by Susan Finden
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.
CHAPTER 22
Putting Plymouth on the Map
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.
Marc’s own little boy, Liam, although only a toddler, was starting to link what Daddy did with the cat on the bus. Rob, the driver who had done so much publicity with Casper, had two little girls, Caitlin and Libby, who saw their dad with him and were amazed. They suddenly believed that Daddy was famous and were desperate to meet the cat who was all over the news.
One day I got talking to a young teenage girl at the bus stop and asked her if she had ever seen Casper. ‘No,’ she replied, ‘but my dad has had him on his bus.’ Everyone knew Casper! I met her dad, Mike, a few days later and he told me that his five children and four grandchildren all knew about Cassie and they came together to hear stories about him. Mike had welcomed Casper on his bus on many occasions and seen him in the bus shelter even more often – well before the story came out. He says that cats do like bus shelters and he often sees them there, but he’s never before come across one who actually got on the bus.
It put a smile on his face but I felt positively faint when he told me something that I’d never suspected: Casper apparently did not just do the number three circuit; he sometimes got off at the Square, crossed the road and got on another bus to Saltash. Mike joked that Cassie must have had something to do there, as he always seemed quite focused on his trip, but my blood ran cold. Just how far was this cat travelling and how many times was he facing danger every day? Mike has rescue cats and he knew that I was worried when I heard this, but there was nothing I could really do apart from cross my fingers every time my cat left the house.
Another bus driver was gaining a bit of celebrity status himself. Wookie is well known across Plymouth for his various props: the large foam hand he sticks out his window to give the thumbs up to any driver who lets him out, the deerstalker with ear flaps and peaked cap that he wears no matter what the weather and the bizarre green cuddly toy monkey he carries everywhere. Wookie took pictures of Casper and Monkey sharing a snack of chips together, and even posted photos of the two of them on Facebook. If ever anyone epitomized British eccentricity, it was Wookie, and I feel that he and Casper would have got on brilliantly if Cassie ever decided to get on his bus. He considered it on many occasions, but perhaps thought that the luminous green monkey was too much competition.
I heard so many lovely tales from the drivers of how Casper was a wonderful talking point when they arrived home after a shift that my heart was full of pride at how much my little cat was achieving without doing very much. Our society is so fractured at times, and families feel such pressure with work and trying to juggle everything at once, that the happy topic of a cat on the bus brought some light relief and provided a common subject. It wasn’t just the drivers and those at the depot who were experiencing this, but passengers too.
One gentleman contacted me some time after Casper’s story first hit the papers. He wrote:
Dear Sue –
I have been reading the stories about your delightful cat with great interest. Some time ago, I lived in a small state in America where I worked as a teacher When I moved there, a tiny ginger and white cat, not much bigger than a men, had been hanging around the school playground and the teachers weren’t too sure what to do about it. The school I worked in was what we would probably now call one for those with learning difficulties – at the time, there was less concern for what to name things, but sometimes not as much concern as I would have liked for the children. They loved to see this little cat, but there were two members of staff in particular who were adamant that she should be discouraged. The way in which there were so many arguments about this cat taught me more about the school politics than I could have learned in years. The head teacher had named the cat ‘Betsy’ after a cat she herself had loved as a child, and even the way that some teachers refused to call it by that name was a clear indication of how little they liked the head teacher herself rather than anything else. There was a standoff about Betsy the entire time I was at that school which was almost four years. All I could see was that there were children with allergies, or who could not have a pet for other reasons, who lit up when they saw this little ginger thing run across to them. I could see that there were children who were so used to being frustrated by life, by the things they couldn’t do, but who would brighten when they held her in their arms. They always managed to be gentle with her, and she always seemed to know just what they needed. I came back to the UK and never did find out the fate of Betsy, but, for some reason, when I read about Casper in the paper, he reminded me of her all those years ago. I would be willing to bet that your cat has given more love and more hope to people than you can possibly imagine. I now have three cats myself and I am constantly amazed by how they just seem to sense what we need – it seems as if Casper was very much a ‘people cat’ and I am sure that he would have cottoned on to what his fellow travellers needed.
Jim, Manchester
I wish I knew what had happened to Betsy too.
My cats had always shown tremendous compassion for us and for their fellow felines whenever they needed to, and I had no reason to suspect that Casper was any different. I was very proud of my cat for drawing families together and giving a little bit of comfort to people who saw him every day.
CHAPTER 23
Pulling Together
I knew from experience that cats can be a great source of comfort in times of need. The year before we got Casper, Chris had been feeling very
unwell and we were pretty sure that he had kidney stones. He went to the doctor for some confirmation blood tests one morning before going to work. The results came through that evening, such was the urgency of what had been uncovered.
He was told to get home immediately and be at the haematology department of our local hospital the next afternoon. I couldn’t understand why he would be sent there for kidney stones. We drove to the hospital in a haze. We were both pretty sure what was going on, as all of Chris’s symptoms pointed to the diagnosis we felt sure he was going to receive. As soon as we arrived, he was taken in to the specialist, who didn’t waste any time in telling us what was wrong.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘there’s no easy way to tell you this. You have leukaemia.’
When she spoke those words, I turned around and looked at the wall behind me. Who was she talking to, I wondered? It couldn’t be us, could it? No, we were here because Chris had kidney stones. She needed to concentrate, I felt, get things right, make sure she had the correct notes. Leukaemia? That was cancer. Chris couldn’t possibly have cancer, he just couldn’t.
There was no one behind us and she was talking to my husband. It was his diagnosis and our world shattered around us the moment the consultant uttered those words. So many people have been in exactly the same position; I’m sure they’ve felt totally alone, just as we did. There were words floating around that no one wants applied to them or to someone they love – chronic myeloid, oncology, chemotherapy. All of these words are so loaded. When you hear them being said to the person you share your life with, it’s like a bomb exploding. You wish that the clock could be turned back – not weeks or months but to that moment before you heard the word ‘cancer’.