Кейт Мур - Felix The Railway Cat

He glanced back towards the family; the father was puce with rage and his throat hoarse from shouting. There was nothing to lose.

‘Excuse me one moment,’ Gareth said politely. ‘I’ll come out and see you.’

Gareth turned from the window and scooped up Felix with one hand. ‘Time to prove yourself, young cat,’ he told her. He opened the door to the platform and together he and Felix went to reason with the angry man.

‘Oh, a cat!’ cried the little girl at once, as soon as she saw the kitten in Gareth’s arms. She was about six years old and rushed forwards to say hello. ‘Isn’t she lovely, Daddy?’

She clearly wanted to play with Felix, so Gareth bent down so that the little girl could pet her. Felix blinked up at her with her beautiful emerald eyes and calmly let the child stroke her fluffy black fur. The boy, who was younger, about four years old, was a bit shyer than his sister, but he, too, edged forward and extended a hesitant hand towards the adorable-looking cat.

‘As I was saying, sir,’ Gareth continued, from his position crouched on the ground with the cat and the kids, ‘I’m so terribly sorry about the cancellation. The next train to the airport is in twenty minutes. If you get that, you will still make your flight.’

The man looked rather as though the wind had been taken out of his sails. He glanced at his wife, and both of them stared down at their children, who were purring over Felix as though they themselves were kittens.

‘She’s so soft, Daddy!’ the girl exclaimed.

‘In twenty minutes, did you say?’ the man asked, more calmly.

‘Twenty minutes, yes, sir,’ confirmed Gareth. ‘It will be on Platform 1.’

Felix had completely taken the edge off the confrontation. As the family thanked him for his help and the children reluctantly waved goodbye to Felix, Gareth stood up and carried his trusty colleague back into the office. As the door closed behind them, he looked down at her and gave her the most enormous grin.

‘Good work, station cat,’ he told her proudly. ‘Very good work indeed.’

12. A Very Special Cat

Felix continued to work her magic again and again as a key member of the customer-facing team of Huddersfield station. She was absolutely superb at calming the angriest customer. As Angie Hunte observed, as soon as they saw Felix, the rage just totally disappeared. In all her years at the station, she had never seen anything like it. And it seemed to work on everyone, from elderly customers to middle-aged mums. Gareth had a teenage customer once, a young woman with short, bleached-blonde hair, who was ranting and raving that her life was over because of the cancelled service that had wrecked everything ! Felix had been asleep under the window at the time, and as the woman screamed at him in a total teenage tantrum, Gareth had fumbled discreetly under the desk for his cat, picked Felix up and put her on display in the window, as though producing a rabbit from a hat.

It changed the conversation completely – and abruptly. ‘What on earth …?’ the young woman had said.

Gareth had then slipped out of the door with Felix and the girl had held her and stroked her and she just forgot that the train had been cancelled and her life had been ruined five minutes before …

Felix wasn’t only skilled at diverting angry customers, however – she could also cheer up the unhappiest folk. Because the office window opened onto Platform 1, the announcers could hear everything that went on out there. One day, Gareth’s eardrums were split by the most wretched sound of a screaming child. A little girl with Goldilocks curls was crying her heart out and she was standing right outside the office, howling. He could hear that her mum was trying to comfort her, and had been trying to comfort her for the past five minutes, with no luck whatsoever. The child was distraught.

Gareth went out onto the platform with Felix in his hands. He didn’t really know much about children, so he had no idea if this would work, but the mum was really struggling. The girl, who was maybe two or three years old, was red in the face; her tears had made watery tracks all down her cheeks. As she took a deep breath in preparation for yet another ear-splitting wail, Gareth interjected hurriedly.

‘Look!’ he said to her brightly. ‘I’ve got a cat! Would you like to see her?’

The little girl blinked up at him in surprise, and the scream stored in her lungs never came.

‘Come and see our little cat,’ he said encouragingly, exchanging a look with her relieved mum. The two walked over to Gareth, who bent down so that the child could see Felix properly.

‘Here she is,’ he said. ‘This is Felix.’

He put the station cat down on the platform, and Felix trotted cautiously over to the little girl and sat down at her feet, looking up at her. The child stared back in wonder, whatever terrors had been plaguing her forgotten.

‘Say, “Hello Felix”,’ urged her mum.

‘’Ello, E-lix,’ echoed the little girl, her voice transformed from hiccoughing howl to burbling brook.

Felix stood up again and wound her way through the legs of the girl and those of her very happy mother, pressing her furry body against them both. It was another job well done.

Felix was doing such brilliant work at the station that it was around this time that she made her first appearance in the media, in November 2011. At only six months old, an article was written about her arrival at the station in the Huddersfield Examiner , celebrating the employment of this very special member of the team. Angie was interviewed for it, and made an appeal to customers not to feed Felix, for while the moggy had now successfully lost the weight she’d gained after her operation, they didn’t want her getting fat again. Angie explained that Felix was going to be a working moggy – the pest controller.

‘She’s about to start work on keeping pests to a minimum,’ promised the Examiner .

Despite the media coverage in the local paper, many customers travelling through Huddersfield – who came from far and wide – were still astonished to meet the railway cat, whether they encountered her at the customer-information point, patrolling the platforms or doing a security check with one of her colleagues. If they met Felix when she was on her own, they would often rush up to the nearest member of staff shortly afterwards.

‘Do you know there’s a cat on the station?’ they’d exclaim. Or they’d pick her up and proffer her: ‘We found a cat!’

‘Yeah, we know,’ the team would say casually, maybe even a little wearily after it had happened several times. ‘She’s ours.’

‘But where does she live?’ they would ask in consternation.

‘She lives here.’

‘Oh, is she a stray?’

Felix, at this juncture, would look up at them haughtily, and give almost a toss of her ebony head, so that the diamanté studs on her collar would glimmer and her pink heart tag would tinkle indignantly.

The station team’s response would be just as proud: ‘She is not a stray! She’s legal, she’s above board and she’s very much loved.’

Felix would then start washing herself, licking that oh-so-fluffy black fur to keep it nice and clean. A stray … Honestly! Did she look like a stray, with her well-kept coat and her glittering accessories? She seemed almost offended by the slur.

But despite the eye-catching glamour of those glitzy accoutrements, not everyone seemed to notice them. There were a few occasions in those early days where a well-meaning customer had picked up the cat and tried to take her home; perhaps because they thought she was a stray, or perhaps because she was so very beautiful. Luckily, the team on the concourse always spotted the situation arising before any damage was done. The collar was pointed out and the address read, and Felix – rather than being ‘catnapped’ – would be safely returned to Platform 1.