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If you travel to and from work via Gipsy Hill Station, chances are you will have spotted a friendly black and white cat roaming on platform 1.

The loveable black and white moggy, called Fanny, has been catching mice at the station, in Crystal Palace, for more than four years but her origin story has not been revealed until now.

Her owners, who wanted to be named only as Amy and Alex, told the Advertiser how their outgoing little cat was housebound for the first 18 months of her life and is now "making up for it".

Alex said: "Fanny was born in Hertford and came to Gipsy Hill when she was just a couple of months old and she is now six.



"She was housebound for the first 18 months of her life but has made up for it since.

"She is very outgoing and obviously very friendly and it goes without saying she is a free spirit - when she is home she walks about like she owns the place."



The pair, who reportedly live "just over the road from the station", said Fanny sometimes gets lavished with gifts from her fans.

"The staff just seem to let her do her thing - they have even be so nice as to receive packages from Fanny's Twitter fans," Alex added.



Fanny is followed by almost 4,000 people on her Twitter account @ TheGipsyHillCat , where commuters have submitted more than 1,000 photos of her since 2013.

Alex added: "Before we set up a Twitter page for her, there were a bunch of pictures of her with commuters on Twitter and Instagram - seeing that for the first time was bizarre."

But despite her fame, there are some things which still scare her – like crossing to platform 2 or getting on a train – much to Alex's relief.



Alex said one of the most memorable moments he and Amy have with Fanny is how much support the local community offered after she was hit by a car last July, rupturing her diaphragm.

More than £2,000 was donated to pay for Fanny's emergency operation within an hour of the fundraiser being launched.

A year later, Fanny is back to her outgoing self and can often be seen sitting in commuters' laps, lounging across the Oyster card reader or hogging the bench on platform 1.

Fanny not a lone wolf –she is sometimes joined on the platform by her ginger-step brother Quiche, who Alex describes as "a scaredy cat who licks people's toes a lot".



A Southern Rail spokesman said the rail provider feeds Fanny for her hard work as an unofficial member of station staff.

He said: "The Gipsy Hill station cat has lived at the station for many years and is very popular with passengers.

"She makes regular patrols of the ticket hall and platforms, apparently very effectively as no mice have been seen.

"She gets paid in free food and seems happy with that - she hasn't ever asked for anything else."