With Street Cat Named Bob I made millions and met Kate Middleton – now my life has taken a tragic turn, says James Bowen
AS the rain hammered down on the city street, James Bowen huddled up on a doorstep to keep his sleeping bag from being drenched by the torrent.
Less than eight years before that rainy February afternoon, he had been travelling the world first class, signing autographs for thousands of people and meeting Princess Kate.
James’s strong bond with his scarf-wearing ginger cat Bob had spawned nine books and two hit movies.
But ever since his beloved 15-year-old moggy was killed by a car in June 2020, James’s life has slipped further into despair.
Now the 45-year-old author and campaigner has revealed he is homeless again after being forced to sell the £500,000 dream home he had bought for him and his pet.
It is a tragic turn of fate for James, who spent ten years sleeping rough on the streets of London, busking and selling The Big Issue before Bob “saved” him.
Around the time he lost his new home, James was viciously attacked — leaving him with a fractured skull, two black eyes and a broken nose.
His only constant now is his three-year-old shih tzu, Chewbacca, who protects him just like Bob did.
James says: “It is devastating.
“Everything Bob and I achieved was stolen from us.
“All the hard work I had done trying to sort my life out has gone down the pan.
“It’s back to square one.
“Bob is always going to be a part of me — he’s a part of my very fabric.
“But Chewbacca has been a great comfort.
“He guards me when I sleep.”
Surrey-born James first experienced the horrors of rough-sleeping at the end of the 1990s.
While homeless, his dabbling with drugs as a young man escalated to heroin use.
His route out of this perpetual misery was a methadone programme, which helps wean addicts off the class A drug, and a place in supported housing in North London in 2007.
Then stray cat Bob turned up with a leg injury, having been attacked by a fox.
James took the poorly puss to a local charity vet — and the pair became inseparable.
Wearing his trademark scarf, Bob would perch on James’s shoulder as he busked or sold copies of the Big Issue.
Occasionally the loyal puss would even “high-five” passers-by.
YouTube videos of Bob’s antics went viral, and in 2011, James landed a book deal through literary agent Mary Pachnos, who reportedly used to pass him each day outside the capital’s Angel Tube station.
A Street Cat Named Bob became a literary sensation, spawning eight other books, an eponymous 2016 flick starring Luke Treadway as James and a 2020 Christmas movie sequel.
At the premiere of the first film in London, the pair met Kate Middleton, who has campaigned to help the homeless and was attending as patron for the charity Action On Addiction.
Gaping hole
In the following years, James repaid the help he had received by supporting the Big Issue and giving talks at prisons.
But in February last year he told The Sun how Bob’s death during the Covid lockdown had left him feeling suicidal.
James resorted to heroin to fill the gaping hole in his life but by late 2022, he decided to quit and arranged to go to a rehab centre in Thailand.
But when he arrived, a funding mix-up saw him forced to leave after just two days and he ended up going cold turkey on the streets of Bangkok, then finally returning home.
But getting sober was not enough to save him from rising interest rates and the cost-of-living crisis.
James could no longer afford his mortgage and last year, decided to sell his detached bungalow in Carshalton, South London.
Some people offered to help put his most treasured belongings in storage in November but instead launched a vicious attack at a nearby address when he least expected it.
He claims: “I sold the house and that week some people got wind of the sale and robbed me and took my equipment.
“They sat on me, and when I resisted they beat me up.
“I managed to escape and called the police.
“I was taken to hospital with a fractured skull, my face was all smashed up.
“I had two black eyes, a fractured orbital.”
James now has nothing left and is too scared to return to South London. so he has been living in Dalston in the north of the city.
He says: “I can’t go back to South London where I lived because that’s where the people who hurt me live.
“They threatened to kill Chewbacca if I didn’t acquiesce to their requests.”
James chose Dalston partly to be near a reminder of his lost pal.
At nearby Islington Green there is a life-size bronze statue of Bob perched on a stack of books, by a park bench.
James, who is estranged from his parents, likes to go there to feel close to his old friend.
The reason I got clean the first time was because of Bob
But because he has no relatives or recent address in the borough, it will be five months before he can get on the housing list, even though he is a vulnerable person diagnosed with manic depression in his youth.
James recalls: “I’ve slept rough since November.
“When the rain was hammering I had to sleep up on a doorstep watching the water flow, with Chewbacca huddled up for warmth.”
To escape the cold, he bedded down for a time in a disused boiler room at the base of a block of council flats.
But this was suddenly blocked up.
James recalled: “Somebody put a bar across there while we were in there and drilled it in.
“I had to call the fire brigade to get cut out.
‘I lost everything’
“I have the clothes on my back, my phone, my dog, my rucksack with my sleeping bag in it.
“I lost everything.
“The police told me if they caught me there again they would do me for trespassing, but if they did I would at least have a roof over my head.”
Now James doesn’t know whether he’ll be bedding down on a pal’s sofa or a park bench each night.
He has reported to the job centre to try to find work, but his only income now is a £300-a-month Personal Independence Payment (PIP) for a long-term hip problem.
Kipping on cold, wet spots, the bone in his hip crumbled and he now has a titanium replacement.
Once he can afford to buy a guitar, he hopes to start busking again.
But he insists he has no intention of falling back into drug use.
James, who was sober when The Sun met him and did not ask for money for this interview, says: “There is always temptation when you are a recovering addict, but it won’t do me any good in the long run, and I also have to think about Chewbacca.
“He is my priority, I have to take care of my baby.
“It’s like with Bob.
“The reason I got clean the first time was because of Bob.”
When he lost his bungalow, James had to find homes for his other cats Bandit, Gizmo and Jinxy.
His plan is to sort out a permanent residence and go back to campaigning against homelessness.
James hopes to make documentaries about the issue, looking at how different places treat rough sleepers.
He said: “It is as bad as it used to be when I was on the street 20 years ago.
“There are lots of people out there.”
