A Street Cat Named Bob
A Street Cat Bob is a real-life story of James Bowen a busker and recovering drug addict, had his life transformed when he met a stray ginger cat.They inspired a successful 2017 movie as well as a children’s animation for SkyKids due in 2020.
“Everybody needs a break, everybody deserves that second chance. Bob and I had taken ours.”
“Cats are notoriously picky about who they like. And if a cat doesn’t like its owner it will go and find another one. Cats do that all the time.”
“Living on the streets of London strips away your dignity, your identity − your everything, really. Worst of all, it strips away people’s opinion of you. They see you are living on the streets and treat you as a non-person. They don’t want anything to do with you. Soon you haven’t got a real friend in the world.”
“I tried to sneak in without him seeing me. It was a stupid move. He was a cat, he had more senses in one of his whiskers than I had in my entire body. No sooner had I opened the door to the building than he was there squeezing his way in.”
“I don’t know why, but people seem to be fascinated to learn how some members of society fall through the cracks. I think it’s partly that feeling that… it could happen to anyone. But I think it also makes people feel better about their own lives. It makes them think, ‘Well, I may think my life is bad, but it could be worse, I could be that poor sod.”
“People don’t want to listen. All they see is someone they think is trying to get a free ride. They don’t understand I’m working, I’m not begging. I was actually trying to make a living. Just because I wasn’t wearing a suit and a tie and carrying a briefcase or a computer, just because I didn’t have a payslip and a P45, it didn’t mean that I was freeloading.”
“There’s a famous quote I read somewhere. It says we are all given second chances every day of our lives. They are there for the taking, it’s just that we don’t usually take them.”
“Having Bob gave me a chance to interact with people…. Cats are notoriously picky about who they like. Seeing me with my cat softened me in [others] eyes. It humanized me. Especially after I’d been so dehumanized. In some ways it was giving me back my identity. I had been a non-person; I was becoming a person again.”
“There’s an old saying that a wise man is someone who doesn’t grieve for the things which he doesn’t have but is grateful for the good things that he does have.”
DMV worker: “You can’t have an animal in your photo, this is an official ID.”
James: “I don’t see an animal, this is my co-pilot.”
