Casper The Commuting Cat: The True Story Of The Cat Who Rode The Bus And Stole Our Hearts

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