Felix The Railway Cat

The kitten had been at the station for almost a week now and the transformation in morale was astonishing. Huddersfield had always had a family feel but – just as with actual relatives – along with the closeness of that familial atmosphere could come the odd row or niggle as people rubbed along with each other. But getting a cat had seemed to bring everyone together. Morale was at an all-time high. When the Head of Steam, the pub at the northern end of Platform 1, had its jazz night on a Wednesday, the team were seen literally dancing along the platforms as the bluesy music filled the summer air. The kitten had sucked everyone in and bowled them over.

No one seemed untouched by his magic. Angie Hunte, to her great surprise, had even walked in on Billy playing with the kitten one day, when he thought nobody was watching. The desks in the office had purpose-built holes in, through which, if needed, you could feed computer wires to reach a plug. There was one such unused hole in Billy’s desk, and she’d found him dabbling his fingers through it as Felix followed their movement from the floor, completely transfixed by the wiggling digits.

‘All right, Billy,’ she’d greeted him, in her honeyed Yorkshire burr.

He’d coughed; that gruff smoker’s cough caused by his frequent cigarillos. ‘All right, Mrs H,’ he’d replied. He’d surveyed the cat sitting on the floor who was, by now, washing himself with his rough pink tongue, making his black fur even more fluffy. ‘My,’ Billy commented aloud, nodding his head. ‘He’s a grand-looking lad.’

Angie had smiled to herself. ‘Yes, he is, Billy,’ was all she’d said.

Angie herself thought the reality of having a cat was just heavenly. She and Felix grew closer by the day. If Angie was sitting at her desk working, Felix would come up to her and climb up on her lap. Then, after a while, he’d reach up his paws towards her shoulders. She’d look down at his little face gazing into hers and say, ‘Come on, then.’ And Felix would climb up and sit on her shoulder, draping himself across her like a warm fluffy scarf, and there he would remain while she tapped away at the keyboard.

Felix, as it turned out, was a big fan of cuddles. When Andy Croughan was on nights, which were always a quieter time with just two team members on shift, he found Felix would latch on to him and follow him around. When he sat to do the accounting, the kitten would sit on his lap or find a crease in his arm and go to sleep. Andy’s own cat, Missy, a tabby/tortoiseshell mix, was friendly enough, but she would never, ever sit on his knee. The first time Felix snuggled up to him, he found himself feeling quite touched. But then, of course, every time he sat down the kitten wanted a cuddle, and it became rather like having a demanding three-year-old on his hands!

Somehow, though, he found he didn’t seem to mind too much.

Felix, when awake, was always more than willing to lend a hand with the cashing up. He was a member of the team, after all. But the lively kitten did not differentiate between work and play – they were one and the same to him. Andy would be cashing up and Felix would keep putting a paw on the cash, almost as if the cat was claiming a high-stakes gambling prize. Or Felix might park his bottom on the cash, or lounge across the balance sheet, or chase a dropped note halfway across the office. Sometimes, just at the moment when Andy had very nearly totted everything up and the neat stacks of money were in ordered, counted piles, Felix would get spooked by a noise from outside, and off the kitten would dart, right through all those piles of money … There would be cash everywhere!

Gareth, too, found Felix rather a hindrance when it came to doing his job. As the kitten did with Angie, Felix liked to use Gareth as a climbing frame: first to his lap, and then a scramble up his chest to his shoulder. Sometimes he’d lie lengthways across Gareth’s back, so that the announcer could move neither forwards nor backwards but would have to stay frozen in that position until the kitten decided to wake up. At other times, Felix would make the daring final step on his ascent: from Gareth’s shoulder to his head.

It became a new favoured location for a snooze. He’d clamber all the way up there, then curl up, tail to nose – somehow perfectly balanced on Gareth’s skull – and fall fast asleep. If a customer came to the window when the cat was in that position, however, Gareth regrettably felt the kitten was in far too precarious a pose for him to move.

‘I can’t come to you, I’m afraid!’ he would call out to the customer, in as helpful a tone as he could muster. ‘You’ll have to shout!’