It certainly was all change at the station that January. As well as the modifications to the announcer’s office and lost property, Felix found that Sara from the booking office was now out working on the platforms with her best friend Karl.
Sara was a long-time friend of Felix, having worked at the station since December 2014. In fact, they were almost relatives, as Sara’s uncle was Chris Briscoe, whose cats Lexi and Gizmo were Felix’s parents. The railway was something of a family business, as Sara’s mum, stepdad, aunt and uncle all worked in the industry. Following a couple of years after school of working for a printing company, Sara had followed her family into the business too. Now twenty-three, she found she loved it, for every day was different.
Of course, having regular cuddles with Felix was an additional perk. Sara found that if she took a seat on the single chair in the ladies’ locker room for five minutes before her shift started, Felix would often come and sit up on her knee. When she was in the mood, Felix could have a right good cuddle. Sara really liked that; she really liked Felix. The diva’s temperament wasn’t to everyone’s taste, but Sara admired her independent spirit.
Now, as Sara took up her new role out on the platforms, she found that she and Karl grew even closer, as they were paired up on shifts most of the time. Karl was a really funny bloke, which made their shifts together fly by. He could tell instantly if ever she was sad and would cheer her up straight away with a big brotherly hug, teasing her affectionately about being a ‘unicorn princess’. He had a southern accent, whereas Sara had a thick Barnsley burr, and they would tease each other mercilessly about the difference between their voices. Karl had a lovely girlfriend he was head over heels in love with, and Sara loved to hear him talk about her. She was currently single, but hoped one day to find the right man; Karl was always on the lookout for a bloke who was good enough for his best friend.
While they waited for him to appear, Karl and Sara and lots of the other ‘young ’uns’ at the station regularly enjoyed nights out together. With the railway feeling like a family, it was only natural that many of the younger staff socialised. They all got on really well and it was easy as anything for one of them to suggest a drink after work … then before they knew it one drink had turned into five and they’d ended up at Maverick’s in town, dancing to cheesy eighties music until 4 a.m.
Among the ‘young ’uns’ on these nights out was Chris Bamford, a black-bearded lad, who was another Felix favourite. He had become particularly close to the cat in the past year as he’d helped Felix adjust to her rise to fame, often volunteering to assist with her media appearances. She used to follow him around the station, sometimes even into the car park for an inspection, and as she did so she upped the entertainment value of the outing by swatting playfully at the laces on his steel-capped boots. Brazen as anything, she would bat constantly at them with her paw as they bounced along in time with Chris’s strong and steady footsteps.
‘Felix, be careful!’ he would admonish her, fearful that he might just step on the station cat by accident as she dangerously darted in between his feet, her eyes fixed firmly on the teasing spectacle of those bouncing laces.
She would merely look up at him happily, her tail wagging back and forth like an eager puppy’s.
Another ‘young ’un’ was Dan, who’d started at the station just before Christmas as a new team leader. He was a good-humoured guy, aged twenty-seven, with a reddish-brown beard and dark eyes. Like many of the team at Huddersfield, he’d always wanted to work on the railway and had achieved his dream when he’d moved from a high-pressured job managing car parks at Manchester Airport to the team leader role at the station.
As a team leader, one of Dan’s first priorities was meeting Felix, whose role at Huddersfield he had learned all about while doing research before his interview. He was a cat person himself and thought the idea of working at a place that had its own cat was pretty darn cool. But while he was excited about the idea of working with Felix, he worried whether the feeling would be mutual …
To Dan’s relief, very quickly it became apparent that it was. From the moment he started working there, it was noticeable that Felix was not at all shy around the person who was now sat in the team leaders’ chair. She came and lay in the way of Dan’s work just as she did with all the others, and would harangue him for love and attention (and food) as she did with everyone else. It wasn’t long before Dan became a favourite of Felix. He was more than happy to give her some love and this affectionate attitude towards her soon had Felix following him around and running head over paws to greet him. Sara, arriving for work one day, witnessed Felix darting in the direction of Dan with unbelievable keenness as soon as she heard him coming.
‘That’s right, your boyfriend’s here now,’ Sara teased the cat – not missing the irony that Felix seemed to be doing better in love than she was. Sigh.
Felix was not the only team member with whom Dan instantly hit it off. The Manchester-based man had been quite apprehensive about starting work at Huddersfield – especially in a management role when he’d never worked on the railway before – but he found that Karl in particular was an immediate friend who made him feel welcome. He soon made friends with Sara too; the two of them found they had a huge amount in common and an identical sense of humour. Soon, Dan found that there wasn’t a day that went by when he wasn’t sharing a good laugh with her. The three of them – Dan, Sara and Karl – made a close-knit trio who brought a new, youthful energy to the team.
As for Felix, she found that the new year brought yet more fans to her Facebook page – and on 8 January 2017 she reached a very special milestone. Felix the Huddersfield station cat now had 100,000 followers.
It was fitting, for Felix’s fame and fortune were about to get bigger than ever before. For the past year, she had dominated the ‘new’ medium of social media. Yet Felix was about to prove that she was no flash-in-the-pan new-media star. Felix was on the cusp of bringing that same six-figure success to the oldest media of them all.
For Felix was about to become a literary superstar. Are you sitting comfortably? Then she’ll begin …
9. Read All About It
Penguin Books. It is perhaps the most famous publisher in the world; its logo of a black-and-white bird on an orange oval background instantly equated with literary quality. Since launching in 1935, the publisher’s authors have included such heavyweights as George Orwell, D. H. Lawrence and even the Brontë sisters themselves. In February 2017, the latest author to join its stable of world-class writers became none other than Felix the railway cat.
The news that Felix was to publish her life story (so far) was met with equal parts amusement, surprise and satisfaction among the team at Huddersfield station. She had become such a successful social-media celebrity that in many ways it seemed a natural next step; for Angie Hunte, for example, it was nothing less than Felix deserved. For others, however, the idea that a whole book could be written about a single cat – and that people might want to read it – was mind-boggling. Team leader Geoff, a dry-humoured, straight-talking chap who found the cat’s celebrity astonishing, found that his eyes rolled so far back in his head that it was touch-and-go whether they might ever return.