It takes a great deal of charisma to carry off one-name stardom. But where certain celebrities have to work awfully hard at ditching such suffixes as Knowles-Carter or Ní Bhraonáin, the former street cat called Bob merely had to be, well, himself. A large, stately fellow with enormous green eyes, Bob has spent much of today staring majestically, with saucer-sized green eyes, at the ladies and gentlemen of the press.
“He loves the attention,” explains the marmalade mouser’s human pet, James Bowen. “But he’ll let you know when he has had enough.”
Today, Bowen is dressed casually in a plaid shirt with wooden beads; Bob is dressed up in a smart green scarf. There’s no mistaking the Hegelian dynamic. “Cats are very affectionate,” says Bowen. “But you have to earn their love. Dogs are very loyal to their masters but with cats you’re the servant.”
Having sold five million books worldwide and amassed more than 500,000 Facebook followers, the feline phenomenon has usurped John Grogan’s dog Marley to become the animal kingdom’s biggest modern star.
“I can’t really let me go out unless he’s on the harness with me,” says Bowen. “The worst thing would be if someone recognised who he was and kidnapped him. Not that he’d let them away lightly; he’d probably tear them to shreds. Bob is very loyal to me.”
Bus boy
They’ve come a long way. Back in 2007, Bowen was a recovering addict on a methadone programme, eking out a living by busking in Covent Garden, and living in a supported housing program in saltiest Tottenham.
One day, a ginger tom appeared on his doorstep. He was injured, had no collar, no identification and local inquiries produced no clues as to where he might have come from.
“In the morning, I’d say: ‘Come on, mate, you got to go find your way home’, but I’d come back and he’d still be there. He started following me around. I think it was the fifth or sixth day that he just jumped up on to the bendy bus with me, sat down next to me, and started washing himself like this was the most normal thing in the world. And off we went.”
Bowen, who grew up between England and Australia, had weathered a difficult childhood before Bob gave him “that second chance to really change my life. My mother had issues and I found it tough to live at home,” he recalls. “I had been falsely diagnosed with everything from ADHD to bipolar disorder. Which I clearly didn’t have.
“But my mother had problems and she would reflect those on to me. I ran away from home eventually. I had had enough. So I was a street kid, I guess. And when you’re a street kid hanging out with other street kids, you do all the shitty things that street kid do: things like sniffing glue. I was experimenting with all forms of escapism from a very young age. I never lived in one place for more than a few years. Having not really had a set of friends from childhood, I’d end up over-compensating and getting bullied.”
He returned to England in 1997, where his family struggled to cope with his tearaway tendencies. He was soon back on the streets. When “help” did come, it wasn’t necessarily conducive to his development.
“I spent a good 10 years between hostels and the streets. Then the first block they put me in was terrible. Somebody in the housing department had this brilliant idea of putting only ex-addicts and the mentally ill in the same block of 12 flats. So it ended up being a block of 12 crack houses. Obviously, I had to move out of there.”
There must have been an “oh shit”, rock-bottom moment. “Yeah. The first time I woke up sick from heroin addiction. It was so easy to gain a habit. I was sleeping rough, and someone comes along with this wonderful drug that will let you go to sleep and forget all your horrible problems. And then you do it the next day, and the next day. And before you know it you have a habit. And then I went on to a programme. I had reduced to a quite low level of methadone by the time I went to my supported housing block. And then Bob turned up and made this magical change to my life.”
Something about Bob
Everyone who is lucky enough to share their life and living space with animal chums will tell you that their companion is special. Is there something about Bob in particular, or was simply attending to Bob’s needs enough to help Bowen break the cycle?
“Definitely the latter. When he followed me on to the bus, it was frightening for me. At the same time, I thought, well, this is happening, I have to take care of him. And if that is going to happen, I have to start taking care of myself. I barely existed before to be honest. Just his being there when I was busking meant people would all of a sudden be interested. What’s your story?”
He must have mixed feelings about that. It’s wonderful, of course, that people care about the animals they encounter. But it’s less wonderful that some of the same people would pass by a human who didn’t have a cat companion perched on their guitar.
“I see what you mean about people on the street with animals. People have a pet which is the only thing that gets them attention. Which is unfortunate. Unfortunate for the pet as well. I try and raise money and awareness for the Blue Cross. I just hope that I can be a voice for homelessness. I’m only one step up.”
He laughs. “And I’ve gone from being on benefits to paying a lot of tax.”
Bob's love of busking ensured that he and Bowen were already social-media stars before they landed the book deal that would transform their lives. His taste for the limelight also ensured a starring role in the splendid new movie adaptation of A Street Cat Named Bob, in which Luke Treadaway plays James.
“We were on set and the director Roger Spottiswoode said: ‘Let’s have Bob in a couple of shots so we put him on the jacket and as people were passing and put their change in the cup, Bob would look up and give them the nod: thank you. And then he did the same thing in the second take. And the third take. And Roger was completely blown away. And I can hear Adam [Rolston], the producer, behind me: ‘What is James and Bob’s schedule like at the minute?’”
Perhaps there is something about Bob after all? “He is a wise soul,” says Bowen. “The first book came out on my birthday – March 15th – in 2012. The publishers didn’t know it was my birthday. It was just pure magical coincidence. And now there’s a movie starring Bob as Bob. Things like this just keep happening since Bob came along. He’s a magical little man.”
- A Street Cat Named Bob opens November 4th
