Felix The Railway Cat

That clearance had taken place when Gareth Hope still worked at the station. But getting rid of the bulk of the jungle had only been the first step – Billy then had to put in hours and hours and hours of work to clear it all, enhance the soil and pull out all the knotted roots, and eventually choose new plants and nurture them. The garden was Billy’s passion and he was the only one who worked on it, so it had been years in the making. Billy gave it what time he could, and even did a bit of maintenance and horticultural work while he was on duty, if it was a quiet shift. Yet there were many times when the team at the station would see him over there on his day off, dressed in his overalls and digging away with his own tools, one of his cigarillos clutched in his hand whenever he took a break. In Billy’s opinion, if you were going to do something, it was worth doing properly. Within that gruff exterior beat a heart of gold. Billy cared – and every green shoot that flourished in that garden was proof of it.

He didn’t care at all, however, for the regal cat who now decided that his growing plants and damp soil bed were the perfect setting for her royal commode.

‘Felix has been in my garden again!’ he would complain to Angie – and with good reason, for he often heard his fellow team leader say to the railway cat: ‘Isn’t that a lovely garden? Are you going to pay it a visit?’

‘Don’t you dare encourage her, Mrs H!’ Billy would say grumpily. He had a real love/grump relationship with the station cat.

As she did with the other team leaders, Felix would follow him around devotedly on his shift. Billy was still as unimpressed as he had been when Angie had first proposed he used the cat harness; he’d look down at his little shadow and mutter, ‘I’m not wandering round with a cat at my heels.’ But Felix wanted to be with him because he was fun … occasionally. Time and again his colleagues would walk in on him dabbling his fingers through the hole in the desk for Felix, as the cat’s captivated eyes followed their every move.

There were times, though, when Felix thought he was playing, and Billy was most definitely not. During one infamous night shift, Billy was working on his period-end paperwork, stacking up all his papers in tall, organised towers that literally took him hours to erect in the correct order. Felix slipped inside the team leaders’ office and surveyed those towers with glee. Then she flew across the room, pouncing and playing, sending the papers flying all over the office in her wake. The Destroyer had struck once more.

Felix may not have been endearing herself to Billy very much at that time but she had clearly impressed the railway powers-that-be. In the June of 2013, Huddersfield station installed electronic ticket barriers at the main entrance for the first time – and Queen Felix found she had her own personal cat flap installed to allow her to come and go as she pleased.

As with any royal event, it was covered by the press: once again Felix made the hallowed pages of the Huddersfield Examiner. This time it was the station manager, Paul, who spoke to the journalists, telling them, ‘Customers and staff hold Felix in great affection and she’s very much part of daily life here at the station. We strive to offer the best service possible to both customers and their four-legged friends and we know Felix is certainly the cat that got the cream with her very own VIP entrance and exit!’

It was a very smart creation, edged in blue and with a cartoon image of a black-and-white cat on the flap itself – and cartoon trains on the surrounding framework. TransPennine Express had commissioned original artwork, for the cartoon cat, just like her real-life inspiration, wore a hot-pink heart-shaped name tag. The pièce de resistance and final flourish was that, above the flap itself, Felix’s own name was picked out in handsome blue lettering, leaving no one in any doubt that this edifice was just for her.

But despite their commendable efforts, Felix was not impressed. In a diva-like response that was typically Felix the station cat utterly refused to use the bespoke cat flap installed for Her Majesty. If she wanted to get from the main entrance to Platform 1, she would run straight at the booking office and leap up at one of the serving windows, little caring if her sudden appearance made the customers standing at the counter jump ten feet in the air. She would bestow on them a gracious nod, then head straight on through, jumping down from the desk inside the office and sauntering confidently to the interior door. There, she would sit and wait, wagging her tail, until a minion had opened the door for her and she could continue on her way.