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Come and meet
James Bowen and Bob the cat
James and Bob will be signing copies of their new book
A STREET CAT NAMED BOB
At Waterstones, Islington Green, London
on Tuesday 13th March 2012 at 6pm
Bob looked at it and tilted his head ever‑so‑slightly. It was, again, as if he recognised the image of the pair of us.
I stared at the scrap of paper for what must have been a couple of minutes, lost in my thoughts.
I’d been wrestling with the same old questions for so long now. Truth be told, I was thoroughly sick of them. But tonight had brought them to the fore again. How many more times would I have to put myself and Bob in the firing line? Would I ever break this cycle and get us off the streets?
I flattened the flyer out neatly and folded it away in my pocket.
‘I hope this is the answer, Bob,’ I said. ‘I really do.’
Chapter 18. Waiting for Bob
It was barely 9am but my stomach was already churning away like a cement mixer.
I’d made some toast but couldn’t touch it for fear of being physically sick. If I felt like this now, I asked myself, how on earth was I going to feel in nine hours’ time?
The publishers had organised the signing, thinking it would be a good opportunity to generate some London publicity, and maybe attract a few people to buy a copy or two at the same time. As well as handing out flyers down in Covent Garden I had even detoured via Angel a couple of times. We still had a few friends there, thankfully.
Waterstones in Islington had been the obvious venue. The store was part of my story in more ways than one. Not only had the staff there helped us when we’d had nowhere to go a year or so earlier, they even featured in one of the more dramatic scenes in the book. One weekday evening, I’d run in the front door, desperate and panic‑stricken, when Bob had run off after being scared by an aggressive dog at Angel tube station.
In the days running up to the event I’d started giving interviews to more newspapers but also to radio and television. To help me get used to this, I’d been sent to a specialist media trainer in central London. It was a bit intimidating. I had to sit in a sound‑proofed room having myself recorded and then analysed by an expert. But he had been gentle with me and had taught me a few tricks of the trade. During one of the first recordings, for instance, I’d made the classic mistake of fiddling with a pen while talking. When it was played back to me all I could hear was the sound of me tapping the pen against the desk like some manic rock drummer. It was incredibly distracting and annoying.
The trainer prepared me for the sort of questions I could expect. He predicted, quite rightly, that most people would want to know how I’d ended up on the streets, how Bob had helped changed my life and what the future held for us both. He also prepared me to answer questions about whether I was clean of drugs, which I was happy to do. I felt I had nothing to hide.
The pieces the newspapers and bloggers had been writing were almost universally nice. A writer from the London Evening Standard had said some lovely things about Bob, writing that he ‘has entranced London like no feline since the days of Dick Whittington’. But he also upset me a little by writing about the holes in my jeans and my ‘blackened teeth and nails’. He also described me as having the ‘pleading manner of someone who is used to being ignored’. I’d been warned to expect that kind of thing; it went with the territory and the bottom line was that I knew I was ‘damaged goods’ as that same writer called me. It wasn’t pleasant though.
The signing had been scheduled two days ahead of the official publication date, March 15th, which also happened to be my 33rd birthday.
I hoped that wasn’t going to put a hex on everything. Birthdays hadn’t exactly been a cause for celebration in my life, certainly not since my teens.
I had spent my 13th birthday in a children’s ward at the Princess Margaret Children’s Hospital in Western Australia. It had been a miserable time in my young life and had only accelerated my downward spiral. Not long afterwards I’d started sniffing glue and experimenting with marijuana. It was the start of my long descent into drug addiction.
Fast forward ten years, to my 23rd birthday, and I’d been on the streets of London. I might have spent it in a hostel, but I could just as easily have been sleeping rough in an alleyway around Charing Cross. At that point my life was at rock bottom and I had absolutely no recollection of it. The days, weeks, months and years had all blended into each other. The chances are that, if I had been aware it was my birthday, I’d have spent the day trying to beg, borrow or – most likely – steal the money I needed to treat myself to an extra wrap of heroin. I’d probably taken the same reckless gamble I’d taken a hundred times before and risked overdosing by taking an ‘extra hit’. I could easily have ended up like that guy I’d seen on the landing of my flats.
Ten years further down the road, my life had finally taken a positive turn. That period now seemed like another life and another world. When I looked back I found it hard to believe that I’d lived through that period. But, for good or bad, it would always be a part of me. It was certainly a part of the book. I’d decided not to sugar‑coat my story. It was virtually all there, warts and all, which was another one of the reasons I felt so racked with nerves.
In the hours before the signing, I was due to be filmed by a photographer and cameraman from the Reuters international news agency. He wanted to take a series of photos of Bob and I going about our normal, day‑to‑day life, travelling around on the tube then busking on Neal Street. I was quite glad of the distraction. By the time I’d finished with the photographer, it was early evening.
A damp chill was beginning to descend when we got back to Islington and made the familiar walk from Angel tube station. There was no sign of the guy who had ‘acquired’ my pitch outside the tube station. A flower seller told me that the guy and his dog had been causing all sorts of trouble and had already been stripped of the pitch by the co‑ordinators. There was now no one from The Big Issue selling magazines outside Angel.
‘What a waste,’ I said. ‘I’d built that pitch up into a nice earner for someone.’ But that wasn’t my concern any more. I had other things to worry about.
Bob and I walked through Islington Memorial Park towards Waterstones. We were early so I let Bob do his business and sat on the bench to enjoy a quiet cigarette. Part of me felt like a condemned man, enjoying a final, fleeting moment of pleasure before going to face the firing squad. But another part of me felt a sense of anticipation. I felt like I was on the verge of a fresh start in my life; that, for want of a better phrase, a new chapter in my life was beginning.
I felt queasier than ever. I had so many conflicting thoughts fighting for space in my head. What if no one turned up? What if loads of people turned up and thought the book was rubbish? How would Bob react if there was a crowd? How would people react to me? I wasn’t a typical author. I wasn’t a polished public personality. I was a guy who was still operating on the fringes of society. Or at least, that’s how it felt. I knew people would love Bob, but I was terrified that they’d hate me.
I drew on the last remnant of my cigarette, making it last for as long as possible. The nerves had solidified inside me to such an extent that I felt like someone had punched me really hard in the stomach.
Luckily Bob was being extra cool for both of us. He spent a couple of minutes rooting around in a favourite little spot then sauntered back to me. He just gave me a look as if to say: ‘it’s all right, mate, it’s all good.’
It was uncanny how he was able to calm me.
Arriving at the bookshop about half an hour before the signing was due to start, there were four or five people standing in line outside. Ah well, someone has turned up at least, I said to myself, relieved. They all smiled at us and I gave them a sheepish wave. I couldn’t quite get my head round the idea that people were giving up an hour of their evening to come and meet us. There were a few more people inside the store as well. They were all stood in a queue to pay and were all holding copies of the book.
Alan, the manager, invited me upstairs to the staff room where I could wait for the signing to start.
‘You can have a glass of wine and Bob can have a saucer of milk. You can take it easy for a minute before things get under way,’ he said, sensing my nervousness.
I wasn’t sure whether to keep a clear head or to have a drink for Dutch courage. I decided on the former. I’d have a glass of wine afterwards.
Belle, Mary, Garry and a bunch of people from the publishers were there to wish me luck. There was also a stack of books for me to sign for general sale in the store. Someone had come up with the rather bright idea of having a paw‑shaped stamp so that Bob could also ‘sign’ each book. I got to work scrawling on the first copies. Belle added the final flourishing touch with the paw stamps. There were at least two dozen books in the pile. Were they sure they’d even sell this many?
The staff from the store seemed positive. At one point one of them arrived beaming.
‘It’s stretching all the way around the block,’ she smiled.
‘What is?’ I said, stupidly.
‘The queue. It’s stretching all the way back around the corner. There’s probably a hundred people there with more joining all the time.’
I was speechless. I didn’t think it was possible to feel any more anxious, but somehow I did. There was an open window next to me. For a moment, I thought about climbing out of it, shinning my way down the drainpipes and making a hasty escape.
As the clock ticked down towards 6pm, Bob climbed up on my shoulder and we headed back down to the main store. On the landing at the bottom of the first flight of stairs, I knelt down and took a sneaky look down on to the shop floor. My heart jumped into my throat. It was heaving with people.
A table stacked with books had been laid out ready for me and Bob. The line of people waiting to file past it was stretching along the bookshelves all the way to the entrance and out into the dark March evening. They were right. There must have been a hundred people and more in it. At the other side of the store, a separate queue of people were lined up, buying copies of the book. There was even a group of photographers and a television cameraman there.
It was surreal, an out‑of‑body experience. Until now we’d been hidden from view but as we started walking down the final flight of steps, the cameras began flashing and photographers began shouting.
‘Bob, Bob, this way, Bob.’
There was even a ripple of applause and a couple of cheers.
My years on the street with Bob had taught me to expect the unexpected. We’d learned to adapt, to roll with the punches, sometimes literally. This time, however, it felt like we were entering totally uncharted territory.
One thing was clear, however. We’d come too far to pass on this chance. If we took it, our time on the street might, just might, start drawing to a close. That new chapter might just open up for us.
‘Come on, Bob,’ I whispered, stroking the back of his neck before taking a final, deep breath. ‘No turning back now.’
Epilogue. Always
That night in March 2012 was probably the most important of my life. Afterwards there were no more doubts. It really was a new beginning for me and Bob. The book signing in Islington was a success way beyond my expectations. Paul McCartney didn’t quite make it, but more than 300 other people did. The numbers clamouring to meet us caught everyone by surprise, even the bookshop, who were cleaned out of every one of their 200 or so copies within half an hour.
‘So much for my prediction that we’d only sell half a dozen,’ I joked with Alan, the store manager, when I eventually got to share a glass of wine with him after three hours of signing and interviews.
No one could work out how we’d drawn such a big crowd. The flyers and the publicity had obviously played their part. We’d set up a Twitter account which had attracted a hundred or so followers, but even then it didn’t quite explain the passion with which people had embraced Bob and myself.
It was the first sign that something amazing was about to take place.
When A Street Cat Named Bob went on general sale two days later it seemed to strike an immediate chord and became, what The Times described as, ‘an instantly bestselling memoir’. It entered the bestseller list on the first weekend after publication – and remained in the UK bestseller list for the best part of a year, most of that time at No 1. Each Sunday, I would pick up a newspaper and look at the latest chart, shaking my head slowly. Why was it so popular? What had captured the public’s imagination? After a while I gave up trying to work it out. Even more miraculously, the book swiftly found a foreign audience too. At the last count, it was set to be translated into 26 other languages. In Italy it was A Spasso Con Bob (A Walk with Bob). In Portugal it was Minha História Con Bob (My Story with Bob). It seemed to have some universal appeal. Whatever the language, people seemed to love the story, and most of all, of course, they simply adored Bob.
As a result, Bob and I became, to all intents and purposes, minor celebrities, appearing on television and radio programmes to talk about the book and its popularity. It wasn’t something for which I was prepared, even after my afternoon of media training. Our first major appearance, on the BBC’s Breakfast programme was typical. I arrived at the studios in West London at the crack of dawn a bundle of nerves. I was paranoid that Bob would be scared of the lights or the strange surroundings. But he’d taken to it all, sitting on the sofa serenely watching himself on the monitors in front of him. He’d naturally been the star of the show, even managing to do a series of high fives for the hosts who seemed to be every bit as bewitched by him as everyone else. It was the same when I made other appearances.
Wherever we went I was asked the same questions. In particular, people would begin to wonder how the success of the book was changing life for the both of us.
The most significant and obvious change was that Bob and I no longer needed to put ourselves in harm’s way on the streets. It took a little while for the financial rewards of the book’s success to trickle in, so for a few months we had continued to busk on Neal Street. Gradually, however, we were able to ration our appearances. It was such a huge relief to wake up each morning knowing we wouldn’t have to face the cold and the rain and that I wouldn’t have to experience that sense of uncertainty and quiet desperation that I felt each day I used to set off for Angel or Covent Garden.
A small part of us would always remain there of course. You can take the busker off the street… and Bob has always loved the attention he gets from admirers. So we continued to make occasional appearances, the only difference being that we now did so in order to help other people rather than ourselves.
At the beginning of 2013, for instance, we formed a relationship with the animal charity, Blue Cross. We began collecting money for them both online and via public appearances and our occasional days busking. We raised almost £5,000 in the first week. It felt fantastic to be able to give something back. They were so kind to me during my early days with Bob and continued to help us when we popped into their weekly clinics on Islington Green. I remembered how I’d often felt that Bob was my reward for some act of kindness that I’d bestowed on someone earlier in my life. I’d felt like it was karma. By adopting the Blue Cross, I felt like I was now reciprocating their generosity, performing another act of karma. I aim to do the same thing for homeless charities at some point in the future.
Of course people also asked me if the book had made me rich. The answer to that was yes and no. Compared to where I’d been financially, I was, by any stretch of the imagination, comfortable. But I didn’t become an overnight millionaire. The important thing was that, for the foreseeable future, at least, I knew I wasn’t going to be reduced to scouring the shelves of supermarkets for 10p tins of past‑the‑sell‑by‑date baked beans. For years I had to rely on my wits and a few state hand‑outs. Now, for the first time in many years, I had a bank account and even an accountant to help me manage my affairs, including my taxes. I hadn’t earned enough money to be eligible to pay tax in the past decade. The fact that I now began doing so was important to me.
When you are homeless or selling The Big Issue you know you aren’t contributing to society – and you know that society resents you for that. A lot of people take great pleasure in telling you so. To your face. ‘Get a job, you scrounging git,’ had been a common refrain for me for a decade. The result of this is that you become gradually more marginalised by that society. People don’t understand that the lack of self‑esteem and general hopelessness you feel when you are homeless, busking or even selling The Big Issue is partly down to this. You want to be part of society, but that society is, effectively, driving you away. It becomes a vicious circle.
Paying my way was the most tangible sign that I was once more ‘a member’ of society. And it felt good.
There were so many other positives to the book’s success.
It improved my relationship with my parents. Among the throng at Waterstones on that March evening was my father, who I’d persuaded to come partly out of curiosity and partly for moral support. The bewildered but delighted look on his face when he witnessed the queues will live in my memory for a very, very long time. After all the disappointments, I felt like I’d given him something to be proud about. At last.
He was touched when he was shown the note I’d written thanking him and my mum in the acknowledgements. Apparently he shed a tear when he read the book back at home. He called me up to say well done, and said the same thing again on other occasions. He still told me to get a haircut and a shave, of course, but at least he stopped nagging me to ‘get a proper job’.
We didn’t talk about our feelings about the past in huge detail. That was not his style. He’s not the kind of person to have a big heart to heart. I suspect I knew what he was thinking but I also knew that he couldn’t express it. He couldn’t formulate the words, but that was fine. Knowing was enough for me.
I also travelled to Australia again to spend time with my mother. She’d read the book and wept as well. She told me she felt guilty about many of the things that had happened but was honest enough to say that, as a teenager, I was a nightmare who would have challenged even the most sainted mother. I accepted that.
We were open and honest with each other and realised that we’d be friends from now onwards.
Another satisfying aspect of the book’s success was the impact it seemed to have on people’s attitude to The Big Issue sellers and the homeless in general. Schools and charities wrote, telling me how the story of Bob and I had helped them to better understand the plight of the homeless.
Bob and I were on Facebook and Twitter. Every day it seemed we got a message from someone explaining how they no longer walked past The Big Issue vendors. Many told me they now made a point of always engaging them in conversation. I knew I’d had my difficulties with the magazine, but I felt a huge sense of pride in that. It is a fine institution that deserves everyone’s support, especially in these dark economic times.
On a more profound level, our story also seemed to connect with people who were facing difficult times in their lives. Hundreds of them wrote to me or contacted us via social media. Some read our story of survival and drew their own strength from it. Others recognised the power animals possess to heal us humans. Again, I was immensely proud every time I received a message of this kind. I never in a million years expected that I’d touch the life of one person, let alone thousands.
A few people got a little carried away and bestowed some kind of divinity on Bob and me. Bob might have been a saint but I wasn’t, that was for sure. You can’t spend a decade fighting for your day‑to‑day existence on the streets of London without being shaped by that environment. You can’t live a chunk of your life dependent on heroin without being damaged by that experience. I was a product of my past.
So I knew it would take me a long time to iron out the rougher edges of my personality. And I would never quite shake off my past, not least because people would always pop up to remind me of my lost years. Medically, I still carried the scars of my drug‑addicted twenties too. The punishment I inflicted on my body would continue to extract a price. In short, Saint James of Tottenham didn’t exist. He never had and he never would. The person who most definitely did exist, however, was someone who had been given his second chance in life and who was determined to seize it. And if I ever lost sight of that, I now had constant reminders of why that second chance was so important.
I recently received a letter from a lady in a small, rural community in Wales whose close friend had just lost her long fight against cancer. The lady had given our book to her friend during her final days. She had been so touched by it that she had, in turn, given a copy to her local Minister. During his oration at the friend’s funeral in the small village chapel, the Minister had held up a copy of our book in front of the congregation. He mentioned how much the book had meant to the lady at the end of her life and praised our ‘wonderful journey of hope’. Bob and I were, he said, an example of the power of ‘faith, hope and love’. Reading this moved me to floods of tears. It was unbelievably humbling. It remained in my head for days.
For far too many years those three precious qualities – faith, hope and love – had been sorely missing in my life. But then a twist of fate delivered me all three. They were each embodied in the mischievous, playful, canny, occasionally cantankerous but always devoted cat who helped me turn my life around.
Bob had helped me restore my faith in myself and the world around me. He had shown me hope when I really couldn’t see much of it. Most of all he had given me the unconditional love each of us needs.
During one of my television appearances on the BBC, a presenter asked me a question which threw me at first.
‘What will you do when Bob is not around any more?’ he asked.
I got a little emotional at the very thought of losing him, but once I’d gathered myself, I answered as honestly as I could. I said I knew that animals didn’t live as long as us humans, but that I would cherish every single day that I shared with him. And when the time came for him to leave, he would live on in the books that he inspired.
They may have been the truest words I ever uttered.
The world as it was before I met Bob seemed a harsh, heartless and, yes, a hopeless place. The world I have grown to see through his eyes is a very different one. There was a time when I couldn’t distinguish one day from the next. Now I cherish each one. I am happier, healthier and more fulfilled than I have ever been. For now, at least, I have escaped from life on the streets. I can see a clear path ahead of me.
I have no idea where our adventure will lead us next. But I know that, for as long as he is around, Bob will be at the heart of all the good things that come to pass. He is my companion, my best friend, my teacher and my soul mate. And he will remain all of those things. Always.
Acknowledgements
Writing this book has been a collaborative process and I need to thank the team of incredibly talented and supportive people who helped me cross the finishing line. Garry Jenkins was my principle guiding hand, skilfully extracting the stories then shaping the manuscript. At Hodder, I have to thank Rowena Webb and Maddy Price along with Ciara Foley, who edited the script. I would also like to single out the brilliant publicists Emma Knight, Kerry Hood and Emilie Ferguson. A big thanks also to Dan Williams for his superb line drawings. At Aitken Alexander I’m totally indebted to my fantastic agent Mary Pachnos as well as the team of Sally Riley, Nishta Hurry, Liv Stones and Matilda Forbes‑Watson. Thanks also to Joaquim Fernandes at Aitken Alexander and Raymond Walters at R Walters & Co for their invaluable guidance and help. Closer to home I’d like to thank my best friends Kitty and Ron, for being at my side through what has been a pretty crazy year or so. It hasn’t been easy at times, but they’ve remained steadfast and loyal and I owe them more than I can say. I’d also like to thank my mother and father for their love and support, not just in the past year but throughout the darker and more difficult earlier years when I was, I know, far from the easiest of sons. I can’t let this opportunity pass without thanking the legions of people who have written to me either directly or through social media, passing on their good wishes and sharing their experiences. I’ve done my best to reply to as many as possible but hope that I can be forgiven for not getting back to each and every one of you. The response has been, at times, overwhelming. Most of all, of course, I’d like to thank the little guy who remains my constant companion. I still don’t know whether I found Bob or he found me. What I do know, however, is that without him I’d be utterly lost.
James Bowen, London, May 2013
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