Кейт Мур - Felix The Railway Cat

Angie couldn’t believe it when all this stuff started arriving. Felix had letters from Canada, America, France … Her fans were sending her all sorts. Somebody even sent some catnip from Ireland.

Parcel after parcel after parcel was brought to the station mailbox by the local Huddersfield postman. They were simply addressed to: ‘Felix, the Huddersfield station cat’. The global superstar was sent gourmet suppers and laser toys, cat bowls with her name on them and heart-shaped dishes, posh turquoise collars printed with pink cupcakes – and even a supersized cat-treats tin from America. She was mailed a bumper pack of goodies from her favourite food brand ‘Felix’, as well as sardines from John West. She was even contacted by the famous Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, who gave her a special branded bowl.

That was the one that got Angie. ‘Wow’ was all she could say as she stood in the office, reading the message from the celebrated rescue centre.

Other cats ‘wrote’ to her to inform her of their vermin-catching capabilities, as though Felix was a pest-controlling cat idol in the feline world; one resented the ‘intervention by human’ that had decreased his tally to only three mice and one sparrow. Many told her how much they admired her work at Huddersfield, and she was showered with congratulations on her promotion. Letters were signed by humans and cats, dogs and rabbits, the ‘x’ of affectionate kisses often accompanied by the sketch of a pawprint too. Lots of children took the time to draw her colourful pictures, while others sent her postcards from their holidays.

Perhaps the most special letters, however, came from other station cats. It seemed there was a collegiate feeling among the members of this railway kitty club. Felix received correspondence from Batman and Metro-Miez, German station cats from Cuxhaven near Hamburg who sent her ‘signed’ pictures, as well as from Jojo, the Southend Victoria station cat. Jojo, another black-and-white moggy, kindly sent Felix some treats and told the Huddersfield cat how she had the British Transport Police, who cared for Jojo down in Essex, wrapped around her piebald paws. Felix knew that feeling well …

So many gifts and offerings arrived that Felix’s filing-cabinet drawer in the team leaders’ office became absolutely chocka. There was far too much for one cat to consume in one lifetime; too much even for those with nine lives. As the Royal Family did before her, Queen Felix found that it was best to donate some of the thoughtful offerings to local cat rescue centres, where other cats less fortunate than she would be able to benefit from her fans’ incredible generosity.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t grateful. Felix had been well brought up by her family and the station team made sure to photograph her with the myriad gifts upon receipt, so that she could post special ‘thank you’ messages on Facebook and people would know that their presents and letters had reached her safely. Felix looked by turns happy, curious, hungry and bored in the assorted snaps.

For that Facebook page, Mark’s creativity was showing no bounds as he catered to the legion of fans following Felix. With tens of thousands of admirers posting and interacting with the railway cat online it became a major job keeping up with all the correspondence – and that was before he thought about new ideas for posts. Nonetheless, Mark was absolutely in his element. He’d hoped that the page would become a creative outlet for him; he’d never expected this. Felix really had changed his life.

Andrew got more involved with the page, working alongside Mark and filming amusing videos of Felix playing on the night shift to entertain her fans. The cat watched in fascination one evening as he edited a movie of her onscreen in the office.

‘What are you thinking?’ Andrew asked her, genuinely wondering. Felix’s green eyes never left the screen as the TV version of herself bounded and jumped and ran on the monitor. The flesh-and-blood Felix was obsessed with it. Andrew couldn’t decipher her enigmatic expression, but as she sat beside him in the office she became transfixed by her own moving image.

Of course, she wasn’t the only one. With demand so high for the Facebook page, there was an enormous appetite for new footage of Felix. Mark was so diligent about updating the page that he even logged in on holiday, replying to fans and adding images from the stockpile he had created.

‘Are you checking that Felix page again?’ asked his wife in dry amusement. ‘There are three people in this marriage: me, you and Felix!’

Mark’s affection for Felix was by now immense. ‘I didn’t expect that I’d become attached to a cat,’ he said in wonder. ‘But I have.’

As the Facebook friend numbers soared, Mark, Andrew and the others grew more advanced with their media-making, adding soundtracks to videos and editing Felix’s funny little actions in time to the music. Her early promise jiggling along the platforms on jazz nights had flourished, making her a proper dancing queen at last. One of Mark’s favourite mini-films was when he added the Chariots of Fire theme to a slow-motion recording of Felix chasing pigeons on the platform. It went down really well.

The pigeons now became characters who teased her online (as they did in Felix’s real life), always just out of reach of her hunting claws, with ‘Percy Pigeon’ getting a starring role in the Facebook posts as her nemesis. And Luther, Felix’s brother, was also introduced to her fans: Mark sketched the contrast between Felix’s busy, exciting life on the railway and her sibling’s apparently tranquil domestic routine with an owner.

Fact can be stranger than fiction, though, for Luther had recently had an adventure of his own. He’d disappeared for five weeks but come back safely; his family thought he must have got locked in a barn. However, there must have been some sand in there, because when he came back to them the short-haired black-and-white cat had sand between his toes. The running joke was that he’d been away on his holidays.

Felix herself was the lead joke on April Fools’ Day for the Huddersfield Examiner . The town was shocked to read the headline: ‘Devastation as Felix the Huddersfield Station Cat is poached to move to Leeds Station’. It caused outcry. Facebook user Gavin Hudson even commented: ‘This is bigger transfer news than Messi and Ronaldo swapping teams!’

The relief was plain on everybody’s faces when it was revealed to be a harmless prank. No one could imagine Huddersfield without her.

‘She’s part of the fixtures and fittings here,’ her colleague Michael Ryan said affectionately.

Except, you know, way more glamorous …

And it was glamour a go-go as Felix turned five on 17 May 2016. She received birthday messages from across the globe – and a very special gift indeed.

For Felix the famous Facebooker now had more than 60,000 Facebook fans. In time, that number would grow to far more than that. No wonder she looked so pleased with herself these days: the spitting image of the cat who got the cream ( and the salmon and the prawns).

But there were some at the station who were not as pleased as Felix. While many of her colleagues thought her international fame was cool, others considered it a load of nonsense. They couldn’t believe the world had reacted in this way to her. To them – so they said – this social-media ‘icon’ was just a lazy cat who sat in the station and got in everyone’s way.

Team leader Geoff was one of those who thought her popularity very strange indeed. He still shouted at her to get out of the office whenever he saw her appear. It was just a cat at the end of the day; why were people so interested?