking out from the bushes in Billy’s garden on platform four!

Angie and Andy exchanged looks of complete surprise.

‘I don’t believe it …’ Andy said, walking away down the platform, shaking his head. ‘I do not believe it …’

Angie, meanwhile, was crowing with excitement. She waved her arms across the tracks at Felix with characteristic enthusiasm. ‘Come over here, sweetheart!’

In a heartbeat, Felix dropped down on to the railway lines and trotted safely across, before leaping up from the four foot with expert skill. She looked nonchalant as she did so, as though answering a staff announcement was all in an ordinary day’s work for the station cat.

The ping-pong lady looked from Angie to Felix in sheer admiration.

‘If I hadn’t seen that for myself, I would never have believed it!’ the woman exclaimed in delight. ‘She responded to a staff announcement! My oh my. She really is a very special cat.’