The Scottish Mail on Sunday - You
A TOP CAT NAMED BOB
How a ginger stray helped James Bowen turn his life around, pen a bestseller and bag a film deal
When JAMES BOWEN met Bob, he had been sleeping rough for ten years. Now the story of how the duo turned their lives around with their busking double act has been made into a heartwarming film, says Liz Jones
It is a misconception that we rescue animals. The opposite is true: they rescue us. In small ways – my late Romanian dog Hilda tried to teach me not to be bitter about the past – and in huge, life-changing ways, as happened to James Bowen the day an injured orange street cat limped into the hallway of his assisted housing flat in North London.
I meet James in the offices of his publisher overlooking the Thames in Blackfriars. What a dangerous place for a cat, I think, as I get in the lift. I moved to the country so my cats would be safe from traffic, from boys who might put them in a dustbin and set fire to them. But it turns out Bob, the aforementioned orange puss, who inspired James’s bestselling book A Street Cat Named Bob and helped him turn his life around, is not really a cat at all. He’s a lion.
James knows he always plays second fiddle to his cat, whom I greet first, effusively. Bob, named after a character in Twin Peaks, is very solid, with dense fur and saucer eyes, and he looks me up and down. I soon find out he’s not to be messed with: I run my hands down his back and he hisses. ‘He’s a bit sore,’ says James. Bob then goes into my bag; it must smell of my gang of cats, who like to sit in it. Bob stalks off, tail a question mark, to languish on a chair, king of all he surveys.
I tell James I’m concerned for Bob’s safety. ‘He wears a harness if we are outside – I made his first out of shoelaces, but he has a proper one now. Fans are always giving him stuff. When we go on book signings – there were 300 to 400 queueing round the block for the first launch; in Berlin there were 900 fans – the rule is no one touches Bob, he has bodyguards.’ How does Bob travel abroad? ‘He hasn’t been on a plane yet as I won’t let him go in the hold, but he has his own passport and all his contracts state that he travels first class. I make sure of that, the cat deserves it.’ Bob even has his own travel card for the London Underground. ‘The staff came up to me one day when I was busking and said, “Here’s Bob’s card.” It even had his picture on it. But I brought him here today in a taxi.’ James says the word ‘taxi’ like you and I might say ‘private Learjet’. Even though James’s seven books about Bob, starting with A Street Cat Named Bob in 2012, have sold more than 1.5 million copies in the UK – and he has bought his own home at last, in Croydon, South London – you can tell he still can’t quite believe his luck. ‘Bob has just bought us a house,’ James corrects me. ‘I have a small mortgage. There is a cat-killer on the loose, so Bob’s not allowed out yet. It has a garden and we’re building him an enclosure. He likes to watch the squirrels. I take him out to the local for Sunday lunch.’ What is fabulous about James’s books – co-written with ghost writer Garry Jenkins (‘He shares the copyright with me. He sends a draft to me, I edit it and send it back to him’) – is not just that they reveal to anyone who might think cats are aloof, not interactive, that they are the complete opposite (I have a Bob in my pack of cats, a black tom called Leo, a former street cat who just walked into my home, and who now comes on walks with my dogs, even up hills). The books also reveal just how close we all are to living on the street. It only takes one mistake, one missed pay cheque, one wrong turn. James’s story begins prosperously enough. He was born in Surrey in 1979. His parents John and Penelope separated when he was tiny and at the age of three, his mum took him to live in Australia, where she had relatives. Her job as a saleswoman for Rank Xerox meant they were always moving, so James attended
I went from being invisible to suddenly having a voice. Bob changed my life dramatically
a lot of different schools. He had no contact with his father other than receiving gifts on his birthday and Christmas, and talking on the phone. James’s mum took him on lots of expensive holidays, to Thailand, Hawaii, the US, but James, an only child, was alone a lot. ‘I had a pretty tough childhood. I was sent to schools where it was “spare the rod, spoil the child” sort of thing. I ended up being bullied. I was picked on because of my accent. I was a fish out of water, always trying to please people. Kids can be quite vicious. I didn’t have any social skills, I was very introverted. I used to sniff glue, things like that.’ Did his mum try to intervene? ‘She has issues I would rather we don’t go into. There has been a bit of trouble in recent years, but I speak to her and she’s incredibly pleased with my success.’
When James was 11, they moved back to the UK for two years and James spent Christmas with his dad, his dad’s second wife Sue and his half-sister. By then very troubled, James was assessed at a mental institution for young people in West Sussex and was diagnosed as suffering from depression and put on lithium. He was also tested for ADHD and schizophrenia, but there was no conclusive diagnosis. He spent Christmas in the institution, and recalls often being given injections by doctors, losing consciousness. Back in Australia, his relationship with his mum broke down. He spent more time in institutions and, aged 17, began experimenting with drugs. When he was diagnosed with hepatitis C, which doctors said was due to drug use, ‘it felt like a death sentence’. He headed back to the UK aged 18, nursing ambitions to become a musician – ‘I thought I was going to be a rock star’ – and that was when his problems really started.
‘My dad invited me to come back – it was the day Princess Diana died – but I don’t think I lived up to family expectations. Dad hadn’t seen me since I was 11, and I turned up a 6ft 3in goth with piercings. I was rebellious. I started staying on friends’ couches. Then you run out of time on couches, if you get my drift. I fell through the cracks and I dug my own hole.’
While drifting from sofa to sofa, James got a job in a pub, where ‘the owners were taking money out of the till. Who better to blame it on but the new, freaky guy? They told the brewery I had quit, so then I couldn’t claim benefits.’
Does he remember the first night he slept rough? ‘It was at the back of Piccadilly, between a hotel and the accommodation for the staff. It was late 1997. I didn’t even have a sleeping bag that first night. The worst thing is worrying where your next meal is going to come from. That’s where the drugs come in – a great escape from reality.’
I ask whether being homeless meant James missed out on having friends or a girlfriend. ‘Relationships came second to drugs. I don’t think I had any proper ones for a long time.’
And now? ‘I don’t know, maybe. My mate lives with me and he very kindly does all the housekeeping and takes care of Bob when I’m away. It’s a good situation for both of us.’ Who does the cooking? ‘I cook for myself. The most beautiful thing about the house is I have a great big kitchen and a dishwasher.’ Is he on a health kick now? ‘I still have the occasional cigarette. I have deep vein thrombosis, from when I was an addict – I get the odd twinge and have to be careful when flying.’
And how are things with his dad now? ‘He lives just round the corner. We’re going out for dinner tomorrow night. It’s not a solid relationship, but we have a good dialogue, we’re like mates. We’re on the right track now.’
It was in 2007, after a decade sleeping rough, that James came across Bob, whom James describes as having ‘a quiet, knowing air’, at the block of flats where he was living. ‘After three days of him sitting on the doorstep, I invited him upstairs, gave him some nibbles and discovered he had an abscess on his back leg. It was weeping pus, so I gave it a clean in the bath and took him to the RSPCA the next day. It was £25, £30. I was on benefits, which doesn’t go that far.’
Realising that Bob needed him, James came off his methadone programme and was finally free of his dependency. When Bob, who was then about two years old, was better, James thought he would leave, but Bob wouldn’t budge. He even followed James on to the number 73 bus, and would sit with him while he busked with his guitar in Covent Garden and outside Angel tube station in Islington.
‘Bob is really intelligent,’ James says. ‘He would always decide if he wanted to come busking. If it was too cold, he might choose to stay at home on the radiator. When he first got on the bus with me, I didn’t know what to do but I thought, well, I’m already on my journey, I can’t really stop. We got off, walked for a bit, then he gave me this look [that said] “I’m tired of walking.” So I picked him up, put him on my shoulders, and ever since then when he
wants to travel he sits on my shoulders.’
The cold, snowy Christmas of 2010 was when James’s life changed for ever. He was afraid to check his electricity meter; worried the food he’d bought for Christmas would go off. ‘That winter was the coldest I had ever felt. I was getting some help with my rent and some basic income support, but it didn’t stretch far enough to cover all my day-to - day expenses, and heating was tricky.’
Desperate for a few pounds, James went busking with Bob, who was dressed up in a Santa outfit, a gift from a regular supporter. It was then, at his lowest point, that James discovered how much he and his cat were loved by Londoners. ‘Card after card was given to me by regular commuters. So many cards contained money, I got close to £100.’ That same Christmas, while busking in Covent Garden (he would also sell The Big Issue to earn cash), James was approached by a literary agent, who wondered whether the pair might make a book. He was sceptical at first, but eventually agreed. James, now 37, didn’t even have a bank account in which to deposit the advance. ‘They didn’t know, but the first book was published on my birthday, 15 March 2012 – another magical thing.’
James is most proud of the fact that the books have enabled him to raise awareness of homelessness. ‘I do as much work as I can for The Big Issue Foundation: I’m one of their chief speakers now – I just gave a speech at the House of Lords.’ And how about the wonder of cats? ‘Blue Cross and Cats Protection are biggies for me. I’ve just done a raffle of tickets for the Bob film premiere for Ebony Horse Club in Brixton [a charity that helps disadvantaged young people through interacting with horses].’
Which brings us, most thrillingly, to the upcoming film about James and Bob. It is based on the first two books and has Luke Treadaway (who starred in the stage adaptation of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time) playing James – ‘He has got my voice to a tee’ – and four cats playing Bob, as well as Bob himself in many scenes (the cat doing the high-five trick is Bob). ‘I went round to Luke’s a couple of weeks before shooting started,’ says James. ‘He was so dedicated. I took him out and showed him how to go table busking. He sat outside a tube station in a sleeping bag, he slept rough for the night. I spent a lot of time on set because Luke was working with Bob. He has Bob on his shoulders when he is walking through Covent Garden. I’m really happy with the film. If they added or took stuff away, they always checked with me.’
The film is brilliantly done, with Bob the absolute star (his dialogue is pure puss: chirrups, grumbles and deafening purrs) and will surely make people think differently whenever they pass a homeless person on the street; I was in tears by the end. (A sequel and animated series are already in the pipeline.) Will it make James and Bob a fortune? ‘We sold the rights, we will get a percentage,’ says James. ‘It’s such a lovely, humorous movie. I’m proud Bob got to do something amazing: to star in his own film.’ Will Bob go to the premiere? ‘Absolutely – on my shoulders. That’s his comfortable spot. I always tell the paparazzi, “Not too many flashes.” They are pretty good about that.’ Who is the most famous person Bob has met? ‘Brian May. He was wonderful.’
Does James still worry the electricity meter will ping to say it has run out of money? (One of the passages in his books reads: ‘Beep, beep, beep. The meter went off again. The £5 of emergency electricity had finally run out. How were Bob and I going to cope? Would we have to head to a shelter?’) ‘At first, I thought they’d want the royalties back. But I think now, a few years down the line, and with the film coming out, I’m pretty confident we are going in the right direction. Team Bob is very strong. And never forget it is all down to Bob. I don’t worry about anything. Not any more.’ We take our leave. James pats his shoulder and Bob hops on board. In the lobby are two cat cages. As Bob is carefully placed in one, female office workers stop to coo and take pictures. I tell James – who is so sweet and shy, the nicest man I’ve ever met – that he’s catnip to women, and he laughs. Who is the other cat basket for? ‘I have another cat who is at the vet, I’m going to pick her up. She has hyperthyroidism so she’s been in hospital for four weeks. Now we think she has lymphoma.’ Is she a rescue, too? And is she orange? ‘She used to live in a squat. Ginger cats seem to be magnetised to me for some reason. She “belonged” to this guy who had a ginger male and female. He never bothered to get them neutered, so she was one of the eighth litter. I was sleeping rough and I took her under my wing. At certain points when I was in hostels I couldn’t have her with me, but I made sure she was safe.’ So she predates Bob? ‘She’s my little girl.’ What if anything happens to Bob? ‘You’re asking a dark question. When his time comes, I know he will always be part of me. He’s about 11 now. It was incredible, I went from being invisible to all of a sudden having a voice. I’ve always been honest about my mistakes and I think that’s what people really appreciated about my books. Bob changed my life so dramatically, even before the books. I don’t think cats are aloof, I think they are just observant. Bob is a special little man. He knows we are talking about him – look. I got clean for Bob. I took care of him, and he took care of me.’
A Street Cat Named Bob by James Bowen is published by Hodder Paperback, price £8.99. To order a copy for £6.74 (a 25 per cent discount) until 23 October, visit you-bookshop.co.uk or call 0844 571 0640; p&p is free on orders over £15. The movie of the same name starring Luke Treadaway and Joanne Froggatt will be in cinemas from 4 November
I’m proud that Bob got to do something amazing: to star in his own film