The World According to Bob

When A Street Cat Named Bob went on general sale two days later it seemed to strike an immediate chord and became, what The Times described as, ‘an instantly bestselling memoir’. It entered the bestseller list on the first weekend after publication — and remained in the UK bestseller list for the best part of a year, most of that time at No 1. Each Sunday, I would pick up a newspaper and look at the latest chart, shaking my head slowly. Why was it so popular? What had captured the public’s imagination? After a while I gave up trying to work it out. Even more miraculously, the book swiftly found a foreign audience too. At the last count, it was set to be translated into 26 other languages. In Italy it was A Spasso Con Bob (A Walk with Bob). In Portugal it was Minha História Con Bob (My Story with Bob). It seemed to have some universal appeal. Whatever the language, people seemed to love the story, and most of all, of course, they simply adored Bob.

As a result, Bob and I became, to all intents and purposes, minor celebrities, appearing on television and radio programmes to talk about the book and its popularity. It wasn’t something for which I was prepared, even after my afternoon of media training. Our first major appearance, on the BBC’s Breakfast programme was typical. I arrived at the studios in West London at the crack of dawn a bundle of nerves. I was paranoid that Bob would be scared of the lights or the strange surroundings. But he’d taken to it all, sitting on the sofa serenely watching himself on the monitors in front of him. He’d naturally been the star of the show, even managing to do a series of high fives for the hosts who seemed to be every bit as bewitched by him as everyone else. It was the same when I made other appearances.

Wherever we went I was asked the same questions. In particular, people would begin to wonder how the success of the book was changing life for the both of us.

The most significant and obvious change was that Bob and I no longer needed to put ourselves in harm’s way on the streets. It took a little while for the financial rewards of the book’s success to trickle in, so for a few months we had continued to busk on Neal Street. Gradually, however, we were able to ration our appearances. It was such a  huge relief to wake up each morning knowing we wouldn’t have to face the cold and the rain and that I wouldn’t have to experience that sense of uncertainty and quiet desperation that I felt each day I used to set off for Angel or Covent Garden.

A small part of us would always remain there of course. You can take the busker off the street… and Bob has always loved the attention he gets from admirers. So we continued to make occasional appearances, the only difference being that we now did so in order to help other people rather than ourselves.

At the beginning of 2013, for instance, we formed a relationship with the animal charity, Blue Cross. We began collecting money for them both online and via public appearances and our occasional days busking. We raised almost £5,000 in the first week. It felt fantastic to be able to give something back. They were so kind to me during my early days with Bob and continued to help us when we popped into their weekly clinics on Islington Green. I remembered how I’d often felt that Bob was my reward for some act of kindness that I’d bestowed on someone earlier in my life. I’d felt like it was karma. By adopting the Blue Cross, I felt like I was now reciprocating their generosity, performing another act of karma. I aim to do the same thing for homeless charities at some point in the future.

Of course people also asked me if the book had made me rich. The answer to that was yes and no. Compared to where I’d been financially, I was, by any stretch of the imagination, comfortable. But I didn’t become an overnight millionaire. The important thing was that, for the foreseeable future, at least, I knew I wasn’t going to be reduced to scouring the shelves of supermarkets for 10p tins of past-the-sell-by-date baked beans. For years I had to rely on my wits and a few state hand-outs. Now, for the first time in many years, I had a bank account and even an accountant to help me manage my affairs, including my taxes. I hadn’t earned enough money to be eligible to pay tax in the past decade. The fact that I now began doing so was important to me.