February 4, 2015
By Linda Morris
Ten years ago, James Bowen (click here) had a methadone habit, no fixed address and no real job. He is now the co-author of five books, a children's book series and, in a film of his life story, he is set to be played by Daniel Radcliffe, the one-time boy wizard.
The life-changing transformation comes down to the unlikely pairing of Bowen with a wily green-eyed tom cat named Bob. Together, they must count as the oddest of London literary couples.
Bob was a stray Bowen adopted in 2007 after finding him curled up on a doormat outside a ground-floor flat in Covent Garden, malnourished and with an abscess on his back leg.
After spending all of his busker's wages to buy a course of antibiotics, Bowen brought the cat home and named him after a character in his favourite television series, Twin Peaks.
The two became local celebrities selling The Big Issue outside Angel tube station, eventually coming to the notice of literary agent, Mary Panchos.
"If I was to go busking now I would probably cause a street hazard," says Bowen on his first publicity tour to Australia, where he once lived....