James Bowen - The World According to Bob

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.

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 is the author of the bestselling A Street Cat Named Bob . He found Bob the cat in 2007 and the pair have been inseparable ever since. They both live in north London.

For the latest news, stories and pictures from James and Bob, follow them on Twitter at www.twitter.com/streetcatbob, or visit their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/streetcatbob.

First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Hodder & Stoughton An Hachette UK company

Copyright © James & Bob Limited and Connected Content Limited

Illustrations © Dan Williams

The right of James Bowen and Garry Jenkins to be identified as the Authors of the Work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

Extract from All My Patients are Under the Bed: Memoirs of a Cat Doctor

by Louis J. Caruiti. Published by Fireside, 1985

Hardback ISBN 978 1 444 77755 0

Trade paperback ISBN 978 1 444 77756 7

Ebook ISBN 978 1 444 77759 8

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