Beloved tram cat returns home for the final time

Benton loved meeting commuters... as long as the weather was dry

The memorial of a cat at a tram stop where he frequently cuddled up to commuters has now been returned to his former owners in an apparent "stroke of luck".

Benton, a black and white moggy, became well-known for visiting the Inham Road tram stop in Chilwell, Nottinghamshire, before he died in 2021.

Nottingham Express Transit (NET) subsequently added a poster about him to the stop's information board at the time.

However Ginny Hicks, the cat's owner, spotted a tram worker while travelling to work last month, who mentioned it would soon be taken down.

"She struck up a conversation with him," her daughter, Steph Hicks said.

"They offered really quickly to give [Benton's memorial] back to her and arranged it all... but if she hadn't been going to work at that time on that day, it might not have happened."

The memorial has now been separated from the rest of the information board and returned to the Hicks' family

The "sociable" feline was found as a stray by the Hicks' family when he was a four-month-old kitten, after almost being hit by a bus in 2015.

He ingratiated himself with the local community thereafter by visiting the Inham Road tram stop "pretty much every day".

Steph said: "He was a really big personality, even for a cat. He'd just go down there all the time, because he was smart enough to know that there's people that are going to be staying still there.

"If there was somebody out on the street, he wanted to be their friend.

"Since he's been gone, we end up speaking to people about him and his memory, complete strangers, bonding over the memories of Benton."

Benton had attracted hundreds of fans on social media

The memorial of Benton was formally delivered back to the family on 3 June.

"We're very touched by all of this, it just kind of feels like it's come full circle with him coming home," Steph said.

As an alternative to the memorial, information about Benton and a collage of pictures has been added to the tram stop's web page.

"So it's a bit bittersweet, because obviously we still miss Benton, but knowing that he was so loved, its a nice feeling."

According to Steph, NET needed to change the information board because it was "outdated", and there was no room to keep the memorial poster on the new version.

"[We're] completely fine with that. We feel really cared for by NET and the lovely gestures that they've done there," she said.