Felix The Railway Cat

Ordinarily in that situation, Gareth would have stayed behind the glass window and tried to calm the customer from there. As he nodded sympathetically, however, his eye fell on Felix, who was now alert and standing to attention on the desk. I wonder … Gareth thought. In his campaign with Paul, he had so often said how brilliant having a station cat would be for customer satisfaction – how a cat would calm people down and cheer them up, and make everybody happier.

He glanced back towards the family; the father was puce with rage and his throat hoarse from shouting. There was nothing to lose.

‘Excuse me one moment,’ Gareth said politely. ‘I’ll come out and see you.’

Gareth turned from the window and scooped up Felix with one hand. ‘Time to prove yourself, young cat,’ he told her. He opened the door to the platform and together he and Felix went to reason with the angry man.

‘Oh, a cat!’ cried the little girl at once, as soon as she saw the kitten in Gareth’s arms. She was about six years old and rushed forwards to say hello. ‘Isn’t she lovely, Daddy?’

She clearly wanted to play with Felix, so Gareth bent down so that the little girl could pet her. Felix blinked up at her with her beautiful emerald eyes and calmly let the child stroke her fluffy black fur. The boy, who was younger, about four years old, was a bit shyer than his sister, but he, too, edged forward and extended a hesitant hand towards the adorable-looking cat.

‘As I was saying, sir,’ Gareth continued, from his position crouched on the ground with the cat and the kids, ‘I’m so terribly sorry about the cancellation. The next train to the airport is in twenty minutes. If you get that, you will still make your flight.’

The man looked rather as though the wind had been taken out of his sails. He glanced at his wife, and both of them stared down at their children, who were purring over Felix as though they themselves were kittens.

‘She’s so soft, Daddy!’ the girl exclaimed.

‘In twenty minutes, did you say?’ the man asked, more calmly.

‘Twenty minutes, yes, sir,’ confirmed Gareth. ‘It will be on Platform 1.’

Felix had completely taken the edge off the confrontation. As the family thanked him for his help and the children reluctantly waved goodbye to Felix, Gareth stood up and carried his trusty colleague back into the office. As the door closed behind them, he looked down at her and gave her the most enormous grin.

‘Good work, station cat,’ he told her proudly. ‘Very good work indeed.’

12. A Very Special Cat

Felix continued to work her magic again and again as a key member of the customer-facing team of Huddersfield station. She was absolutely superb at calming the angriest customer. As Angie Hunte observed, as soon as they saw Felix, the rage just totally disappeared. In all her years at the station, she had never seen anything like it. And it seemed to work on everyone, from elderly customers to middle-aged mums. Gareth had a teenage customer once, a young woman with short, bleached-blonde hair, who was ranting and raving that her life was over because of the cancelled service that had wrecked everything! Felix had been asleep under the window at the time, and as the woman screamed at him in a total teenage tantrum, Gareth had fumbled discreetly under the desk for his cat, picked Felix up and put her on display in the window, as though producing a rabbit from a hat.

It changed the conversation completely – and abruptly. ‘What on earth …?’ the young woman had said.

Gareth had then slipped out of the door with Felix and the girl had held her and stroked her and she just forgot that the train had been cancelled and her life had been ruined five minutes before …

Felix wasn’t only skilled at diverting angry customers, however – she could also cheer up the unhappiest folk. Because the office window opened onto Platform 1, the announcers could hear everything that went on out there. One day, Gareth’s eardrums were split by the most wretched sound of a screaming child. A little girl with Goldilocks curls was crying her heart out and she was standing right outside the office, howling. He could hear that her mum was trying to comfort her, and had been trying to comfort her for the past five minutes, with no luck whatsoever. The child was distraught.

Gareth went out onto the platform with Felix in his hands. He didn’t really know much about children, so he had no idea if this would work, but the mum was really struggling. The girl, who was maybe two or three years old, was red in the face; her tears had made watery tracks all down her cheeks. As she took a deep breath in preparation for yet another ear-splitting wail, Gareth interjected hurriedly.

‘Look!’ he said to her brightly. ‘I’ve got a cat! Would you like to see her?’

The little girl blinked up at him in surprise, and the scream stored in her lungs never came.