Felix The Railway Cat

The illustration was of a railway station and a group of carol singers. And there, right at the front of the picture, was Felix, sitting listening to the performance, wearing her pink collar and heart-shaped tag. The artist had caught her so well: the intelligent angle of her head, her pricked-up ears, her regal air that seemed to say, ‘Well, of course I’m on the Christmas card! Who else could it have been?’

Angie was beside herself; she was dancing forever and a day, holding the card aloft and telling everyone she met about her little girl’s achievement.

‘Have you seen it? Have you seen the card?’ she excitedly asked her colleagues, who had not yet opened theirs.

‘No,’ they said, wondering why their team leader was so enthusiastic about the annual Christmas card from head office.

‘Look, look!’ she cried, waggling it in their faces. ‘Take the card, take the card! It’s got our Felix on!’

They looked at it and their jaws dropped.

It was so lovely – and the perfect way to round off what had been an amazing year for the railway cat.

But there was someone who was none too pleased about the moggy’s masterful ownership of the station. Well before Felix had ever placed a paw on the platforms of Huddersfield station, another animal had once roamed the railway and claimed it for his own. He was most put out that this feline was getting ideas above her station. And one night in the winter of 2013, he decided it was time to do something about it.

Angie was over on Platform 1, midway through a night shift, when she saw him appear. She gasped and froze, for this creature could strike fear not only into the hearts of felines, but into human hearts too.

Weaving his way through the softly swaying plants of Billy’s garden on the opposite platform was a thin-nosed urban fox.

There was something about foxes that Angie couldn’t bear. She whispered frantically to her colleague, Carl, who was also on duty, ‘Carl, Carl. I can’t move.’ Even though the fox was on the other side of the train tracks, it didn’t matter to Angie how far away it was. The simple fact that it stood there, glowering at her, made her heart race and her palms grow sticky with sweat. She wanted to get inside as fast as she could.

The fox fixed her with a lazy look, and continued to prowl about amid the scented plants of Billy’s garden, picking his way through the tall grass, his reddish-brown coat brushing the bushes.

‘Get me inside, Carl,’ Angie whispered urgently to her colleague as they watched the fox asserting himself, as confident as could be, ‘get me inside.’

Carl just laughed at her, good-naturedly. ‘He’s not going to bother you,’ he said reasonably. After all, the fox was on the other side of the train tracks – they weren’t close enough for him to do them any harm.

Yet it wasn’t them whom the fox had come to see.

As Angie watched, a little black-and-white cat came trip-trapping her way along Platform 4, far out of Angie’s reach. Felix had not yet spotted the insurgent fox who had infringed upon her territory, wanting to claim it for himself. She had not a care in the world as she sauntered along, on her way to Billy’s garden where she had spent so many happy hours of late. She walked swiftly, eagerly, little knowing the danger ahead.

And it was a very real danger. Several years back, Jumper, the Manchester Oxford Road station cat, had been savaged by what was assumed to be an urban fox; it was a vicious attack, and the poor station cat had lost her back leg in the ensuing violence.

Angie felt the bottom fall out of her world. ‘Felix is over there!’ she cried to Carl in alarm. But there was nothing she could do for Felix – she was too far away and the fox could strike in seconds. As Angie watched, the fox turned his eyes away from the humans on Platform 1 and looked levelly at the approaching station cat. He took a stealthy step forward on one strong front paw. He was ready for this battle. He hadn’t even had to hunt her: Felix was coming to him.

Angie watched his preparations with a sickening, sinking feeling. ‘He’s gonna kill her, he’s gonna kill her, he’s gonna kill her,’ she whispered fearfully. The fox crouched down, as though preparing to spring, and bared his teeth: those sharp white incisors that Angie now feared were going to tear Felix apart before her very eyes. ‘Oh my goodness,’ she moaned in horror. ‘He’s gonna eat her. He’s gonna eat her, Carl!’

Then Felix clocked the fox. The two claimants to the station throne made eye contact – and Felix held the fox’s gaze. ‘What’s going on here?’ those assertive green eyes of hers seemed to say. This was her patch.

Neither creature moved an inch: they just stared, and stared, and stared at each other. And then Felix, perhaps channelling the King of the Jungle on the Lion Building outside in St George’s Square, decided she was not going to walk away from this battle. She was the Queen of Huddersfield station and, like so many monarchs before her, she was going to defend her crown.