Full Steam Ahead, Felix

13. Happy Days

‘Have you heard …?’ was the refrain that began echoing around Huddersfield station in July 2017. ‘Have you heard the good news?’

Incredibly, Huddersfield had been nominated for Station of the Year at the TransPennine Express Star Awards 2017 – and the team were over the moon.

The award winners were to be announced at a posh do in a hotel function room in Manchester that month. Many of the team wanted to attend, but with the station running 24/7 and only limited capacity, not everyone could go. In the end, the station manager Andy Croughan was joined by team leaders Angie Hunte, Geoff, Dan and Jacqui, as well as Sara and Karl, Andy Yarwood and Dale Woodward. (Felix, taking one for the team, decided she would work through the event, while they all went off and had fun. After the termination of her gravy train of treats, she wasn’t really in the mood for celebration.)

Since it was a formal occasion, Sara and Angie both opted to wear little black dresses, while the men dressed smartly in jackets and waistcoats. It was rather like they’d traded places with Felix, who always looked such a glamourpuss at work, while they had to wear their workaday uniforms. Jacqui wore a stunning white trouser suit; they all gave Felix a run for her money in the fashion stakes that night.

While they looked their best on the outside, inside they felt anxious. It was a very nervous Huddersfield team who took to their round table in the hotel conference room, craning their necks back to look at the balloon decorations in the TPE corporate colour scheme of purple, blue and white. A spot-lit stage dominated the large room; this was where the awards would be presented. Andy Croughan sipped his wine anxiously, wondering if his team would triumph this time.

Huddersfield had won the award before, but years and years ago now. Andy had only been at the helm of the station since January 2016, so he could take little credit for that previous plaudit, but tonight’s decision would reflect on him. The year before, Huddersfield had been nominated for Station of the Year in the national rail industry awards, but although they had won a commendation, they’d lost out to Nottingham. Would it be the same at these internal TPE awards? Was Huddersfield destined to be the runner-up again?

There had been a lot of changes at the station in the past couple of years. Losing Billy Bolt and gaining a celebrity cat had been just two of them. The team had changed shape too, becoming significantly more streamlined, and Andy had been working hard to build a talented team that could still provide top-notch customer service. Tonight, he and his colleagues would be judged on their performance.

They were up against Scarborough. As TPE’s managing director, Leo Goodwin, read out the nominations and described the achievements of each team, Andy and the others felt proud of what they had built at Huddersfield. But would it be enough …?

Eventually, to rapt silence in the ballroom, Leo revealed the results – and Huddersfield had won! Everyone round the Huddersfield table was jumping up and down, hugging each other and yelling at the tops of their voices. Sara and Dan embraced along with the rest of the team, Sara holding her breath as the man she fancied squeezed her tight – before Dan released her to hug another colleague. Nonetheless, Sara felt as though she could still feel his arms round her … Karl, giving her a hug next, seemed to know exactly how she felt. As usual, she did not need to say a word; he understood her instantly.

But there was no time for any of that tonight. There was an award to collect – and the whole team had triumphed! Every team member present traipsed up to the stage to receive their award, which was a stunning rectangular glass sculpture imprinted with the purple-and-blue TPE logo and the slogan: ‘Together, we’re taking the north further.’ Karl, with typical charisma, raised his hand triumphantly above his head as he reached the stage, punching the air with joy. As the team posed for a photo, linking arms, Karl embraced Angie Hunte and the two of them beamed broadly for the camera. In their grins and delighted eyes, you could see at a glance that everyone was immensely proud of their mutual achievement. Everyone was in good spirits that night – even Geoff!

Back at the station, the award took pride of place in the booking office, alongside all the Felix tributes – which by now included several foreign editions of her bestselling book. It seemed somehow right that the award had its home alongside all the Felix memorabilia – for it was a prize for teamwork, after all, and Felix the station cat was undoubtedly part of that team. Angela Dunn was also delighted by their win, feeling it gave everyone a bit of a boost. It brought the whole team closer together.

It was a whole summer of happy days, in fact. Returning from holiday, Karl came running into work one day with a smile that said he was the cat who’d got the cream. Sara hugged him instantly, her cry of ‘Congratulations!’ already crossing her lips. She already knew his news because he’d phoned to tell her; while abroad, Karl had proposed to his long-term girlfriend at the top of a mountain … and she’d said yes! He’d been planning the proposal for months – asking Sara for suggestions and ideas along the way – and everything had gone as intended. Sara was thrilled for them both. So close were she and Karl that he even asked her if she would be a bridesmaid at his wedding. His future with his bride seemed as sparkling bright as that shiny new team award hanging in the booking office. As he told all his colleagues his exciting news, Karl’s brown eyes sparkled just as brightly too.

As for Felix, the two Angelas had been cooking up a little plan to ensure that Felix was not forgotten in this summer of celebrations … as if such a thing could ever happen! While Felix’s diet meant they couldn’t spoil her as they might once have done, it didn’t mean they couldn’t come up with new ideas. And though it had never been done before, Angie and Angela decided they wanted to organise a special Felix-focused day at the station that summer, both to honour their girl and to thank her many fans for their support.

Both women had long been touched by these fans. Angie and Angela could see how much Felix meant to people, and they were also overwhelmed by their generosity. Whether it was Christmas or Valentine’s Day or Felix’s birthday, gifts and cards with well wishes regularly arrived at the station for the little cat. Sometimes there were also gifts for the station team themselves, Felix’s ‘hoomans’, as a thank you for their care of the beloved station cat. The team were sent wine and chocolates and cakes and more … And now that Felix’s weight had become such a well-publicised issue, some people sent cash, rather than Dreamies, directing that the money be given to a charity of Felix’s choice. The sums regularly topped three figures by the time each month was out.

Felix’s charity work was another reason to celebrate the railway cat. Her fundraising efforts had not been limited to her calendar and her bestselling book – not on your nelly. Back in May, she had worked with the Manchester branch of a charity called Cash for Kids, donating the proceeds of a Felix-themed colouring book and a limited-edition Felix cuddly toy to their work supporting disadvantaged children across the Pennines. The cuddly Felix wore a blue superhero cape, which was apt, given that Felix’s charity work was now literally saving lives across the nation.

By now, Felix’s fans had supported Cash for Kids, the Samaritans, Fairy Bricks, Prostate Cancer UK and many other charities by buying Felix products or sponsoring her in some way. The team at TPE were determined that everything she did ‘commercially’ had to be for charity, never to build their brand or to make money for money’s sake. That wasn’t what Felix was about. Yet they also wanted to be sure to share the wealth that Felix’s fans so generously helped to generate. That was why, every time Felix did something new, she had a new charity partner. Her fundraising was divided among lots of charities, so that all sorts of different groups in need could benefit from the fairy dust being scattered by Felix the cat. This approach was why, each month, Angela Dunn would donate the financial contributions given in Felix’s name to a different institution, whether it was a local cats’ home, a school in need or a mental-health charity.

Angie Hunte, too, felt that changing the charities each time rather matched Felix’s own approach to life. After all, Felix was indiscriminate in her healing powers, helping everyone from Adam with his MS to autistic children and a man with dementia who loved to have her book read to him each night (he was on his third read-through already, his wife wrote in to say). ‘I just see it as her flowing through,’ explained Angie Hunte. ‘That is what she does as she walks through life: she touches everybody. And if we can do that with her charity work as well, that just seems right to me.’

In the summer of 2017, however, the two Angelas felt that Felix’s fans had been asked to give enough. By now, Felix had raised well over six figures for charity. People were always coming to Huddersfield to meet Felix, yet they always left empty-handed, sometimes without even the memory of meeting the station cat to see them through the journey home. The two Angelas wanted to give something back to these dedicated fans. They wanted to say thank you on Felix’s behalf.

So, on Saturday 22 July, they planned a giveaway day for Felix’s admirers. A limited-edition Felix goodie bag would be given away to hundreds of lucky families who were travelling by train on that first weekend of the school summer holidays. Angie even persuaded Andy Croughan to let her upgrade to first class the first five families who received bags; they’d also receive a free copy of Felix’s book. The goodie bags, meanwhile, would be stuffed full of bespoke goodies featuring photographs of Felix, as well as sugar-free lollies or sweets. When Felix said thank you, she did it in style.

The giveaway idea came from Angie and Angela alone, and both of them really enjoyed the creative process involved in organising it. It was very different from their usual work at the station, but they found themselves relishing commissioning the various Felix products and getting involved in design, as well as sparking off each other as they came up with the little details that they hoped would make the day a great success.

It wasn’t all glamour and creative brainstorms. The night before the big day, Angela Dunn found herself on her hands and knees on the concourse floor, pressing black pawprint transfers on to the tiles and securing them with a damp squeegee. She and Angie had thought it would be nice to lead the children to the giveaway bags with a trail of Felix’s ‘pawprints’. It was a lot of work, but they looked amazing when they were finished – so much so that Angela told the cleaners to leave them there; twelve months later, you could still see the pawprints proclaiming that this was indeed the home of Felix the cat. It became another tell-tale sign and part of the ‘Felix tour’, alongside her ‘oil’ portrait, Billy’s bench and her famous cat flap on the concourse.

With the pawprint transfers done, Angela’s work was far from over. She and Angie then had to stuff the brown-paper bags, printed with Felix’s paw-tograph, with all the goodies they had commissioned: magnets and key rings, postcards and colouring sheets, and crayons and sweets. Yet it was work that was full of camaraderie, as the two women worked happily together, Angie worrying aloud that they might have made too many bags … There certainly seemed a lot of them; hundreds were laid out in the Hub by the time they were finished!

Before the two Angelas left for the evening, they also set the scene on the concourse: moving the station’s big black suggestion box to one side to clear space for their stall, covering their table in smart purple and black cloths printed with Felix’s name, and erecting a huge, beautiful picture of Felix behind the stand. She looked glorious – eyes sparkling, fur fluffed, proud and regal as the queen she was.

But even after Angela had waved goodbye to Angie and driven home to her empty house, she still had more work to do – this time, making special Felix T-shirts for the five team members who would be handing out the bags: Amanda, Chrissie and Angela herself from the booking office, Angie Hunte and Sara, who was still working on the platforms, but who had asked if she could help them out. Angela was up till gone midnight ironing transfers on to the five shirts: they were white T-shirts, with black pawprints on the sleeves and tummy, and ‘Felix’ in big black letters over the right breast.

It was a funny thing, but somehow Angela found that her house didn’t feel quite as empty as usual that night – not when she had such a hive of industry to focus on. Before she finally turned off the lights, she looked with pride at the T-shirts laid out ready for the morning. She hoped, after all their efforts, that people would turn up …

Angie Hunte hurried into work the next morning with a fluttering of butterflies in her belly. They had put out an announcement that the giveaway would start at 9 a.m. As she parked her car and walked across the square towards the station, it was not even 8.30 a.m. – so she was not looking out for any signs of action. The square did seem a little busier than usual, but she put that down to it being the first Saturday of the school holidays – everyone and their dog was out and about, stretching their legs and soaking up the sunshine, feeling that glorious first frisson of the freedom that was theirs for the next six weeks.

But as Angie scurried up the station’s grand steps, she realised that unusual, buzzing busyness continued inside too. Next to the booking office was a large gathering of people. At first, Angie sighed wearily. Oh, it’s going to be one of those days, she thought, we’re already rushed off our feet … But then she noticed that there was an exceptional number of children in the crowd – and the penny dropped. Oh my gosh. They’re not queuing for tickets – they’re here for the giveaway!

After all Felix had achieved to date, it may sound naive of Angie not to make the connection immediately, but she was used to seeing Felix’s fans come to visit in ones or twos. To see a whole mass of them all at once, all eager to take home Felix’s thank-you presents, was rather overwhelming. It was perhaps the first time it really hit Angie just how many people Felix had reached. And to know that she and Angela had conceived this idea, to which so many people had responded, was also touching. As Angie bustled about, getting things ready and pulling on her special Felix T-shirt, she saw that the children on the concourse were already running wild with excitement. She handed out bottles of bubbles and a blonde toddler in a pretty pink dress enthusiastically got to work, blowing big fat bubbles all over the station, so that the bubbles’ rainbow sheen sparkled in the sun.

Well, by the time Angie and Angela were ready to declare the day open, Angie could not see the door, there were that many people waiting! She quickly went from worrying that they had too many bags to worrying that they had too few!

‘Karl! Karl!’ she cried. The platform worker stood nearby. Helpful as ever, he swiftly stepped over to her side. ‘Karl, we need to capture this day,’ she told him, still reeling from the amazing turnout. ‘You are hereby promoted to chief cameraman! Any time we need a picture taking, can you please do the honours?’

Karl was more than happy to oblige. He loved Felix – so much so that he made sure to get himself one of her key rings that day; it had a snapshot of Felix on one side and ‘pub o’clock’ on the other. So he was on hand to capture all the day’s special moments – such as one of the first children in the queue: a girl of about six or seven with shoulder-length brown hair and wire glasses, who was wearing a blue jacket with floral embroidery and the most enormous grin. He was there to capture an anomaly among all the families in the queue: a plumpish man in his fifties who looked just as thrilled to get his bag as the children. (‘Thank God I’ve got one!’ he declared with relief as he finally reached the front. ‘My wife would have killed me if I didn’t come back with one of these!’) And he was there to capture the memorable moment when the star of the show put in an appearance, all with her trademark professional poise.

The two Angelas came up with something pretty special for Felix’s entrance. Of the five windows in the booking office, the top one on the far left is never used, so its white shutters always remain closed. Unbeknownst to the waiting crowds, Angela Dunn fetched Felix and popped her down behind those closed shutters. Then, as people milled in the booking office, eagerly claiming their giveaway bags, Angela pressed the button that made the shutters rise …

From the excited squeals that greeted the dramatic ‘reveal’, you would have thought those white plastic shutters were thick red velvet stage curtains, and that the cat standing behind them was the most popular singer on earth. As the crowds realised that the shutters were slowly showing off Felix herself, a collective happy sigh echoed around the booking office. It sounded like the sigh of the ocean lapping at the shore, a homecoming of sorts, as Felix met the fans and the fans met Felix.

The cat sat neatly between the two clear plastic shields of the serving hatch, so that she was not behind them but in the open air. She placed her two front paws together with a ballerina’s precision and sat proudly upright, angling her head this way and that as she acknowledged the crowd before her and invited those taking photographs and videos to capture her very best side (both being fabulous, of course). Posing for selfies, her ears twitched as children chattered happily to her, as though she was listening hard to all the secrets they were sharing. She stayed for a full half-hour, soaking up the sunshine on the desk and allowing people to have their pictures taken with her – and generally glorying in their adulation. Despite her experiences the month before, when she’d encountered the kicking fare evader and snapped at Jeff Stelling, she coped beautifully with all the attention and didn’t seem wary or lash out once. Instead, like everyone else, Felix seemed caught up in the joyful, celebratory feeling of the day.

Karl and Sara both enjoyed the event too. And Karl took the opportunity to chat with Sara about her feelings for Dan.

‘Just tell him how you feel!’ he urged her. Wanting to encourage her, he’d begun to make not-so-subtle hints to Dan about Sara’s secret crush, but there was only so much a wingman could do. He thought his two colleagues would be great together and was trying to play matchmaker. ‘You tell him,’ he told Sara now, ‘or I will …’

But Sara wasn’t sure she was ready for that. What if Dan didn’t feel the same?

‘Don’t, Karl,’ she pleaded. ‘There’s plenty of time. I’ll tell him when I’m good and ready …’

Eventually, the rush for the Felix bags died down and the giveaway day came to an end. It had been a resounding success. ‘Well done, TransPennine Express!’ people wrote on social media. ‘Well done to the ladies for organising this! This is what a train company is all about. Well done, Huddersfield!’ The two Angelas were tickled pink to see such praise, feeling a warm glow that people had taken the day in exactly the way they’d intended.

It had been such a success that they decided to reserve a stack of bags and do it all again the next day. So, as Angela Dunn packed up at the end of her shift, she left the cloth-covered table and the Felix picture on display, and simply returned the big black suggestion box to the table. It was better placed there than on the counter, as there wasn’t really room for it there when the shutters were closed. Angela carefully adjusted its position on the centre of the black cloth. She would move it again in the morning.

The following day, they decided to start the giveaway later, so Angela began her shift by working behind the desk in the booking office. She was still buzzing from the day before, absent-mindedly smiling to herself every now and again as she remembered each child’s joy. She had one such smile on her face when a lady came up to the desk to speak with her.

As she looked at the woman, Angela felt her previously happy expression slide straight off her face. The lady was clearly absolutely distraught. She had grey curly hair and glasses and was wearing a classic green mac. Even as Angela watched, the lady’s tears dripped down her cheeks and on to the collar of her coat, staining it as dark as the woman’s mood.

‘Can I help you?’ Angela asked, concerned. ‘Are you all right?’

But the woman silently shook her head. ‘I-I can’t believe it,’ she eventually managed to say.

‘Believe what?’ Angela asked.

The woman swallowed hard, trying desperately to contain her emotion. ‘When did she die?’ she asked, her voice breaking on the final word.

Angela furrowed her brow. She had no idea who the woman was talking about.

The woman began sobbing again. ‘W-when did Felix die?’ she asked, struggling to speak through her tears. ‘When did your lovely little station cat die?’