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

These extraordinary stories show how determined and brave cats are. Casper was only one of many, and I’m sure there are hundreds of others with similar tales. What I was quickly discovering was that his adventures were making people open up about the many wonderful creatures who had shared their lives too.

One lady from Edinburgh wrote to me to say that, some years ago, she had got two little kittens from a rescue centre. She named them Harry and Maisie, and became very fond of them as they grew The two were completely different characters, despite being siblings. While Harry liked nothing better than to sit by the fire or on this lady’s lap, Maisie was never one to enjoy cuddles and seemed to come home only for food, sometimes disappearing for days on end.

The woman and her husband were planning to move house, and about a week before they left, she decided to prevent Maisie from going out. The cat was going walkabout for such long periods that it was possible she wouldn’t be back in time for the move if she got out. After three or four days, there was a knock at the door. Standing there was a burly man, who asked whether Maisie was at home. The lady had closed the door behind her to stop the cat from escaping and was rather bewildered by this request.

‘How do you know my cat?’ she said.

‘Everyone knows your cat,’ he replied.

It transpired that the man worked in a haulage business nearby and went on trips across Britain (Chris laughed when I told him this story). Maisie had been going with him on many of these journeys since she was a little kitten. Although she had popped into the cabs of other drivers, this man was her favourite. He’d become worried when she hadn’t turned up for a few days. He’d been on a trip to Nottingham and had fully expected Maisie to accompany him.

When the lady told the man they were moving, he seemed terribly upset. Maisie had been his little companion for so long and he would miss her. She wondered whether she could bear to leave Maisie behind, but she loved her too, and Harry would feel strange without his sister.

Once they moved to a rural area of Scotland, Maisie never wandered again. She settled into her new environment and became a hunter rather than a traveller. I teased Chris and said that I hoped he wasn’t being unfaithful to our cats by taking others on trips when he was working.

Cats are such individuals and they are so good at finding their way into our hearts that I don’t think I’ll ever be surprised by any feline adventure story I hear. They are courageous and wise, brave and sometimes foolish, warm and caring, but always, always their own masters. There was a part of me that hoped Casper’s notoriety would keep him safe so I could breathe a little easier than I had in the past.

CHAPTER 20

Nine Lives and Counting . . .

The road had always been my greatest fear. Although Tuppence and Peanut were very good and tended to stick to the gardens when they did go out, Casper was different. Despite speed bumps being put in place, they didn’t seem to make any difference on Poole Park Road and cars drove along at a terrible rate. There were buses every ten minutes or so, and those were obviously Casper’s main interest. Every time I heard an engine, I’d worry.

After Casper’s story hit the headlines, my worry was tempered a little. Now that so many people knew about him and his antics, they were watching out for him I fervently hoped that this would prompt them to drive carefully along the road just in case ‘that cat’ was on his travels.

After his brush with fame, I started to watch Casper more closely to try to build up a picture of what he got up to, but apart from his bus travels, he didn’t go that far. When he wasn’t in the bus shelter or on the bus, he spent most of his time in the garden watching the world go by. However, his obsession with vehicles was showing no sign of abating and I worried that he would go off in a van or a car given half the chance.

One morning in mid-November, one of the smaller buses on our local route broke down opposite the house. This wasn’t one of the First vehicles that Casper loved so much, but I was worried that he would take too much of an interest in it. Immediately, I sensed there could be trouble. Casper was so nosy that he got up from his watching spot straight away and went over to the shelter. I kept an eye on him for a while, just to make sure he was still there. He was sitting perfectly still with the driver, who must have been waiting for assistance.

After a little while, two breakdown trucks came and I thought to myself, here comes trouble. I kept trying to coax him back with his favourite turkey roll, but it had no appeal compared to the motor show he was watching from the bus shelter. Eventually, after I’d been swinging slices of the stuff around for ages, he ambled across as if he was doing me an enormous favour. I closed the door quickly behind him and determined to keep him in until everyone had left.

Somehow – and I was never quite sure how Casper achieved this so frequently – he managed to escape. He must have got out the back, as the front exit and windows were completely sealed, but there was nothing I could do because, by the time I noticed he’d gone, the broken-down bus had been towed away, the breakdown trucks were gone and Casper wasn’t waiting at the bus stop.

I started to panic as the day wore on and there was no sign of him trotting home. ‘Where are you, Casper?’ I kept asking, even though there was no one to hear me. I started to worry that he had gone off in one of the vehicles. Remembering that the broken-down bus had belonged to a company called Target, I got the number of their head office in Cornwall and asked for help.

‘Please,’ I begged, ‘please can you keep a lookout for my cat?’ I told them what he was like, how much he loved cars, lorries, buses, anything, and described to them the scene earlier when he had been so intent on watching the breakdown people. I asked if they could ask anyone who might have been there that day, and they suggested that I email a photo so that if he did turn up in the yard they would know it was Casper.

The afternoon turned into evening and still there was no sign of him I started to wonder if he had got on a First bus and become confused, so I rang Rob in customer services, as he had always been so helpful. I was frantic by the time I asked him to please put out another notice asking the drivers to be alert for Cassie. He couldn’t have been more obliging and typed up the poster as we talked.

Nothing happened and I spent the whole evening running between the front and back doors, calling his name, desperate to hear his little collar tinkle. By midnight, I was exhausted and knew that I had to go to bed. I suspected that he was well and truly lost, but there was nothing I could do in the dark and I would need my strength come daylight, when I would search for him until I could walk no more.

I opened the front door one last time and there he was. I cuddled him, scolded him, kissed him – every emotion was swirling around in relief that he was finally home. He seemed exhausted and I noticed that his pads were burning hot. ‘Oh Casper,’ I cried, ‘what’s happened to you, my darling?’

I’d always been so worried that something awful would occur and now it looked as if it had. When I took him into the light, I could see that his pads were bright red and all I could think was that he had indeed got on the broken-down bus or one of the breakdown trucks and then was spooked. Perhaps he realized that he was on an unfamiliar route or got a fright at some point, but I think he must have got off somewhere he didn’t recognize and then spent the day walking home.

Usually when he came back, he went straight for something to eat, but this time he flaked out on the floor as if he couldn’t move a muscle. He was flat out as I brought some food to him He struggled to lift his head so that he could eat lying down, but he was so weak that he could barely do even that.