Кейт Мур - Full Steam Ahead, Felix

‘Felix, be careful!’ he would admonish her, fearful that he might just step on the station cat by accident as she dangerously darted in between his feet, her eyes fixed firmly on the teasing spectacle of those bouncing laces.

She would merely look up at him happily, her tail wagging back and forth like an eager puppy’s.

Another ‘young ’un’ was Dan, who’d started at the station just before Christmas as a new team leader. He was a good-humoured guy, aged twenty-seven, with a reddish-brown beard and dark eyes. Like many of the team at Huddersfield, he’d always wanted to work on the railway and had achieved his dream when he’d moved from a high-pressured job managing car parks at Manchester Airport to the team leader role at the station.

As a team leader, one of Dan’s first priorities was meeting Felix, whose role at Huddersfield he had learned all about while doing research before his interview. He was a cat person himself and thought the idea of working at a place that had its own cat was pretty darn cool. But while he was excited about the idea of working with Felix, he worried whether the feeling would be mutual …

To Dan’s relief, very quickly it became apparent that it was. From the moment he started working there, it was noticeable that Felix was not at all shy around the person who was now sat in the team leaders’ chair. She came and lay in the way of Dan’s work just as she did with all the others, and would harangue him for love and attention (and food) as she did with everyone else. It wasn’t long before Dan became a favourite of Felix. He was more than happy to give her some love and this affectionate attitude towards her soon had Felix following him around and running head over paws to greet him. Sara, arriving for work one day, witnessed Felix darting in the direction of Dan with unbelievable keenness as soon as she heard him coming.

‘That’s right, your boyfriend’s here now,’ Sara teased the cat – not missing the irony that Felix seemed to be doing better in love than she was. Sigh.

Felix was not the only team member with whom Dan instantly hit it off. The Manchester-based man had been quite apprehensive about starting work at Huddersfield – especially in a management role when he’d never worked on the railway before – but he found that Karl in particular was an immediate friend who made him feel welcome. He soon made friends with Sara too; the two of them found they had a huge amount in common and an identical sense of humour. Soon, Dan found that there wasn’t a day that went by when he wasn’t sharing a good laugh with her. The three of them – Dan, Sara and Karl – made a close-knit trio who brought a new, youthful energy to the team.

As for Felix, she found that the new year brought yet more fans to her Facebook page – and on 8 January 2017 she reached a very special milestone. Felix the Huddersfield station cat now had 100,000 followers.

It was fitting, for Felix’s fame and fortune were about to get bigger than ever before. For the past year, she had dominated the ‘new’ medium of social media. Yet Felix was about to prove that she was no flash-in-the-pan new-media star. Felix was on the cusp of bringing that same six-figure success to the oldest media of them all.

For Felix was about to become a literary superstar. Are you sitting comfortably? Then she’ll begin …

9. Read All About It

Penguin Books. It is perhaps the most famous publisher in the world; its logo of a black-and-white bird on an orange oval background instantly equated with literary quality. Since launching in 1935, the publisher’s authors have included such heavyweights as George Orwell, D. H. Lawrence and even the Brontë sisters themselves. In February 2017, the latest author to join its stable of world-class writers became none other than Felix the railway cat.

The news that Felix was to publish her life story (so far) was met with equal parts amusement, surprise and satisfaction among the team at Huddersfield station. She had become such a successful social-media celebrity that in many ways it seemed a natural next step; for Angie Hunte, for example, it was nothing less than Felix deserved. For others, however, the idea that a whole book could be written about a single cat – and that people might want to read it – was mind-boggling. Team leader Geoff, a dry-humoured, straight-talking chap who found the cat’s celebrity astonishing, found that his eyes rolled so far back in his head that it was touch-and-go whether they might ever return.

Yet in her five short years on the planet, Felix had certainly had an awful lot of adventures. Her biography charted her journey from confused kitten to senior pest controller, describing how the little cat had learned her trade and learned to love life on the railway. At first rather scared of the trains and the far-flung platforms, she gradually built up her courage until the entire station became her playground. More than anything, the book revealed how this very special cat had captured people’s hearts as she rose to international acclaim.

Angie and the team – who all contributed to the book by telling their stories of Felix – were delighted with the end result, believing it captured life at the station with plenty of Felix flair. But although the team enthusiastically embraced the idea of their pest controller becoming a published author, there was no guarantee that her fans would feel the same. Clicking ‘like’ for free on Facebook and checking Felix’s posts was one thing, but to dedicate money and time to buying and reading her life story? Well, it was a different kind of commitment to the station cat.

Regardless of the end result, the team at TPE wanted to celebrate the extraordinary achievement of their colleague. On the eve of publication, not yet knowing how the book would go down, an intimate launch party was held in the first-class lounge at the station. It was a bit of a thank you for everyone who had been involved in Felix’s rise to fame. The platform teams had never signed up to being Felix’s personal secretaries but, since she had become famous, communicating with her fans had become all in a day’s work. TPE wanted to say thank you for making all this possible.

Mark Allan, Felix’s Facebook manager, was one of those who came along, mingling with new team leader Dan, station manager Andy Croughan, Jack Kempf from the communications team and Andrew McClements, a former team leader at Huddersfield and the person who had promoted Felix in the first place, launching her to worldwide fame. He now worked at TPE’s head office, but he had never forgotten the cat who had helped to get him there.

Finger food from the Head of Steam was served to all the guests, along with flutes of paw-secco so that everyone could toast Felix’s new book. In keeping with all literary launch parties, copies of the book were there too, with Felix looking terribly regal and smart on the cover. There were also speeches – many speeches – to celebrate the station cat. Perhaps the most significant of these came from Leo Goodwin, TPE’s top dog, its illustrious managing director. (Felix, for once shying away from the spotlight, modestly made no comment on her own success that night.) Leo recorded a video for the team for this very special event.

‘Hello everyone, I’m sorry I can’t be with you all this evening,’ he began on film, as though the mini-movie was the acceptance speech of an absent Oscar winner. (In truth, of course, an invite to the launch party was nearly as hot a ticket as that Hollywood ceremony.) ‘I just wanted to say a few words and to thank you all for your hard work. No one expected Felix’s rise to fame and I know it hasn’t always been easy. Whether you’ve contributed to the book or press stories, posted for Felix on social media, or introduced Felix to one of her thousands of fans, you’ve all taken the time, often your own time, to help keep her story going.