Кейт Мур - Felix The Railway Cat

It had occurred to Andrew that perhaps the boy had autism. Maybe, just maybe, Felix could make his day.

Felix had just woken up from a beautiful sleep in the shower room and was more than happy to accompany Andrew back along the platform. ‘If you need me, I’m here,’ her merry walk seemed to say. The two of them made their way back to the mother and her son.

As soon as the station cat loomed into view, the child raised his head.

‘FELIX!’ he yelled exuberantly – the first thing Andrew had heard him say. ‘Felix, Felix, Felix!’

He started flapping his arms and grinning wildly. Andrew had never seen anyone so excited in all his life. The boy became incredibly animated and flapped his way over to the cat. ‘Felix, Felix, Felix!’ he kept saying, over and over and over again, as if in that one word were all the words in the world: love, hope, happiness.

His mum watched him with the purest, happiest smile on her face. She looked at Andrew above her child’s head and mouthed, ‘Thank you.’ She was so grateful that they’d got to meet the cat.

As for Felix, she stopped where she stood and waited for the boy to come to her. She fixed her big green eyes on him thoughtfully. Felix had an uncanny knack of reading people. She seemed to know instinctively who could be trusted and who posed a threat; who was after some playtime or who warranted a glaring look; and who just needed some understanding.

She blinked up at the boy as he stared obsessively back at her, still flapping a little, unable to control his limbs in his overwhelming excitement. As she stared at him, looking deep into his eyes, it was as though she was making a special, personal connection with him. The child reached out a still-flapping hand and patted her gently.

‘Felix,’ he said again.

She sat down next to him, wrapping her big fluffy tail around herself and settling in for a nice, long cuddle.

‘Felix,’ he said again as he stroked her, squatting down on the platform. His animation eased into a profound calm. ‘ Felix .’

Epilogue

‘Hiya, Felix,’ says Andrew McClements in the summer of 2016. ‘Did you miss me?’

He bends down to stroke her fluffy black head as she winds familiarly in and out of his legs. She doesn’t answer his question, but she might well be pining for him. For Andrew no longer works at Huddersfield station – he has been promoted to head office.

In his opinion, although he has lots of people to thank for that promotion, Felix is especially deserving of his gratitude. In stepping up to the plate when the railway cat became an international icon, he impressed HQ with his initiative – and left the station in June. He still returns regularly to Huddersfield as part of his new job, though, and it is always a pleasure to see Felix, not least because he always wants to say ‘thank you’.

‘I owe Felix quite a bit for my career,’ he acknowledges gratefully. Like so many others before him, his life has been bettered by the railway cat.

One other such person – and another regular visitor – is Gareth Hope. If ever he is going through Huddersfield he always jumps off the train to say ‘hello’ to his not-so-little-anymore black-and-white cat. It’s the first thing he does the moment his feet touch the platform: rush off to see her and find out how she’s been. As he and his cat catch up on their news, he is glad to see that she hasn’t been spoiled by her global fame. She is still the same little cat.

Gareth could barely believe it when Felix became so internationally renowned – but he also allows himself a wry smile about her success. What was it he’d written on his ‘pros and cons’ list in the days when he’d been trying so hard to convince Paul to get a station cat? Is he allowed to feel at least a little smug? After all, he’d told them years before that a station moggy would be ‘good PR’.

Though it’s nice to go back and visit, Gareth has never regretted moving on. Billy had been right about that – as he had been right about so many other things too. Even now, Gareth is looking to the future. He has a bright idea about a station duck …

The visitors Felix attracts to the station aren’t all ex-colleagues or Facebook fans. Every now and again, her family come wandering through to say hello too.

‘My relationship with Felix now is that Felix is a railway cat,’ says Chris Briscoe, her ‘grandfather’, honestly. ‘Whether she remembers me or not now, I don’t know; I only go up three or four times a year. But I’ll always give her a scratch behind the ears when I’m at Huddersfield.’

If you go down to Huddersfield station today, Felix, the railway cat, may well be there on the platform. She sits and watches the trains go by, soothed by the ebb and flow of their tide, seeming to enjoy the choreography of the carriages: the way the separate services come in, pause, and then split in opposite directions once more, simultaneously travelling north and south.

Sometimes, Felix’s own life seems like those separating services: so many people she has met along the way have moved on with the tides of the trains. Gareth, Andrew, Paul, Martin … and never forgetting Billy. But other people are always there, as solid as the sand beneath her feet. People like Dave Chin and Jean Randall; Angela Dunn and Angie Hunte. And even Geoff, the crotchety team leader.

There’s something about Geoff. Is he really as crotchety as he seems?

The team leaders’ office door has a big glass window in it: when the door is closed, anyone can wander by and look right in, and the person in the office wouldn’t know they were watching. So Geoff probably didn’t realise that Chris Bamford came to knock upon his door one afternoon – but he did. Chris pauses outside, his fist raised ready to knock, when he suddenly lowers his hand silently, a slow smile spreading across his face. In the office is Geoff – and he is petting Felix the cat.

‘Geoff claims not to like Felix,’ says Michael Ryan, ‘but everyone knows he loves her more than he lets on.’ And Felix knows it too.

‘We’ve all grown to love her,’ adds Rachel Stockton, who’d named Felix all those years ago. ‘We’d all be heartbroken if anything happened to her.’

The team wouldn’t be the only ones. Felix has touched the lives of so many customers too – not least that of Mark Allan, the man who runs her famous Facebook page. So successful has it become that he’s actually been given his own official pass by TransPennine Express. His lanyard reads: ‘Personal Assistant to the Senior Pest Controller’.

He still doesn’t want a cat though: ‘Felix is the only girl for me.’

That’s as it is for Angie Hunte, too. ‘She’s always been special,’ she says. ‘I love her to bits. I can’t imagine being without her. She’s grown with me from a baby and from the first day I held her.’

And how very, very much that kitten has grown in the years that have followed. From being just a playful ball of fluff in the palm of Angie’s hand to becoming the senior pest controller, Felix has had quite a journey. Yet, somehow, she has taken it all in her confident, supermodel-strutting stride. She’s an independent lass at heart, is Felix, and that spirit has always seen her through her many adventures.

The TransPennine Express passenger charter reads: ‘We are proud of our staff and you can expect to be greeted with a warm welcome and receive exceptional customer service.’ And Felix, the railway cat, is certainly an exemplary employee.

So look out for her, next time you’re there. She might be hiding by the bike racks, or on duty at the desk. She might be over by Billy’s garden, or sprawled right across your path. Obviously, you’ll be the one stepping round her . Remember: she is Queen Felix, after all. ‘She does whatever she wants,’ says Chris – and that’s as it should be. For Felix is a station cat; she’s part of history.