Casper the Commuting Cat: The True Story of the Cat Who Rode the Bus and Stole Our Hearts (16 page)

He always found a way to get out – he was such a little escape artist. Unless I fitted this cat with a tracking device, I would never be able to keep an eye on him twenty-four hours a day – even then, I bet he would have found a way to get round it. Casper didn’t just enjoy being a wanderer, he seemed to need his freedom desperately. Perhaps it was a legacy from his life before us, but it was causing me more sleepless nights than ever.

Casper’s fame had brought new people to the fore. I’d had a few showing what I felt was too much interest in where I’d got Cassie. One day Edd rang me to say that something strange had happened. A man had called him to say that he believed Casper was his cat and he was, in effect, putting in a claim on him He wanted to talk to me; he wanted to come and see Casper. Edd asked whether I was willing for him to give the man my phone number? What could I say?

I’d got Casper ‘second-hand’ and knew that he had a life before me; there had always been the chance that he had another family out there who would track him down one day. I remembered what had happened when the vet had discovered he was chipped all those years ago: the cat rescue lady had been desperate to ensure that Casper remained with me as she felt that he could not be returned to his previous home. Although she hadn’t been able to give me any more details, there was an implication that he had been with someone who’d abused him I would fight with every breath in my body to keep him from being returned to such an environment.

Minutes after I’d spoken to Edd, the man rang me. He seemed friendly and said that he, his wife and his two teenage children would like to come and see Casper – or ‘Tom’ as they called him When they arrived, I was nervous, but Cassie showed absolutely no interest in them whatsoever. When they called him using the name they said they’d given him, he didn’t prick up his ears.

I asked them why they thought he was theirs and how they’d lost him in the first place. The man informed me that they’d had ‘Tom’ for a few years and then got a kitten. Once the kitten was brought into the family, ‘Tom’ started spending most of his time with an old lady who lived nearby. When she moved, ‘Tom’ disappeared. I wondered why they’d left it all this time to track him down, but they were very evasive and couldn’t even remember if he’d been chipped.

They didn’t get down on the floor to play with Casper, they didn’t hug him or seem relieved to have found him, which I would have expected if he had been the cat they’d lost all those years ago. They took lots of pictures as I asked again why they thought he was their cat. All they could come up with was that he had the same markings – black, white and brown.

This comment confirmed to me that they were making it all up. Casper would not have had brown splodges on him when he was younger; these were the equivalent of age spots that had appeared after years of lying in the sun. Strangely, they made no further attempts to claim Casper; they simply said ‘goodbye’ and left. I told Edd about it, but neither of us heard from them again, and I suspect they just wanted a day out to see the famous cat.

I took the opportunity to contact the chip people in order to try to find out a bit more about Casper’s life before he’d come to me, but it was rather like dealing with an adoption agency. The whole process is shrouded in secrecy. All they would tell me was that he was originally called Danny and had been registered in Hampshire. It was very frustrating but I had to accept that I would never know the full story. Even after Casper died and I contacted them again, pleading for details and pointing out that surely privacy wasn’t an issue now that he was gone, they refused to say anything.

I had my hands full with other matters too. In 2009, Jack started to deteriorate rapidly. He was one of Chris’s favourites, but I knew that I would have to be the one to make the decision about whether it was his time to pass. He was getting thinner and thinner, because he was not eating properly and he was becoming weaker by the day. I’d been off work for some time with my own health problems but I knew that I would have to go back at some point soon. I was terribly worried about how Jack would cope while I was away. He was at the stage where he had to be helped in practically all of his day-to-day activities, such as being taken to his food dish or lifted into the litter tray.

One day, about a week or so before I was due to return to work, it was awfully cold and I couldn’t find Jack anywhere. I went outside to look for him; although he was rarely venturing anywhere by that stage, I’d searched high and low inside with no luck. I opened the back door and there was the poor creature, huddled in the corner of the decking in the pouring rain. He wasn’t attempting to find shelter; he looked like he’d given up. He was soaked through, completely bedraggled. ‘Oh, Jack!’ I cried, rushing over to lift him up and rush him indoors to the warmth. ‘What are you up to, you silly old thing?’

I tried to convince myself that he’d been caught unexpectedly in a downpour, but I knew there was something seriously wrong. This was strange behaviour and I wondered whether his mind was going. It was almost as if he hadn’t noticed it was raining, or as if he couldn’t quite work out why he was so wet. As I dried him off with a towel and laid him by the fire to get warm, I gave him a gentle ticking off, more to appease myself than anything else. ‘Now then,’ I told him, ‘we’ll have no more of that silly behaviour. I think it best that you stay indoors where I can keep an eye on you.’

I tried to convince myself this was a one-off, but a few hours later he was missing again. I opened the back door straight away this time, and there he was. I had an old ceramic washbowl full of plants that I kept in the garden and it was overflowing with rainwater that day. Poor Jack was desperately trying to climb in. His legs had never worked properly and he was certainly far too weak to manage now, but he wouldn’t give up. I knew that the decision had, in effect, been made for me. Just as I’d feared, his mind had gone.

Over the next few days, he kept wanting out, but I did my best to keep him inside. I was so scared that after I returned to work I would come home one day and he would have disappeared. What if I couldn’t find him and he got trapped somewhere? I had to have him put down. It’s the hardest decision in the world to make, but you have to get over it and do what’s best for your pet. It was a stark reminder to me that in the midst of all the excitement over Casper life went on as normal and there were still pockets of sadness in it.

Things had calmed down a little with respect to Casper’s fame when I got a call from Karen at First buses in the autumn. She said the company was launching a new type of bus and they were going to feature pictures of local people on the side panels. There would be a policeman, students, the dean of the university, all sorts of people – and they wanted Casper and me to be included. I was flattered but a bit worried at the thought of more pictures. Karen managed to convince me that it would be a nice gesture and a bit of fun; she said people were still asking about Casper and it would cement his position as one of Plymouth’s most famous residents.

Everyone else had to go to into the main office to get their posters done, but Casper got special treatment, as always, and Karen came to my house to put together the images herself. I could hardly believe the size of them when I saw the finished product – they were quite literally the size of a bus. Casper and I were there for all to see, and we were chosen to launch the new vehicle.

This started off another round of publicity and, before I knew it, we were in women’s magazines as well as newspapers. I started to get recognized a lot as I waited for the bus wherever I was, but people were always lovely to me.

The whole experience made me realize how many animal lovers there were out there. For so much of my life, I’d thought that no one else felt the same emotional pull as I did to other creatures, and there were times when I wondered if it was normal to get as upset as I did by cruelty to animals. My dream then, and now, would be to have a refuge of my own. If I won the lottery, I’d get a rambling farmhouse, a solid building surrounded by land, and I would take in anything that needed love and care – not just cats and dogs, but donkeys, birds, horses, all of God’s creatures.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve become more vocal if I see people being cruel or thoughtless. I’ve also linked up with others who help animals, such as a donkey charity in Egypt called AWOL (Animal Welfare of Luxor, wwwawolegypt.org), which is run by an English couple, Pauline and Graham Warren. They try to re-educate Egyptians about the cruel practices they use, particularly the way they chain and tether their animals. Every night, this couple make soft webbing harnesses for the donkeys near Luxor. They visit those who use the cruellest chains and buckles, offering to trade them the soft, better quality items if they hand over the old-fashioned, evil implements. They also make reflective dog collars in small sizes. Sadly, dogs suffer dreadful neck wounds from being tied up with wire or sharp ropes. You can imagine the injuries caused. In the few years Pauline and Graham have been in Luxor, they have built up a rapport with the people and gained their respect. They also rescue dogs and cats and have quite a menagerie of their own. Their work is supported by donations from around the world. I do all I can to help their efforts. When we go over on holiday, we fill the case with as many medical supplies as we can: bandages, antiseptic creams etc. and anything to assist this couple in helping Egyptian animals. And lots of other things that they constantly need.

If you are visiting Luxor, please assist AWOL by taking any small amount of medical supplies and dog collars. This will assist this lovely, caring couple in helping to improve the safety and welfare of Egyptian animals. Contact them through their website.

I would urge everyone to be vigilant when they go abroad – don’t simply accept things. If you see an animal being badly treated or beaten and you say nothing, you are contributing to its suffering. Most of these places depend on the tourist trade and if we all made it clear that we do not accept this type of behaviour, then maybe we can make a difference. I would have felt silly saying such things before Casper opened my eyes to the fact that there are so many people who feel the same as I do. Through Casper, I’ve found kindred spirits, good people who share my dream Now I hope that we can shout with one voice to change things.

If there is anyone reading this who feels terrible loneliness, you should consider giving an abandoned cat a home. A cat will be the most loyal friend you could ever hope for. Whatever you give them, you will get back a hundredfold. You will never regret getting a cat – I certainly never did.

There were so many lovely aspects to what was going on with Casper that I had to laugh. When the original story had come out, I loved the line that said the drivers would count, ‘Person, person, person, cat, person, person . . .’ There were lots of puns in the newspapers about Casper’s bus ‘puss’ and about the fact that he didn’t have a Rover ticket.

The managing director of the bus company, Marc, says that he used to love coming into work and finding a stressful day punctuated by Casper stories. When he went to conferences and meetings, there was always someone who would bring up the subject of the cat who travelled on a First bus. He told me they got round the issue of whether Casper should have to pay (dogs do) by saying that in animal years he was a pensioner so he was entitled to free travel.

Like Rob, he thought someone was pulling his leg at first. He has a stressful job and here was someone wanting him to talk to the media about a cat who would only travel on a number three from his company – no wonder he was suspicious. As the stories of Casper did the rounds of the control office, he had to believe them. He’d been warned by Karen that there was about to be an explosion of interest in what was going on. Marc has since told me that he has heard stories of monkeys and parrots as assistance animals on public transport, so I suppose a bus-loving cat isn’t too strange.

He wondered for a while if it was an urban myth, but once he’d accepted it, he started to wonder whether Casper might ride on his bus one day. This isn’t as odd as it may sound, because in spite being in charge of the entire company, Marc still works as a driver sometimes. He was highly offended when he didn’t receive the honour of Casper’s patronage, but was soon distracted by friends and colleagues pulling his leg about how many awful puns he could squeeze in while doing interviews about Plymouth’s favourite feline. There were plenty of mentions of ‘furrs please, and ‘cat-astrophic’ happenings. Never one to miss a chance for some good product placement, the company line was that Casper obviously had good taste to choose only their buses and he appreciated the first class customer service – I couldn’t disagree with any of that.

A little depot rivalry developed among the drivers, who would boast about how many times they’d had Casper on their bus. If a colleague hadn’t been given that honour, they’d reflect on what good taste Casper had in choosing them.

Again, Marc reaffirmed my faith in British affection and humour. He told me that as long as Casper was causing no trouble and customers weren’t complaining, there was absolutely no need to do anything to impede his journeys. They were only being human, he says, but I feel they went beyond the call of duty.

There are thirty-eight Plymouths in the world but my little cat put the English one on the map. People there had never experienced a local story becoming such a huge global phenomenon. Lots of drivers told me that they went home to their families at night and the first thing their children would ask them was: ‘Did you have Casper on your bus today?’ He was bringing families closer together. One chap told me that his wife and son hadn’t shown any interest in his work for years, but all of a sudden they wanted him home in the hope that he could give them the latest update on the funny cat.