Why a railway station is getting a statue of a cat

A cat that became a railway station's unofficial mascot is to be immortalised near the spot where it befriended passengers over the years.

An agreement's been reached for a sculpture and plaque to be put on a disused ticket barrier where Paul - named after Hollywood actor Paul Newman - was regularly seen by commuters at Liverpool South Parkway.

The cat died in January 2023 and since then there has been a campaign for a permanent tribute run by Lynn Kilpatrick, who set up a Facebook page dedicated to Paul, and owner Steff Hudson, from Garston.

Merseyrail said the cat was a "much-loved part of the Merseyrail family".

Merseyrail said: "We've been working closely with Steff, to agree a fitting way to remember him at the station, and we look forward to seeing this installed soon."

Hudson, who bought Paul when he was around 10 months old, first learned of the cat's affection for the station when she was phoned by Merseyrail to say her cat was at the rail interchange.

She apologised and took Bengal cat Paul home, only to find he kept returning to the station.

"In the end the staff said he wasn't causing any bother so to just leave him there.

"Sometimes he stayed longer, and he believed he had a job there. And his job was to ensure that tickets were paid and that people kept order," she added.

She said Paul was already an online phenomenon when he died in January 2023, aged 16.

"One day I came into work and one of my friends at work said 'your cat's got a Facebook page," Hudson said.

"I am totally technophobic, and I said, 'Well it's not me I don't know anything about it'.

"And then he showed me all these stories, and it wasn't till a good while afterwards that I actually met up with Lynn."

Kilpatrick said she had set up the social media page because Paul "deserved his own Facebook page... you could see he had character".

"So I started writing little stories for him and people loved it.

"I got loads of followers, yeah, all over the world," she added.

Hudson said the statue would ensure the cat lived on in people's memories, adding: "It should do, because he brought a lot of happiness and brought a lot of people together, and it's important in this very dark age that we have a little bit of happiness and a little bit of unity.

"Even people who didn't like cats would say, 'Oh, I like Paul'."

Hudson said: "I will shed a tear when [the statue] is unveiled... sometimes when I am here I can still hear him calling, because he had a very distinct call."

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