Felix The Railway Cat

Dave measured out the garden and the bench and picked out a spot for it smack bang in the middle. It would sit just in front of the soil bed, perfectly positioned so that customers could enjoy the environment he’d created and spent so much time working on. And that environment was still being cared for beautifully. Though Billy’s idea to invite the group with learning difficulties to maintain the garden alongside him hadn’t come to fruition before he died, the Friends of Huddersfield Station, a local volunteer group, had taken it over – ensuring that Billy’s legacy would live on.

Angie’s plan to mark the bench’s arrival was coming together, but at the time Dave put the bench up on the station it wasn’t quite ready, so they covered the memorial with sheet plastic and yellow-and-black warning tape – to make sure no one could use it before the grand opening.

Then Angie made a phone call to Billy’s wife.

‘Val?’ she said. ‘Can you come down to the station on Monday, please? We’ve got a little something we’d like you to be here for.’

When Val arrived, she found a smart, pale wooden bench set before Billy’s garden, with an enormous white ribbon tied around it. She found a shiny new gold plaque commemorating her husband attached to its side. And, unusually, she also found the booking-office windows closed, for everyone wanted to participate in the opening ceremony for Billy’s bench, and the team had closed the serving windows as a mark of respect.

‘Oh!’ Val said, in surprise. ‘I didn’t expect all this.’

‘Well,’ said Angie. ‘It’s just how we feel about him. This is how we feel about Billy and this is what he meant to us. We’re just showing you, is all.’

At 12 o’clock on 10 August 2015, Huddersfield station came to a standstill. Over on Platform 4, the team gathered in their uniforms and their hi-vis vests for a very special occasion in honour of a very special man. Angie said a few short words, then Val was invited to cut the white ribbon and Billy’s bench was formally declared ‘open’. It was a lovely occasion, with smiles and shared memories and laughs, and afterwards – as the station returned to its usual, busy self and the ticket windows reopened and the trains moved on – the party transferred to the back offices, where Angie had ordered cupcakes for Val and every member of the Huddersfield team. They were covered in Smarties and chocolate chips and colourful icing, and people helped themselves throughout the working day, and even into the night shift.

Felix loved the new bench, and would frequently wind her way around its four sturdy legs, just as she had once done with Billy himself. The bench was set in a spot where it caught the late afternoon sun, and weary travellers often rested upon it.

That sun sometimes glinted off its smart gold plaque, which read:

In memory of Billy

Station Team Leader – Huddersfield

14/02/1994 – 31/03/15 21 years’ service

Will be remembered fondly and missed dearly at this station

And he certainly was remembered fondly. That was why, whenever Angie did her security checks on an early shift and walked past his bench, she’d always say, in her cheery way, ‘Morning, Billy!’

But it was just the wind that answered now: ‘Morning, Mrs H.’

28. A Helping Hand

With a hiss of its brakes, the train from Leeds pulled into Huddersfield station on a Monday morning in September 2015. Off stepped a nervous gentleman, self-consciously smoothing down the lapels of his smart navy jacket. He cleared his throat, then squared his shoulders and went to find the station manager. It was his first day in his new job. His name was Andrew McClements, and he was the new team leader, replacing Billy.

They were very big shoes to fill. As he was introduced to the team, perhaps Andrew sensed a certain surprise in his new colleagues’ expressions as they covertly checked him out, in the way of all existing employees when they meet a new co-worker for the first time. For Andrew, who came from St Helens, near Liverpool, was not only very different in personality to Billy – he was friendly and laidback, with an easy smile and an approachable manner – but he was also more than forty years younger. Andrew was just twenty-two years old.

He was younger than even the youngest team leader by over a decade. He had worked at TPE for a couple of years already, selling tickets first at Warrington and more recently at Manchester airport. In the wake of Billy’s sad passing, the team leader role at Huddersfield had been advertised, and Andrew felt incredibly lucky to have secured the position. It would provide a rare opportunity to get to grips with a genuinely hands-on operational role, and would also give him a really good flavour of what the railway was all about. Yet he also knew it was going to be one hell of a challenge.