Джеймс Боуэн - A Street Cat Named Bob

‘Go on then,’ he said.

‘Smile, Bob,’ I said, as we sat in front of the camera.

As he waited for the photo to be processed, the guy got on with the rest of the registration process. When you become a Big Issue seller you get assigned a random number. They are not issued in sequence. If they did that the numbers would now be running into the thousands because so many people have signed up to sell the Big Issue over the years then just disappeared off the face of the earth. So when someone fails to show up on the records for a while the number comes back into circulation. They have to do that.

After waiting about a quarter of an hour, the guy reappeared at the desk.

‘Here you go, Mr Bowen,’ he said, handing me the laminated badge.

I couldn’t help breaking into a big grin at the picture. Bob was on the left-hand side. We were a team. Big Issue Vendors Number 683.

It was a long journey back to Tottenham, involving two buses. So I whiled away the hour and a half it took us reading through the little booklet they gave me. I’d read something similar ten years earlier but hadn’t really retained any of it. If I was honest, I’d not really taken it seriously. I’d been too out of it a lot of the time. This time around I was determined to take it more seriously.

It began with the magazine’s main philosophy:

‘The Big Issue exists to offer homeless and vulnerably housed people the opportunity to earn a legitimate income by selling a magazine to the general public. We believe in offering “a hand up, not a hand out” and in enabling individuals to take control of their lives.’

That’s exactly what I want , I said to myself, a hand up. And this time I’ll accept it.

The next bit stated that I had to ‘undergo an induction process and sign up to the code of conduct’. I knew the first bit meant that I’d have to work at a ‘trial pitch’, where my performance would be watched and assessed by the local organisers.

If that went well I’d be allocated a fixed pitch, it went on. I’d also get ten free copies of the magazine to get me started. It made it clear that it was then down to me. ‘Once they have sold these magazines they can purchase further copies, which they buy for £1 and sell for £2, thereby making £1 per copy.’

The rules went on to explain that vendors were employed by the Big Issue . ‘We do not reimburse them for magazines which they fail to sell, hence each individual must manage their sales and finances carefully. These skills, along with the confidence and self-esteem they build through selling the magazine, are crucial in helping homeless people reintegrate into mainstream society.’

That was the simple economics of it. But there was a lot more to it than that, as I would soon discover.

The next morning I headed back down to Covent Garden to see Sam, the coordinator. I was keen to get on with my ‘induction’.

‘All go OK down at Vauxhall?’ she said, as Bob and I approached her.

‘I guess it must have done. They gave me one of these,’ I grinned, proudly producing my laminated badge from under my coat.

‘Great,’ Sam said, smiling at the photo of me and Bob. ‘I’d better get you started then.’

She began by counting out my ten free copies of the magazine.

‘There you go,’ she said. ‘You know you’ll have to buy them after this?’

‘Yep, I understand,’ I said.

For a few minutes she studied a sheet of papers.

‘Just trying to work out where to put your trial pitch,’ she said, apologetically.

A moment or two later I could see she’d made up her mind.

‘Found somewhere?’ I asked, feeling quite excited about it.

‘Think so,’ Sam said.

I couldn’t believe what she said next.

‘OK, we’ll give you the training pitch just here,’ she said, pointing in the direction of Covent Garden tube station, a few yards further up James Street.

I couldn’t stop myself from bursting out laughing.

‘Are you OK? Is that a problem?’ she said, looking confused. ‘I can look to see if there’s somewhere else.’

‘No, it’s not a problem at all,’ I said. ‘It’ll be great there. It’ll be a real walk down memory lane. I’ll get started right away.’

I wasted no time and set up immediately. It was mid-morning, a few hours before I’d normally have set up busking, but there were lots of people milling around, mostly tourists. It was a bright, sunny morning, which, I knew from experience, always puts people in a better and more generous mood.

When I’d been busking I’d always felt like I was running the gauntlet of the authorities by playing here. Selling the Big Issue was a totally different prospect. I was officially licensed to be there. So I placed myself as close to the station as possible without actually being inside the concourse.

I couldn’t resist looking inside to see if there was any sign of the ticket officers who’d given me grief in the past. Sure enough, I saw one of them, a big, sweaty fat guy in a blue shirt. He was too tied up to notice me at this stage but I knew that he would at some point.

In the meantime, I got on with the job of trying to shift my ten copies of the Big Issue .

I knew they’d given me this pitch because, as far as normal Big Issue sellers were concerned, it was a nightmare. The entrance and exit of a tube station is not a place where people usually have the time to slow down and engage with someone trying to sell them something. They are in a hurry, they have got places to go, people to see. A normal Big Issue seller would have done well to stop one in every thousand people that raced past him or her. It would have been a thankless task. During my time busking across the street, I’d spent enough time watching a succession of vendors try and fail to catch people’s attention there to know the reality.

But I also knew that I wasn’t a normal Big Issue seller. I had a secret weapon, one that had already cast his spell on Covent Garden. And he was soon weaving his magic.

I’d put Bob down on the pavement next to me where he was sitting contentedly watching the world go by. A lot of people didn’t notice him as they flew past on their mobile phones, fishing inside their pockets for their tickets. But a lot of people did.

Within moments of me setting up, a couple of young American tourists had pulled up to a halt and started pointing at Bob.

‘Aaaah,’ one of them said, immediately reaching for her camera.

‘Do you mind if we take a picture of your cat?’ the other one asked.

‘Sure, why not?’ I said, pleased that, unlike so many people, they’d had the decency to ask. ‘Would you like to buy a copy of the Big Issue while you’re at it. It will help him and me get some dinner tonight.’

‘Oh sure,’ the second girl said, looking almost ashamed that she’d not thought of it.

‘It’s no problem if you don’t have the money,’ I said. ‘It’s not compulsory.’

But before I could say anything else she’d given me a five-pound note.

‘Oh, I’m not sure I’ve got any change. I’ve literally just started,’ I said, feeling flustered myself now. I know a lot of people think Big Issue sellers routinely say this, but I genuinely didn’t have much in my pockets. When I counted it out, I had just under a pound in shrapnel in my pocket and handed that over to her.

‘That’s fine,’ she said. ‘Keep the change and buy your cat something nice to eat.’

As the American girls left, another group of tourists passed by, this time Germans. Again, they started cooing over Bob. They didn’t buy a magazine, but it didn’t matter.