Felix The Railway Cat

The team took Felix’s initiation into station life slowly, though, and were always understanding. The kitten was never rushed into anything, and if she didn’t want to go outside, she was not forced to. Yet she rarely ever wanted to stay in – the call of the wild and adventures awaiting her were sirens to the station cat.

As the team helped her to adjust, they made sure that someone was always with Felix when she stepped outside, and she never left the office if the concourse was busy. Her colleagues used to carry her around in a ball in their hands until she got used to the trains and became more confident. Gareth and the others would regularly take her round the station on their security checks and, over the next few weeks, she slowly became inured to the engine noises of the stationary trains rumbling quietly in the station. She was nonchalant, too, about the chimes of the opening and closing doors; the sounds of the station announcements over the crackling tannoy; and the hiss of the little puffs of air that the trains let off as they prepared to depart. She often wanted to stay close to Gareth when they did the rounds, but she didn’t freak out anymore and to Gareth’s (and his shoulder’s) relief, her claws were not as prominent.

Felix usually sat on his shoulder as they made their way around the station, and for Gareth it became second nature to have a cat perched there. It must have been quite a sight – and this fluffy new member of the station crew certainly seemed to cause a stir among the commuters, who would do a double take as they walked past. Not everyone seemed to approve, however. One afternoon, Gareth noticed a couple of the regular trainspotters huddled in their usual spot at the end of the platform, shaking their heads disapprovingly, as though saying in despair, ‘What’s happening to this railway?’

With Felix now going out and about, the team made sure she had the perfect accoutrement: her very first collar. It was Angie Hunte who had the pleasure of buying it for her – and it was a complete pleasure. She had an absolute field day! She got it from a nearby pet shop and spent a long time looking for exactly the right one. Angie loved sparkly things, so it was perhaps no surprise that the one she chose was dotted all over with glitzy, diamanté studs. It was cornflower blue – the colour of the tops of the dip-dyed TPE trains – and Felix looked an absolute stunner in it: so glamorous!

But while Angie was delighted with her selection, it didn’t meet with universal acclaim.

‘What is that?’ said Billy in abhorrence the first time he laid eyes on it. He thought it was an abomination. He looked Felix up and down and then turned to Angie. ‘Why? But why would you choose something like that?’

‘Because she needs something so that you can see her!’ Angie retorted. You could certainly do that: the diamanté studs dazzled like glitter balls at her throat, catching the September sunlight.

Of course, a collar isn’t much good without a tag. It was Christine in the booking office who gave Felix her first one. By this time, everybody at the station was giving the kitten bits and pieces – toys, treats, new bowls and all sorts – and the collar tag was Christine’s own special gift for the cat who had transformed the entire station. She went to Pets at Home and got Felix’s name and address (Platform 1) engraved on the front of the tag and the team leaders’ work mobile number engraved on the back, so that if the kitten ever got lost people would know that she was loved and wanted and missed, and she’d be able to find her way home again.

It wasn’t any old tag that Christine bought. Oh no: this was a tag for Felix, the Huddersfield station cat! It needed to be something special. Christine had seen the jazzy collar Angie had given her, and as she shopped she was also musing on the poor kitten’s gender-confused start in life – so Christine picked out a beautiful, hot-pink, heart-shaped tag for the station’s little girl. One can imagine Billy’s reaction …

Angie had been one of those trying to help her little kitten adjust to the station’s noisy exterior. While they all loved carrying Felix about the place, that wasn’t a long-term solution: the kitten needed to stand on her own four paws. But there were so many things that could go wrong if she was let loose immediately – she could run off; someone could take her (the volume of strangers coming through the station each day was frightening when Angie really thought about it); not to mention the danger of the train tracks if Felix was released before she understood the threat they posed. She was coming up to four months old, so it was still a lot for her to comprehend.

But Angie thought she had a solution: a cat harness.

‘We can get her a little lead!’ she exclaimed, pleased with the idea. ‘Then we can walk her round and she’ll get to know the platforms on her own four paws, but she’ll be safe as houses.’