Felix The Railway Cat

She exited through the front doors. Felix perhaps liked the grand wooden doors best of all – though not just because they were the most fitting for Queen Felix’s regal appearances. Although Felix had heaps of character, her stage presence – in the opinion of the automatic doors, at least – wasn’t quite sufficient to trigger their electronic sensors and make them open. If she found herself shut in the ticket hall with her colleagues on the other side of the glass, she would have to wait for a cleaner or a member of the public to assist her. Far easier for Felix was the grand entrance, the central door, through which she could come and go as she pleased.

She trotted out and stood at the top of the steps, sniffing the cold winter air. The station’s façade looked as pretty as a picture: round its stately columns were wound strings of ice-white fairy lights; apt enough for this festive season, though in fact they were there all year round. Above Felix’s head, at the tip of the towering columns, was a traditional triangular gable, and at its centre was an old-fashioned black-and-white clock with Roman numerals. Though Felix couldn’t read the position of the hands, they always indicated the same thing anyway: time for adventure.

She scampered happily down the steps and headed out. Immediately in front of the station steps in St George’s Square, modern fountains burst sporadically from the ground in tall spurts of icy water; at night, they were lit in ever-changing shades of purple, green and blue. Felix, savvy as she was, neatly avoided the fountain holes that could suddenly spring to life with a shock of cold water, and headed off to explore.

Across the square, directly opposite the station, was a building that might just have caught her eye. It was the Grade II-listed Lion Building, and atop its soaring, three-storey silhouette was a life-size statue of the King of the Jungle. Leo stalked the rooftop with his enormous feline paws, looking as predatory and proud as his miniature relative did below, his luscious, moulded mane as regal as Felix’s own unique personality.

The Ashlar sandstone Lion Chambers were built in 1853 – but the incarnation of Leo the Lion that gazed down upon the railway cat that evening was a much more recent model. In the 1970s, after over a century’s accumulation of fractures, the original Coade stone lion was retired from duty and on 13 November 1977 a new, lighter, fibreglass model was installed. He certainly looked imposing as he surveyed his kingdom: at night, he was lit up like a Roman god in the floodlights trained upon his feline form, and he dominated the skyline – just as Felix dominated proceedings down below.

Felix was having a brilliant time at the station that Christmas. With her and Billy now the best of friends, Felix would contentedly potter around him when he was on shift. If he was sitting in the office, she’d sit with him while he did his work; occasionally, Billy would even pick her up and she’d snuggle into his lap. If he went outside, she would go too and twirl in and out between his legs as he worked, wagging her fluffy black tail. He’d look down at her as they were doing security checks, or she might even be allowed to join him while he laboured in the garden, dressed in his overalls, on his day off. ‘Y’alright?’ he’d ask her, with a bit of an unfamiliar twinkle in his eye.

Angie Hunte and Dave Chin watched with a sense of pleasant incredulity as Billy enjoyed a bit of a play and a tumble with the black-and-white cat. Felix, in her own special way, had undeniably brought out the soft side of Mr Grumpy. Even as the duo watched, Billy actually smiled at the little cat – a proper, Yorkshire beam of a smile – and Angie and Dave heard him laugh. Billy was laughing. They weren’t used to that.

And it was Felix who had made it happen.

The team at Huddersfield knew she was a very special cat. But what they hadn’t realised was just how many other people were starting to know it too. It had been quite a year for Felix, what with the bespoke cat flap being installed on her behalf and a stint in the limelight on stage in a major theatre of the North, not to mention her high-profile appearances in the local rag. But it was still a shock to Angie when she learned that Felix had been chosen as the cover star of the official TPE Christmas card of 2013.

Knowing nothing about the behind-the-scenes discussions at head office in Manchester which led to Felix being celebrated in this way, it came as a complete surprise to the Huddersfield team when they opened their envelopes with the official cards inside and found Felix, looking as happy as Larry, beaming out and wishing them season’s greetings!