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

Cross your paws that no one gives the game away, because if they do, oh dear me . . .

CHAPTER 15

Casper Conquers Plymouth

From what I learned, picked up from lots of little conversations, I don’t think the drivers encouraged Casper to begin with, as they were concerned that he was going to get lost. He seemed to have just worn them down. As they always saw him in the same shelter, and they guessed that he lived nearby, they started to let their defences down. He was very fast and I don’t believe he waited in the queue to begin with – his initial concern was to get on the bus quickly and be allowed to stay there. It was only once he had established his right to be on the bus that he remembered his manners. Once the drivers had seen him often, they let him get away with it. Casper had also been the subject of a lot of chat in the depot, and once the drivers knew they weren’t the only ones letting him nap and giving him free trips, they didn’t feel so bad about what they were doing.

As time went on, Casper’s regular trips started to be noticed by passengers too. I later discovered that there were those who would pick him up when he got back to Poole Park Road if he showed no sign of waking up, and gently pop him into the shelter across from his house, before getting back on the bus and finishing their own journey. I was starting to get the feeling that there were a lot of good people around who were doing all they could to look after Casper when I wasn’t there, and I was particularly grateful to the drivers.

One of the drivers said she often stopped opposite my house for her break, and she’d let Casper on while she waited or read her newspaper, but she was very nervous about driving off with him as she had no idea that he was doing this so often and he always found his way back home. Once her break time was up, she would collect Casper from whatever seat he had chosen and pop him back in the shelter, so he got a little time on the bus but she didn’t have the worry of wondering whether he was going to get lost. It turned out that quite a few of the drivers were taking pictures of Casper on their mobile phones to show to family and friends who were a bit suspicious about whether this was actually happening.

I wanted to thank all the First bus drivers (the only buses Casper seemed to like) for what they had done and what they were continuing to do, so I decided to write them a thank you letter. Rob had originally put up posters in the depot, but I didn’t know how successful they’d been nor did I realize that they were in a position where every driver would see them, so I hit upon the idea of using the letters page in my local newspaper to show my appreciation.

The Plymouth Herald is read by lots of people in the area. It’s a daily publication and I’d seen many of the drivers with a copy beside them Without thinking of the furore to come – how could I know? – I scribbled down a quick letter, briefly outlining what Casper was up to, and thanking everyone at First for their fantastic help. I suppose I also wanted other people to know how obliging the bus company had been, as readers were often quick to complain about things. It seemed like an efficient way to pass on my thanks as well as to recognize publicly all the wonderful people who were being so kind to me and Cassie. The letter read:

Thank you to First customer services and the

drivers on the number 3 bus (Plymouth).

I would like to personally thank Rob in customer services and all of the drivers who drive the number 3 bus route. Our cat, Casper, insists on boarding at Barne Barton and going for a ride. It appears he has ridden the complete circuit to the city and back home on many occasions, asleep on the seats.

He is a rescue cat so we have no idea where he originally came from but obviously he has no fear of buses! Thank you most sincerely to all the drivers for being so vigilant and kind to Casper We appreciate it is a nuisance that our cat keeps getting on, so thank you for not putting him off in any strange area. We don’t want to lose him as he is old and a very much-loved pet.

A few days later, I got a call from Rob to see whether I was willing for him to give my number to a local journalist who wanted to talk about Cassie. What was that all about, I asked him? He said that the thank you note I’d written to the letter page had been seen by someone and they thought the story was fantastic. Now they wanted to chat to me and see what else they could uncover. To be honest, I thought that was odd, but saw no harm in it. From finding it hard to believe that Casper had been getting on the bus at all, I’d now discovered from so many people that he was a regular – and happy – passenger that it almost seemed quite normal to me.

Only now do I know what was happening behind the scenes at the Plymouth Herald. At the newspaper, there is someone who is in charge of the letters page and who looks over everything to see if there are stories that should be followed up. Apparently, Casper’s tale fell into this category and my letter was passed on to the news editor, who asked one of the journalists to set up an interview This journalist had to go out to another story, so passed it on to a colleague called Edd Moore. Edd then called Rob for my phone number, which he gave out after checking with me. Rob also suggested that Edd get in touch with the PR department of First bus to see if they could help out.

The rest, as they say, is history. A whole network of people was falling into place, all of whom would be instrumental in getting Cassie’s story out to the world. They would prove to be individuals with hearts of gold. If Edd hadn’t followed the story up, if First bus hadn’t been so helpful about telling everyone what was happening, if Rob had never written that first poster, the entire tale of Casper the commuting cat might never have come to light. That would have been terribly sad, as I know how much pleasure people have had in talking about him and what memories his presence conjured up.

Rob asked around in the depot to find out as much as he could about Casper’s trips, and discovered that out of the hundred drivers (who swap routes quite frequently) most had come into contact with him. Rob told me that he was pretty impressed by Casper’s antics, such as always seeming to know where to get off, but he’d heard some other funny animal tales in the past.

When Rob worked in Hertford, there had been a Jack Russell whose owner couldn’t walk him because of illness, so the dog used to get on the bus every day for a little trip. Rob found out that there were times when Casper used to do more than one circuit, going back into town again even though the bus had returned to Poole Park Road. It wasn’t that he was asleep, it was just that he fancied a longer trip out.

As long as Casper was happy, the drivers were perfectly content to let him stay there. There was, by now, a running commentary on Casper going on in the depot, and some drivers were a little jealous if he hadn’t been on their bus or they hadn’t been allocated the number 3 since we’d moved there.

It wasn’t a surprise to me that Rob, like so many other people who became part of this story, was an animal lover. He had cats of his own, as well as rescue dogs, and couldn’t remember a time in his life when there had been no pets. One of his most vivid emotional memories was of the time when, at the age of twenty-three and just married, his beloved Bearded Collie of fourteen years had to be put down. ‘I was destroyed, absolutely heartbroken,’ he recalls, ‘and I think that anyone who has ever loved a pet knows exactly how they become part of your life, leaving a huge gap when they go. Winston had been there all through my teenage years and I’d told him all my problems. Your pets never judge, they just give comfort, and I don’t think it matters what age you are when they go; the sense of loss is just overwhelming.’