James Bowen - A Street Cat Named Bob

‘How did it go?’ Belle asked.

‘Three-month conditional discharge, but if I get caught again I’m for the high jump,’ I said.

‘So what are you going to do?’ she said.

I looked at her, then looked down at Bob. The answer must have been written all over my face.

I had reached the end of the road. I’d been busking on and off now for almost a decade. Times had changed – and my life had changed, certainly since Bob had come into it. So it was becoming more and more clear to me that I couldn’t carry on busking, it didn’t make any sense on any level. There were times when it didn’t earn me enough money to make ends meet. There were times when it put me – and more importantly, Bob – in dangerous situations. And now there was a real danger that if I was caught busking in the wrong place again, I could get banged up in prison. It just wasn’t worth it.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to do, Belle,’ I said. ‘But the one thing I know I’m not going to do is carry on busking.’

My head was spinning for the next few days. I felt a real mixture of emotions.

Part of me was still angry at the unfairness of what had happened. I felt like I’d lost my livelihood simply because a few people had taken against me. At the same time, however, another part of me had begun to see it might have been a blessing in disguise.

Deep down I knew I couldn’t carry on busking all my life. I wasn’t going to turn my life around singing Johnny Cash and Oasis songs on street corners. I wasn’t going to build up the strength to get myself totally clean by relying on my guitar. It began to dawn on me that I was at a big crossroads, that I had an opportunity to put the past behind me. I’d been there before, but for the first time in years, I felt like I was ready to take it.

That was all very well in theory, of course. I also knew the brutal truth: my options were pretty limited. How was I now going to earn money? No one was going to give me a job.

It wasn’t because I was stupid; I knew that. Thanks to the IT work I’d done when I was a teenager back in Australia I was fairly knowledgeable when it came to computers. I spent as much time as I could on friends’ laptops or on the free computers at the local library and had taught myself a fair bit about the subject. But I didn’t have any references or relevant experience in the UK to rely on and when a prospective employer asked me where I’d spent the past ten years I couldn’t exactly say I’d been working for Google or Microsoft. So I had to forget that.

There wasn’t even any point in me applying to do a training course in computing because they wouldn’t accept me. Officially I was still on a drug rehabilitation programme. I was living in sheltered accommodation and didn’t even have an O level to my name. They wouldn’t – and probably couldn’t – touch me with a bargepole. All in all, I was a non-starter when it came to getting a normal job. Whatever normal is.

I realised quickly that there was only one realistic alternative. I didn’t have the luxury of being able to wait for something to turn up. I needed to make money to look after myself and Bob. So a couple of days after the court hearing I set off with Bob for Covent Garden – for the first time in years, without my guitar on my back. When I got to the piazza I headed straight for the spot where I knew I’d probably find a girl called Sam, the area’s Big Issue coordinator.

I had tried selling the Big Issue before, back in 1998 and 1999 when I first ended up on the streets. I’d got myself accredited and worked the streets around Charing Cross and Trafalgar Square. It hadn’t worked out. I’d lasted less than a year before I gave it up.

I could still remember how difficult it was.

When I was selling the Big Issue , so many people used to come up to me and snarl ‘get a job’. That used to really upset me. They didn’t realise that selling the Big Issue is a job. In fact, being a Big Issue seller effectively means you are running your own business. When I was selling the magazine I had overheads. I had to buy copies to sell. So each day I turned up at the coordinator’s stand I had to have at least a few quid in order to buy a few copies of the magazine. That old saying is as true for Big Issue sellers as it is for anyone else: you have to have money, to make money.

So many people think it’s a complete charity job and that they give the magazines to the sellers for free. That’s just not the case. If it was, people would be selling a lot more than they do. The Big Issue philosophy is that it is helping people to help themselves. But back then I wasn’t really sure I wanted any help. I wasn’t ready for it.

I could still remember some of the grim, soul-destroying days I’d spent sitting on a wet and windy street-corner pitch trying to coax and cajole Londoners to part with their cash in return for a magazine. It was really hard, especially as back then my life was still ruled by drugs. All I usually got for my trouble was a load of abuse or a kick in the ribs.

Most of all it had been hard because I had been invisible. Most people just didn’t give me the time of day. They would do all they could to avoid me, in fact. That’s why I had turned to busking, at least then I had my music to attract people’s attention and let them know I was actually a living, breathing creature. And even then most of them ignored me.

I wouldn’t have even contemplated going back to selling the Big Issue if it hadn’t been for Bob. The way he’d transformed my fortunes – and my spirits – on the streets had been amazing. If I could do as well selling the Big Issue as I’d done busking with Bob then maybe I could take that big step forward. Of course there was only one problem: I had to get them to accept me first.

I found Sam at the spot where the area’s Big Issue sellers gathered to buy their magazines, on a side street off the main piazza of Covent Garden. There were a few vendors there, all men. I recognised one or two of the faces. One of them was a guy called Steve, who I knew was a driver for the magazine. I’d seen him around the place, delivering the magazines on Mondays when the new issues came out.

We’d registered each other’s presence around Covent Garden a couple of times and were a bit wary of each other. I got the distinct impression he wasn’t very pleased to see me, but I didn’t care. I hadn’t come to see him; it was Sam I needed to talk to.

‘Hello, you two not busking today?’ she said, recognising me and Bob and giving him a friendly pat.

‘No, I’m going to have to knock that on the head,’ I said. ‘Bit of trouble with the cops. If I get caught doing it illegally again I’m going to be in big trouble. Can’t risk it now I’ve got Bob to look after. Can I, mate?’

‘OK,’ Sam said, her face immediately signalling that she could see what was coming next.

‘So,’ I said, rocking up and down on my heels. ‘I was wondering—’

Sam smiled and cut me off. ‘Well, it all depends on whether you meet the criteria,’ she said.

‘Oh yeah, I do,’ I said, knowing that as a person in what was known as ‘vulnerable housing’ I was eligible to sell the magazine.

‘But you are going to have to go through all the red tape and go down to Vauxhall to sign up,’ she said.

‘Right.’

‘You know where the offices are?’ she said, reaching for a card.

‘Not sure,’ I said. I was sure the offices had been somewhere else when I’d signed up years ago.