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

by Susan Finden

  I did a quick search and found the story on the BBC website, the Daily Telegraph, and the Daily Mail – they had all picked up on what Edd had written and put their own twist on it. Some papers had even covered the tale in their editorial columns, usually with excruciating puns. They were all very positive and kindly disposed towards Casper’s hobby, and I felt as if he were being taken to the hearts of the nation. People from the four corners of the world commented on online versions of the story. The story was taking on huge proportions.

  The response that day was incredible, but it was nothing compared to a few days later, when he appeared in newspapers and websites in Holland, Australia, India, China and South Africa. A newspaper in New York said:

  Not all pets prefer to travel by foot – some find taking public transportation a better way to get around. In the English city of Plymouth, 12-year-old Casper the cat has been surprising his fellow commuters by riding the bus by himself.

  No one was more surprised by all of this than me.

  By the end of the day after Edd had published his first article, I felt like I was living in the middle of a whirlwind. I almost expected a public relations guru to call, offering to represent Britain’s newest star. My address was very easy to find because of the mention in the paper, and my telephone number quite simple to get too. As a result, the phone never stopped ringing. I found myself agreeing to all sorts of people coming to meet Casper for more interviews and filming. I was doing what I had done all along, which was to agree to things for an easy life. I’d had such a positive experience with Edd that I became less wary of dealing with journalists. Thankfully, I never had this positivity challenged, and everyone who has dealt with Casper’s story from beginning to end has been a delight.

  I wasn’t keeping track of what I was agreeing to and a few days after the Plymouth Herald piece, I woke up one morning with butterflies in my tummy. It didn’t take long to realize why: I’d said that I would give some interviews to Today and even do some filming with Casper for news programmes, and everyone was scheduled to come at pretty much the same time. So much for my organizational skills!

  I pulled on some clothes and managed to get downstairs just as the doorbell rang. Standing outside was a whole gang of people, all jostling for my attention, all calling my name and asking for Casper. There was a film crew from the BBC and the director of First Devon and Cornwall. As well as Karen, the PR lady, and Jo, her assistant, there was a filming team from another BBC section called ‘Spotlight’, Devon Radio, photographers, journalists and goodness knows who else. It was pandemonium as they debated who would film what and when.

  Thankfully, Karen from First bus had arranged for one of their drivers to come along to stand in some more pictures, as I hated that side of things. This young chap was also called Rob, and he got on very well with Casper. As they stood there, posing for the photographer, I did have a slight fluttering in my tummy about how many people seemed to be interested already, but I told myself that whatever was going to happen would happen, and there was nothing I could do about it. It still didn’t seem that important, which was partly due to the friendliness of everyone; they made it seem so natural that it made me think that everything would calm down very soon.

  A young chap, who turned out to be from the ‘Spotlight’ team, stepped forward and introduced himself. He said that a bus had been arranged through Karen, and they were hoping to take Casper on it for some filming. I was a bit shell-shocked but agreed. They were like bees round a honey pot. Then I suddenly realized that I had no idea where Cassie was.

  I looked round frantically and was relieved to see one of the photographers lying on the floor with him, tickling him and being ever so friendly. He had such a way with Casper that I felt fine about turning my attention to the others while I heard the young man’s camera clicking away. As I kept talking, he quietly picked Casper up and smiled at me, whispering that he was going to get on a bus with him I felt quite relieved that my celebrity cat was being taken away from all the madness so I wouldn’t have to worry about him getting spooked while all these people were here.

  By the time he brought Casper back, I’d done lots of interviews and was starting to feel guilty that I didn’t have something new to tell each person. The honest truth was that I didn’t really know what Casper got up to every day; in fact, since the story had run, I was finding out more than ever before. Everyone said that I was doing well, but by the time I had to pick Cassie up and get on the bus with him for some filming, I was shattered. I’m no film star and I’d never thought I’d be signing up to have my face on screen first thing in the morning.

  Driving round the number three route was odd. There were no real passengers; instead the bus was full of journalists and photographers all desperate for their piece of my little cat. We did a few circuits so that they could all get the shots they wanted. By the end, I was happy to collapse at home, with Casper in my arms. As I put the kettle on, I laughed at the fact that he looked exhausted too, and certainly showed no inclination to go on another of his daily bus rides.

  ‘Well, Cassie,’ I said to him, once I had a cup of tea and he had some turkey roll, ‘that was certainly a very odd morning, wasn’t it? I’m not sure you and I are cut out for this lark. Never mind, it’s back to real life for us now You’ve had your five minutes of fame.’

  If I believed things would stop there, I was proven totally wrong. Once the new newspaper articles were published and the news clips aired, I started to get letters from all over the world. People were so drawn to Casper and his story, they wanted more information, more snippets from his life. It was also as if he were filling some terribly sad void that many of them had in their lives, as they told me of pets they had lost, families who had moved on, loneliness that filled their days.

  One lady wrote:

  Since I read about Casper, I cannot help thinking about the cats I have had over the years. We had kittens in the family when I was a little girl and I’ve always liked having a cat to come home to. I lost my husband of fifty-six years last Christmas, and our lovely tabby Hetty had died a few months earlier Now that all of my children are grown up with families of their own, I would love another cat to keep me company but I just cannot have one. I don’t have long myself and I would feel it so unfair to leave behind a cat or to think that one of my children felt forced to take it in. The story of Casper brought a smile to my face – as well as a few tears, and I wish you many happy years with him.

  These were lovely sentiments. I was delighted that people were taking time out of their busy lives to write to me; the least I could do was repay the compliment. I wrote back to every single person who contacted me by post, and tried to tell him or her interesting little things about Casper, so that they would feel as if they knew him.

  The media coverage continued: I was contacted by women’s magazines, pet magazines, columnists and websites. Casper’s fame was growing, but he was the same cat to me. He was still naughtily stealing food, not always washing, not paying attention to me and disappearing for hours on end. At least I now knew what he was up to when he disappeared. One of the newspaper articles worked out that if the drivers were telling the truth about how often he was on the bus and how far he rode, he had already travelled about 20,000 miles.

  The stories kept coming and I was getting to hear more and more, although the information came in snippets. People all over Plymouth were talking about Casper. One woman I knew who worked on the taxi buses, was laughingly discussing his adventures when a passenger said that she saw him lots and had never really thought anything about it until she read his story in the paper. That appeared to be of the experience of many locals. Perhaps it’s part of the British desire not to get involved. If Casper’s appearances on the bus were treated as normal by everyone else, then no one wanted to be the first to draw attention to him So, in turn, everyone thought it was fine, and Casper believed that he was entitled to go about his daily journey without interruption. I was so lucky that he always
seemed to be meeting the right people and that he had never once come across some ‘Jobsworth’ who thought that little Casper shouldn’t be on public transport and kicked him off.

  The Casper phenomenon was particularly strange for Chris, as he wasn’t around very often. He had to take long-distance jobs as and when they came up; he never knew if he would be in Scotland or Spain from one week to the next. He would tell people a few bits and pieces about what our strange cat was up to, but, to begin with, they all thought he was pulling their leg. Once they started reading about it in the Sun, the Guardian, and pretty much every other paper in the country, they realized that, bizarre though it may have sounded, he was telling the truth.

  Once, when Chris was driving to France, he had the radio on and heard Sarah Kennedy on Radio 2 talking about Casper. That’s my cat, he thought proudly. It didn’t change their relationship. Cassie didn’t suddenly develop airs and graces; he was still the same boy who jumped into the car beside Chris as soon as he pulled into the drive after a trip away.

  Casper made people happy: me, Chris, the drivers, everyone who read about him Despite the redundancies, the constant talk of recession and the unemployment figures rising, he put a smile on people’s faces. Rob said to me at one point that life’s just too serious. Lightness helps us all and you need to find happiness wherever you can. Casper gave everyone a bit of a break and reminded us that we can still find a bit of fun in our day-to-day lives.

  He was taking it all in his stride but I wished that someone had told me what to expect and how to deal with it. There seem to be no guidelines handed out to people who are suddenly thrust into the media spotlight, and I would have welcomed some dearly.

  CHAPTER 18

  How to Deal with Fame

  Casper

  Assume that everyone is a good person – yes, they may want to write a story about you; yes, they may want to take your photograph, but as this will not interfere with the important things in life (such as riding buses or napping), allow them access. After all, it’s no skin off your whiskers.

  Do not be embarrassed or shy about the barter side of the deal – every celebrity has their price and, in my experi ence, most journalists are perfectly happy to engage in a spot of belly-rubbing, ear-scratching or coat-brushing to prove that they are fundamentally decent, if misrepresented, individuals.

  Leave all the tricky stuff to your person – in fact, don’t even concern yourself with the things that take up so much of their time, such as deadlines, phone calls and suchlike. A cat may have nine lives, but none of them is meant to be stressful.

  Give your person a little comfort in return – they seem to become inordinately stressed about the way in which their head fur should be fashioned, whether they are required to paint bright colours on parts of their faces and if their costume is ‘just right’. When they seem to be running around not achieving anything, jump on any pile of clothes they have discarded and roll on your back. They will be delighted, even if such delight seems to result in them running about even more and shriek ing a little.

  When the doorbell rings, run away – you may even wish to ‘hide’ somewhere they can see you quite easily, but find themselves unable to access. I’m sure that everyone finds this as funny as I do.

  If you are expected to perform – for example, I have been asked to pose for pictures beside the wrong bus, and board a bus when it is clearly not the one I’m waiting for – be gracious. You will be repaid very soon, usually in the form of turkey roll and cuddles.

  After a while, when the attention has quietened down, your person will invite you to ‘listen to this’, or ‘come and watch this’. For these purposes, you are expected to sit beside them while they read to you from a newspaper or put the noisy picture box on. Every so often, they will say your name excitedly, showing the simple side to their nature, for we know that the more interesting activities would be to roll on the newspaper or hit the picture box with our paws every time something moves.

  Do not change your behaviour – this is not because people will say that fame has gone to your head, but because dogs will laugh at you. Need I say more?

  CHAPTER 19

  Joining the World of Celebrity Cats

  Of course, Casper wasn’t the only cat who had gained fame for his travels, nor was he the only one who had discovered the pleasures of riding on the bus. A couple of years before Casper became famous, I read about a white cat called Macavity who was in the papers because he liked to get on the bus from Walsall to Wolverhampton most mornings and ride for 400 metres to his favourite fish and chip shop. Passengers commented that he was the perfect passenger: he was quiet, minded his own business and never distracted the driver – just like Casper. I wondered whether he and Macavity had known each other at some point earlier in their lives and discussed their love of buses.

  They weren’t the only cats who had hit the headlines. I recalled reading about another called Kofi who’d gone missing for nearly four years. His owner had moved house from Nottingham to Sheffield, and, though she desperately missed her lovely cat, she’d given up hope of ever seeing him again. Little did she know that Kofi was both adventurous and determined. After he was picked up by the RSPCA wandering around Ipswich, looking lost and undernourished with an infected flea bite, they checked to see if he was microchipped. He was, and was soon reunited with his delighted owner. I guess that Casper clocked up a lot more than the 120 miles Kofi was estimated to have gone in his travels, but he did much of it in the luxury of a number three bus.

  Plenty of other cats have been returned to their human families years after going missing, such as Dixie from Birmingham who took nine years to find her way back. Her mum said that her personality hadn’t changed one little bit since the day she disappeared, but I wonder whether these creatures have experiences that scar them in one way or another. For a domestic cat to survive in the wild for such a long time is a miracle – perhaps they are taken in at some point by another family, or perhaps they are the lucky ones. Whatever happens, it always lifts my heart when I read or hear of another little moggy finding its way home to the ones who love him or her.

  Perhaps the most impressive journey of all that I’ve heard of was that of Sandi, the ginger and white cat from Portsmouth. When he went missing one Friday, his owners were frantic because he’d never disappeared before. They handed out leaflets and put up posters everywhere, hoping against hope that someone would have information about where he was. They couldn’t quite believe it when they got a call three days later to say that Sandi had indeed been found – in Spain!

  He had been discovered onboard a P&O ferry, The Pride of Bilbao, on a Saturday night sailing from Portsmouth to the Spanish port. It was thought that Sandi got into a car that had then driven onto the ferry, then hopped out when it arrived in port. Thankfully, he had been chipped and was returned to his owners, otherwise the poor thing would probably have been put down, as no one would have known where he’d come from or whom he belonged to, and there may have been a fear of rabies. As it was, he was treated like a VIP, with a cabin to himself for the return journey home and meals of chicken and salmon. One report said that most of the staff had been in to give him a cuddle and would be sad to see him go.

  Although there are always bad apples in the bunch, Britain is generally a nation of animal lovers, and I find that we do reach out our hearts to cats, dogs and all sorts of other creatures. When we stumble across them by accident, and somewhere we don’t expect to see them – a bus or a chemist’s shop, for example – it’s such a lovely surprise that I believe our good nature takes over and we can’t help but show kindness and affection.

  Once Casper’s story started to get so much attention, I became interested in finding out more about other creatures who’d undertaken strange trips. I found more than I could have imagined and I’d love to share a few of them with you.

  Throughout history, cats have done the most amazing things. Often their journeys are undertaken not out of curiosity or be
cause they are lost, but to meet more basic needs, such as finding their kittens.

  Over a hundred years ago, there was one remarkable creature called Daisy. Although apparently born in Ireland, Daisy was left at a transportation company in Oswego, New York, by some passengers who had left their homeland in 1871. Daisy was regarded as a welcome addition to the buildings, as she was an excellent rat catcher.

  Rather like a lot of ladies with careers, Daisy was caught out by nature. One day it was discovered that she had given birth to two kittens, but, for some reason, she had disappeared. This was very strange behaviour, as the babies were barely a week old.

  Daisy had been known for her lovely nature and diligence, so it seemed very peculiar that she would go against what her body would be telling her and abandon her little ones. One gentleman who worked for the transportation company, the rather appropriately (or inappropriately) named Mr Pigeon, took the kittens home and tried to raise them Sadly, without their mother’s attention or milk, they died.

  Many, many weeks later, one of other workers in the company was crossing a bridge at the depot when he met – as is reported in a journal of the time – ‘the living skeleton’ of Daisy. The same report tells that she was covered in mud, torn and bruised, with her tail almost worn off. She headed straight for the office where she had left her babies all those weeks ago and ‘wauled’ for them. Her poor heart must have broken as she searched high and low for the little mites who had by then passed on. She was comforted by those who worked at the company but she wouldn’t settle.