Susan Finden - Casper the Commuting Cat - The True Story of the Cat Who Rode the Bus and Stole Our Hearts

I went to bed a little more settled but by morning had managed to think of a whole host of problems. Despite the fact that the driver I’d spoken to the day before had been so friendly, I was worried. He may not have had any problems with Casper, and the passengers he knew may have welcomed him, but there were concerns. If this was really happening, what if Casper was taken somewhere and got lost? What if he was frightened and couldn’t find his way home, sleeping for ages until he was in a strange part of Plymouth? I now had more to worry about. I hoped I could get other people to help out.

I reasoned that if I contacted the main bus companies that used the route on Poole Park Road, I could ask them to watch out for Casper and perhaps even discourage him from boarding the bus in the first place. I didn’t expect anyone to look after my cat for me, but I thought that by informing people I could alert both drivers and passengers to what was going on.

I sent a letter to one bus company in which I explained that I had just found out about Casper’s adventures. I asked whether they could possibly warn their drivers about this travelling cat and ask whether they would try to discourage him from getting on the bus as I was terribly worried about him I was polite and tried to let them know that I was only giving them some information that I thought might help them too – should any of them see a cat sitting on their bus without warning, they might be a little perturbed.

After some time, I received what I thought was a rather unfriendly reply in which I was told, ‘If you permit the animal to stray from your garden, then you have to accept the consequences of allowing the animal that freedom.’ Goodness! I had only asked that they be aware and perhaps show a little compassion, and for that I was being told off . The letter went on:

the drivers tell me that they are well aware of this cat’s habits and that they are to some extent fed up with it. They have a difficult and responsible job to undertake at the best of times and having to remember to check their bus for a stray cat is not appreciated, especially when they are busy. I would respectfully suggest that you restrain your animal using a lead or tether to ensure that it is unable to stray from your property . . . we will not be held responsible for anything which may happen to it as a consequence of your failure to control or restrain it.

I was then curtly informed that the photograph I had sent them to help identify Casper was being returned to me. I was a little shocked by the tone. The driver who had told me what Casper had been up to had been so nice and not seen it as a problem at all. I’d hoped that, by warning other drivers, I’d be able to keep an eye on Casper and warn them of an unusual cat they might find asleep on a seat. I was upset that I was being told to ‘tether’ my cat in a fashion that would stop him walking around freely – surely if I did that I would be a very cruel owner indeed? In fact, if I did that, I would have expected someone to report me to the RSPCA.

By writing the letter, I hadn’t been asking anyone to take responsibility for Casper, I was simply asking them to be vigilant. This was something I had done on other occasions. For example, when our next-door neighbours moved out and put their house up for sale, I’d popped a note through the door warning the estate agent and prospective buyers that they might find Casper in there, so could they please make sure he wasn’t locked in when they left? I thought I was being a responsible owner, not someone trying to shift the blame onto someone else if, God forbid, something did happen to Cassie.

This letter had shaken me, but I then realized that the company I had written to was not the one that employed the driver who’d told me about Casper. I hesitated a while, wondering whether I would get the same reception if I called First Devon and Cornwall, but my need to do all I could for my cat was my primary concern, so I found the number for their office and called straight away.

The attitude there could not have been more different. The phone was answered by a chap who introduced himself as ‘Rob from Customer Services’. As I spoke to him for the first time, I didn’t know what a comfort and help he would become to me over the next few months. Rob would turn out to be one of the people in Casper’s story who would always go beyond the call of duty – even if he thought he was just doing his job – and would prove to be immensely supportive.

I started to tell Rob what was going on and cautiously asked whether he could maybe warn the other drivers. ‘I’m typing up a notice as we speak,’ he informed me. ‘As soon as I come off the phone to you, I’ll print it off and put it up on the noticeboard and in the canteen.’

What a difference! Rob was as good as his word, and within minutes, the following notice was posted on the information boards:

TRAVELLING CAT

CAN ALL DRIVERS ON SERVICE 3 BE

AWARE THAT THEY MAY HAVE A FELINE

PASSENGER ON BOARD WHO HAS BOARDED

AT THE POOLE PARK ROAD AREA AND IS

TRAVELLING INTO TOWN. IF HE IS SEEN,

CAN THE DRIVER CALL CUSTOMER SERVICES

AND WE WILL CONTACT THE OWNER TO

MAKE HER AWARE HE IS SAFE AND WELL.

MANY THANKS – ROB

I’ve since spoken to Rob and he’s told me that when I first called him, he thought it might be a prank, just as I had when I first heard about what Casper had been doing. He said that after two or three years in customer services, he’s heard most things, but the idea of a cat popping on and off the bus seemed a bit far-fetched. ‘I thought I’d go along with it,’ he recalls. ‘So I asked, “Where does he get on?” All of the things I asked Sue were answered with such openness that I started to think maybe this was true after all. There was so much personal information and she seemed like such a nice lady that I couldn’t help but believe her and decided to do what I could to help out.’

To me, Rob is such a big part of this story because he, too, is one of those traditional British types who believes in manners and fair play and doing what you can to help people. As I’ve found out more about him, I’ve realized that he didn’t treat me any differently to anyone else that day – he’s like that with every person who calls his line. He always goes out of his way and he always does it with such a lovely manner that he reassures anyone he helps. He later told me that he was raised to believe that good manners cost nothing – a value he is passing on to his own children. He treats everyone as individuals. I was so lucky to have got him on the line that day.

Rob found that by the time his posters had been up for not much more than half an hour, the drivers were chatting about Casper, so he knew it was all true. The talk in the canteen that day was full of tales of the cat who rode the number three bus. Some of the drivers had mentioned it to each other in the past, when Casper started his antics, but it was as if Rob’s poster had opened the floodgates and they all started discussing whether they had seen Casper on their bus, how often he’d been there, where he went, what seat he liked, what he got up to and all sorts of other things.

Over the next few days, I started to ask for a bit more information every time I took the bus and I gradually put together more pieces of the Casper jigsaw The drivers didn’t have much time to talk as there were always plenty of passengers getting on and off, but they always seemed to have a moment to tell me about Casper. I’d been promoted to the position of his mum rather than merely his owner and they were delighted to inform me of the misadventures of my boy.

It seemed as though every time I asked one of them whether they knew him, they did. No one was surprised when I asked the question, and it seemed that I was the odd one out for not knowing what was happening. How long had this been going on, I wondered? Many of them seemed to think it had been since we moved in rather than just a day or two before I discovered it. I was amazed. My cat had a secret life.