The World According to Bob: The further adventures of one man and his street-wise cat (22 page)

It was infuriating for all sorts of reasons. First and foremost, of course, it was a complete nonsense to say I’d been floating. I’d had this problem before, mainly because so many people approached me and Bob when we were walking around London.

I knew I wasn’t supposed to sell magazines when on the move. I could only do so from a fixed pitch. I’d always tried to explain this to people and, whilst some were confused and even offended, they usually moved along without giving me anything. Unfortunately, all it needed was for another
Big Issue
seller or an outreach worker to see me having any kind of exchange with a member of the public and they’d put two and two together to make five.

It was a real bore having to travel over to Vauxhall, but I knew I had to keep my pitch at Angel going. The book was just a passing phase, I knew I couldn’t turn my back on what was still my bread and butter.

At
The Big Issue
office, I had to sit around for half an hour before I could see a supervisor. When I eventually got called in, this guy told me that I had been mentioned at the weekly outreach worker meeting where they discuss pitch disputes, misbehaving vendors and other issues.

‘I’m afraid you are going to have to serve a one month suspension because an outreach worker saw you table-top floating,’ he said.

I tried to defend myself. But it was a waste of breath. With
The Big Issue
you were guilty unless you formally appealed. I’d been through that process before, when I’d been based in Covent Garden. Again, I’d been unfairly accused of floating and it had come down to my word against theirs. My word apparently wasn’t worth much and I’d lost.

I knew it was pointless appealing this time so I decided to take it on the chin and accept the suspension. I signed the relevant paperwork, handed in my tabard and ID card and headed home, upset but resigned to the fact that this was the way the cookie crumbled.

‘What’s that saying? No good deed goes unpunished,’ I said to Bob as we sat on the tube heading back home.

I figured that, with the book still to be written, I would spend the month working on that, doing a little busking and return to Angel tube station in a month’s time. If only it had been that simple.

At the end of the month, I went back to
The Big Issue
office. I wasn’t certain that I’d get my tabard and ID back that day so took my guitar with me, in case I needed to carry on busking. I needn’t have worried. I was told I had served my ‘sentence’ and got my stuff back. I also bought a supply of magazines to take back to Angel.

‘Back to business, Bob,’ I said as we caught a bus and headed back across the Thames.

Arriving back at Angel, I emerged from the station and saw my pitch was empty. It was still registered to me, so no one else should technically have been there although I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone had chanced it. So I set up as normal and got back to work.

I’d been there for about half an hour when another vendor arrived. He was a guy I’d seen around occasionally. He was relatively new to
The Big Issue
and had a rather scruffy and bad-tempered old dog.

‘What are you doing? This is my pitch’ he said.

‘No it’s not,’ I said, looking bemused. ‘This has been my pitch for more than a year now.’

‘It might have been your pitch a year ago, but it’s mine now. I’m registered with head office.’

‘What? I really don’t know what you’re on about, mate. Bob and I are part of the furniture here. They’ve even written about us in the newspapers,’ I said, trying to remain reasonable.

He just shrugged his shoulders and blew out his cheeks.

‘What can I say?’ he muttered. ‘Go and talk to Rita. She’ll fill you in.’

‘I will, mate, don’t you worry about that,’ I said, marching straight across the High Street towards the co-ordinator’s spot on Islington Green.

It was obvious immediately that something was wrong because Rita’s face crumpled when she saw me.

‘Oh, hi, James,’ she said, refusing to make eye contact.

‘Look. It wasn’t my decision. I told him it was your pitch and that you were on a month’s suspension. He stayed away for a fortnight but then he went down to Vauxhall and someone there went over my head. They told him he could have it full time. There was nothing I could do.’

I was stunned. For a moment I was lost for words.

It may sound boastful, but I had turned that pitch into a money-spinner for
The Big Issue
, and myself, obviously. Until I had arrived there, no one had wanted to work there. The conventional wisdom had always been that people were in too much of a hurry to slow down at that spot. They didn’t have time to engage with a vendor. But, largely thanks to Bob, of course, I had established myself there. Even the outreach workers had said that the number of people who came to see us was amazing. As were sales of the magazine.

‘I can’t believe they’ve done this to me,’ I said to Rita, scrambling to work out why this had happened. ‘Is it because I’ve got this book deal and they assume I don’t need to sell any more?’ I said. ‘Because if it is they’ve got it all wrong. That’s only a flash in the pan. I need to keep working long term.’

But Rita wasn’t responding. She just kept shaking her head and saying ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I’m sorry’.

In the end I just stormed off, with Bob on my shoulders.

Looking back, I am not proud of what I did next, but I felt so cheated and badly treated that I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I headed back to the tube station and confronted the guy again.

‘Look mate, here’s £20 for the pitch. How’s that?’ I said.

He pondered it for a moment then grabbed the note, picked up his magazines and headed off with his dog in tow. I had barely been there ten minutes when he arrived back, this time with Holly in tow.

‘James, this isn’t your pitch any more,’ she said.

‘Yes, it is. I just paid the guy £20 to get it back,’ I said.

‘It doesn’t work that way and you know it, James,’ she said.

My head was spinning now. I couldn’t understand why they were doing this to me. Had I behaved so badly? Was I that unpopular amongst
The Big Issue
fraternity? I must have been. They all seemed to have it in for me.

‘So can I have my £20 back?’ I said to the guy.

‘No. I haven’t earned anything yet,’ he said.

I could see that he hadn’t bought any magazines, so he couldn’t have spent the £20. I lost it this time and started busking about twenty feet away from my usual pitch.

‘James, what are you doing?’ Holly said. I just ignored her and played on.

She slipped away briefly but reappeared with a police officer and another outreach worker, John, in tow.

‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to move on, Sir. Otherwise I will have no option but to caution you,’ the PC said.

‘James you are also going to have to hand in your tabard and your ID,’ Holly said. ‘You are going to get another suspension for this.’

I’d only got them back a couple of hours earlier. But I handed them over.

This time I knew
The Big Issue
were going to be even harsher in their punishment, and I’d be given a six month suspension. I decided that enough was enough. I decided that I would end my association with them. I didn’t feel great about it. Selling the magazine had done wonders for me. But I just felt a deep sense of injustice.

I wasn’t an angel. To be honest, I don’t think anyone who sells
The Big Issue
really is. We’ve all got our faults. We wouldn’t be working on the streets if we didn’t, would we? I also realised that I had probably over-reacted and lost my temper when I’d discovered my pitch had been given away. I just felt betrayed, especially because Bob and I had become unofficial ambassadors for the magazine. After we’d gone on the first Night Walk, we’d effectively been the public faces of the event and had featured in a lot of the publicity for a second one that had taken place. By this point I’d also been in the
Islington Tribune
a couple of times and the
Camden Journal
. The
Independent
had even published a piece. Each and every one of them mentioned that I was selling
The Big Issue
. It was the kind of feel-good coverage they wanted. We embodied the ethos of the charity: they had helped us to help ourselves. Or at least, so I thought.

I began to wonder whether they saw it differently. Maybe they thought I was getting too big for my boots. I actually dug out my original contract with them to see if I’d perhaps broken any rules by agreeing to write a book. But, perhaps surprisingly, there was nothing.
The Big Issue
sellers obviously didn’t generally get contracts with big publishers to write their stories.

It was really confusing. I really didn’t know what to think. Once again, I began to wonder whether the high profile Bob and I were winning was a double-edged sword. But I knew what I had to do.

I didn’t go to Vauxhall to sign my six month suspension. As far as I was concerned, I’d sold my last copy of the magazine. I was sick of all the politics and the back-stabbing. It was bringing out the worst in people – but more worryingly, it was bringing out the worst in me. From now on I needed to concentrate on Bob, the book and all the things that brought out the best in me.  

Chapter 15

The One That Saves Me

The drama at Angel left me feeling depressed and lost for a little while. Deep down I knew I’d done the right thing, but I still had my moments when I worried that I’d made a bad move. I fretted that I’d made an enemy of
The Big Issue
and that it might come back to bite me somehow.

It took me a week or so to snap out of it. I gave myself a talking-to. I told myself that I couldn’t dwell on it forever. I had to move on and, in particular, I had to focus on the positives, especially the book.

It had been delivered to the publishers who seemed pleased with it. A part of me had wondered whether they’d read it and get cold feet. My story wasn’t the most romantic or glamorous of tales. The life on the streets I’d described was grim and, at times, deeply unpleasant. For a week or two after Garry and I handed in the manuscript, I half expected a phone call saying ‘sorry, we’ve made a terrible mistake’. But that didn’t happen. Instead they told me they were going to publish it in the following spring, in March.

I now had a target to aim for, but in the meantime I had to keep earning money, so I headed back to busking – and to Covent Garden.

I had mixed feelings. On the negative side, after a couple of years selling
The Big Issue
, it felt like a little bit of a backward step. Busking is, in some ways, only one rung up from begging. I thought I’d put those days behind me.

The other problem was that my voice had deteriorated. Shouting out ‘Big Issue, Big Issue’ hundreds and hundreds of times a day was more demanding on the larynx than singing a tuneful song every now and again. So when I picked up my guitar and started singing again I felt that I was well below par, certainly from the previous time I’d been performing. Playing the guitar for long periods took some getting used to as well.  I didn’t have callouses on my fingers for a start.

They were the negatives, but there were some positives too. I tried to focus on them.

Most significantly, it was a step into independence.
The Big Issue
had, without question, been a force for good in my life. Its guiding mantra had always been that it offered a helping hand rather than hand-outs. That had certainly been true in my case. It had helped me bring a little stability to my life. Without them I would probably never have been asked to write a book.

Yes, I’d found it hard to abide by the rules of an organisation. Some of it was bad luck, some of it was down to personality clashes, but some of it – I had to hold my hands up – was down to me. I wasn’t very good at dealing with authority. I never had been.

So being my own person again, felt good. I felt I’d got my freedom back.