by James Bowen
‘The DNA didn’t match the saliva on the ticket collector’s booth did it?’ I said, feeling suddenly empowered by what he’d told me.
He just looked at me with a tight-lipped smile. He couldn’t say anything; I knew that. But he didn’t need to. It seemed obvious to me that someone at the tube station had tried to fit me up, but had failed.
If that was the good news, the bad news wasn’t long in following.
The lady told me that I was being charged with illegally busking, or ‘touting for reward’, to give it its formal title.
They shoved a piece of paper towards me and told me I was to report to court in a week’s time.
I left the station relieved. ‘Touting for reward’ was a relatively minor offence, certainly compared to threatening behaviour. If I was lucky I’d get away with a small fine and a rap across the knuckles, nothing more.
Threatening behaviour would have been a completely different matter, of course. That would have left me open to a heavy punishment, maybe even imprisonment. I’d got off lightly.
Part of me wanted to fight back at the injustice of what had happened to me. The description of the person who spat on the window bore no relation to my appearance. I held on to the paperwork and thought I could do them for wrongful arrest.
But, to be honest, the main thought in my mind as I headed home that afternoon was relief and a sense that I’d turned some sort of corner. I wasn’t sure yet what it was.
I still had to get past the court hearing. I went to the local Citizens Advice centre and got a bit of legal advice. I should probably have done that earlier, but I’d been too messed up to think of it.
It turned out that because I was on a drug rehab programme and living in sheltered accommodation, I was eligible for legal aid. But the truth was I didn’t think I needed a solicitor representing me in court, so I simply got some advice about what to say.
It was pretty straightforward. I needed to front up and admit that I was guilty of busking: plain and simple. I simply had to go along, plead accordingly and hope the magistrate wasn’t some kind of sadist with a hatred for street musicians.
When the day came I put on a clean shirt (over the top of a T-shirt bearing the slogan ‘Extremely Unhappy’) and had a shave before heading to court. The waiting area was full of all sorts of people, from some really scary-looking guys with shaven heads and Eastern European accents to a couple of middle-aged guys in grey suits who were up on driving offences.
‘James Bowen. The court calls Mr James Bowen,’ a plummy-sounding voice eventually announced. I took a deep breath and headed in.
The magistrates looked at me like I was a piece of dirt that had been blown in off the street. But under the law there wasn’t too much they could do to me, especially as it was my first offence for busking.
I got a three-month conditional discharge. I wasn’t fined.
But they made it clear that if I did reoffend I could face a fine - and even worse.
Belle and Bob were waiting for me outside the courthouse after the hearing was over. Bob immediately jumped off her lap and walked over to me. He didn’t want to be too melodramatic about it all, but it was clear he was pleased to see me.
‘How did it go?’ Belle asked.
‘Three-month conditional discharge, but if I get caught again I’m for the high jump,’ I said.
‘So what are you going to do?’ she said.
I looked at her, then looked down at Bob. The answer must have been written all over my face.
I had reached the end of the road. I’d been busking on and off now for almost a decade. Times had changed - and my life had changed, certainly since Bob had come into it. So it was becoming more and more clear to me that I couldn’t carry on busking, it didn’t make any sense on any level. There were times when it didn’t earn me enough money to make ends meet. There were times when it put me - and more importantly, Bob - in dangerous situations. And now there was a real danger that if I was caught busking in the wrong place again, I could get banged up in prison. It just wasn’t worth it.
‘I don’t know what I’m going to do, Belle,’ I said. ‘But the one thing I know I’m not going to do is carry on busking.’
Chapter 12
Number 683
My head was spinning for the next few days. I felt a real mixture of emotions.
Part of me was still angry at the unfairness of what had happened. I felt like I’d lost my livelihood simply because a few people had taken against me. At the same time, however, another part of me had begun to see it might have been a blessing in disguise.
Deep down I knew I couldn’t carry on busking all my life. I wasn’t going to turn my life around singing Johnny Cash and Oasis songs on street corners. I wasn’t going to build up the strength to get myself totally clean by relying on my guitar. It began to dawn on me that I was at a big crossroads, that I had an opportunity to put the past behind me. I’d been there before, but for the first time in years, I felt like I was ready to take it.
That was all very well in theory, of course. I also knew the brutal truth: my options were pretty limited. How was I now going to earn money? No one was going to give me a job.
It wasn’t because I was stupid; I knew that. Thanks to the IT work I’d done when I was a teenager back in Australia I was fairly knowledgeable when it came to computers. I spent as much time as I could on friends’ laptops or on the free computers at the local library and had taught myself a fair bit about the subject. But I didn’t have any references or relevant experience in the UK to rely on and when a prospective employer asked me where I’d spent the past ten years I couldn’t exactly say I’d been working for Google or Microsoft. So I had to forget that.
There wasn’t even any point in me applying to do a training course in computing because they wouldn’t accept me. Officially I was still on a drug rehabilitation programme. I was living in sheltered accommodation and didn’t even have an O level to my name. They wouldn’t - and probably couldn’t - touch me with a bargepole. All in all, I was a non-starter when it came to getting a normal job. Whatever normal is.
I realised quickly that there was only one realistic alternative. I didn’t have the luxury of being able to wait for something to turn up. I needed to make money to look after myself and Bob. So a couple of days after the court hearing I set off with Bob for Covent Garden - for the first time in years, without my guitar on my back. When I got to the piazza I headed straight for the spot where I knew I’d probably find a girl called Sam, the area’s Big Issue coordinator.
I had tried selling the Big Issue before, back in 1998 and 1999 when I first ended up on the streets. I’d got myself accredited and worked the streets around Charing Cross and Trafalgar Square. It hadn’t worked out. I’d lasted less than a year before I gave it up.
I could still remember how difficult it was.
When I was selling the Big Issue, so many people used to come up to me and snarl ‘get a job’. That used to really upset me. They didn’t realise that selling the Big Issue is a job. In fact, being a Big Issue seller effectively means you are running your own business. When I was selling the magazine I had overheads. I had to buy copies to sell. So each day I turned up at the coordinator’s stand I had to have at least a few quid in order to buy a few copies of the magazine. That old saying is as true for Big Issue sellers as it is for anyone else: you have to have money, to make money.
So many people think it’s a complete charity job and that they give the magazines to the sellers for free. That’s just not the case. If it was, people would be selling a lot more than they do. The Big Issue philosophy is that it is helping people to help themselves. But back then I wasn’t really sure I wanted any help. I wasn’t ready for it.
I could still remember some of the grim, soul-destroying days I’d spent sitting on a wet and windy street-corner pitch trying to coax and cajole Londoners to part with their cash in return for a magazine. It was really hard, especially as back then my life was still ruled
by drugs. All I usually got for my trouble was a load of abuse or a kick in the ribs.
Most of all it had been hard because I had been invisible. Most people just didn’t give me the time of day. They would do all they could to avoid me, in fact. That’s why I had turned to busking, at least then I had my music to attract people’s attention and let them know I was actually a living, breathing creature. And even then most of them ignored me.
I wouldn’t have even contemplated going back to selling the Big Issue if it hadn’t been for Bob. The way he’d transformed my fortunes - and my spirits - on the streets had been amazing. If I could do as well selling the Big Issue as I’d done busking with Bob then maybe I could take that big step forward. Of course there was only one problem: I had to get them to accept me first.
I found Sam at the spot where the area’s Big Issue sellers gathered to buy their magazines, on a side street off the main piazza of Covent Garden. There were a few vendors there, all men. I recognised one or two of the faces. One of them was a guy called Steve, who I knew was a driver for the magazine. I’d seen him around the place, delivering the magazines on Mondays when the new issues came out.
We’d registered each other’s presence around Covent Garden a couple of times and were a bit wary of each other. I got the distinct impression he wasn’t very pleased to see me, but I didn’t care. I hadn’t come to see him; it was Sam I needed to talk to.
‘Hello, you two not busking today?’ she said, recognising me and Bob and giving him a friendly pat.
‘No, I’m going to have to knock that on the head,’ I said. ‘Bit of trouble with the cops. If I get caught doing it illegally again I’m going to be in big trouble. Can’t risk it now I’ve got Bob to look after. Can I, mate?’
‘OK,’ Sam said, her face immediately signalling that she could see what was coming next.
‘So,’ I said, rocking up and down on my heels. ‘I was wondering—’
Sam smiled and cut me off. ‘Well, it all depends on whether you meet the criteria,’ she said.
‘Oh yeah, I do,’ I said, knowing that as a person in what was known as ‘vulnerable housing’ I was eligible to sell the magazine.
‘But you are going to have to go through all the red tape and go down to Vauxhall to sign up,’ she said.
‘Right.’
‘You know where the offices are?’ she said, reaching for a card.
‘Not sure,’ I said. I was sure the offices had been somewhere else when I’d signed up years ago.
‘Get a bus to Vauxhall and get off by the train station. It’s across the road from there not far from the river on the one-way system,’ she said. ‘Once you’re badged up, just come back here and see me and we can get you going.’
I took the card and headed home with Bob. ‘Better get ourselves organised, Bob,’ I said. ‘We’re going for a job interview.’
I needed to get some paperwork sorted before I could go to the Big Issue office, so the next day I went to see my housing worker. In any case, I was supposed to see her regularly. I explained my current situation and what had happened with the Transport Police. She happily gave me a letter saying that I was living in ‘vulnerable housing’ and that selling the Big Issue would be a good way of helping me get my life back together again.
The day after that I made myself look respectable, got my hair tied back, put on a decent shirt and set off for Vauxhall with all the bits and pieces I needed.
I also took Bob with me. Part of my thinking was that Bob might help me sell magazines in the way that he’d helped me make money busking. He was going to be part of my team, so I wanted to get him registered as well, if that was at all possible.
The Big Issue offices are in an ordinary-looking office block on the south side of the Thames, near Vauxhall Bridge and the MI6 building.
The first thing I noticed when I arrived in the reception area was a large sign saying ‘No Dogs Allowed’. Apparently they used to allow dogs in there but they had banned them as so many dogs had started fighting with each other. It didn’t say anything about cats, however.
After filling in a few bits of paper, I was told to take a seat and wait. After a while I was called in to have an interview with a guy in one of the offices. He was a decent bloke and we chatted for a while. He’d been on the streets himself years ago and had used the Big Issue as a stepping-stone to help get his life together.
I explained my circumstances. He was sympathetic.
‘I know what it’s like out there, James, believe me,’ he said.
It took just a few minutes before he gave me a thumbs-up sign and told me to go and get badged up in another office.
I had to have my photo taken and then wait to get a laminated badge with my vendor number on it. I asked the guy who was issuing the badges whether Bob could have an ID card as well.
‘Sorry,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Pets aren’t allowed to have their own badges. We’ve had this before with dogs. Never with a cat, though.’
‘Well, what about if he is in the picture with me?’ I asked.
He pulled a face, as if to say, I’m not sure about that. But in the end he relented.
‘Go on then,’ he said.
‘Smile, Bob,’ I said, as we sat in front of the camera.
As he waited for the photo to be processed, the guy got on with the rest of the registration process. When you become a Big Issue seller you get assigned a random number. They are not issued in sequence. If they did that the numbers would now be running into the thousands because so many people have signed up to sell the Big Issue over the years then just disappeared off the face of the earth. So when someone fails to show up on the records for a while the number comes back into circulation. They have to do that.
After waiting about a quarter of an hour, the guy reappeared at the desk.
‘Here you go, Mr Bowen,’ he said, handing me the laminated badge.
I couldn’t help breaking into a big grin at the picture. Bob was on the left-hand side. We were a team. Big Issue Vendors Number 683.
It was a long journey back to Tottenham, involving two buses. So I whiled away the hour and a half it took us reading through the little booklet they gave me. I’d read something similar ten years earlier but hadn’t really retained any of it. If I was honest, I’d not really taken it seriously. I’d been too out of it a lot of the time. This time around I was determined to take it more seriously.
It began with the magazine’s main philosophy:
‘The Big Issue exists to offer homeless and vulnerably housed people the opportunity to earn a legitimate income by selling a magazine to the general public. We believe in offering “a hand up, not a hand out” and in enabling individuals to take control of their lives.’
That’s exactly what I want, I said to myself, a hand up. And this time I’ll accept it.
The next bit stated that I had to ‘undergo an induction process and sign up to the code of conduct’. I knew the first bit meant that I’d have to work at a ‘trial pitch’, where my performance would be watched and assessed by the local organisers.
If that went well I’d be allocated a fixed pitch, it went on. I’d also get ten free copies of the magazine to get me started. It made it clear that it was then down to me. ‘Once they have sold these magazines they can purchase further copies, which they buy for £1 and sell for £2, thereby making £1 per copy.’
The rules went on to explain that vendors were employed by the Big Issue. ‘We do not reimburse them for magazines which they fail to sell, hence each individual must manage their sales and finances carefully. These skills, along with the confidence and self-esteem they build through selling the magazine, are crucial in helping homeless people reintegrate into mainstream society.’
That was the simple economics of it. But there was a lot more to it than that, as I would soon discover.
The next morning I headed back down to Covent Garden to see Sam, the coordinator. I was keen to get on with my ‘induction’.
‘All go OK down at Vauxhall?’ she said, as Bob and I approached her.
‘I guess it must have done. They gave me one of these,’ I grinned, proudly producing my laminated badge from under my coat.
‘Great,’ Sam said, smiling at the photo of me and Bob. ‘I’d better get you started then.’
She began by counting out my ten free copies of the magazine.
‘There you go,’ she said. ‘You know you’ll have to buy them after this?’
‘Yep, I understand,’ I said.
For a few minutes she studied a sheet of papers.
‘Just trying to work out where to put your trial pitch,’ she said, apologetically.
A moment or two later I could see she’d made up her mind.
‘Found somewhere?’ I asked, feeling quite excited about it.
‘Think so,’ Sam said.
I couldn’t believe what she said next.
‘OK, we’ll give you the training pitch just here,’ she said, pointing in the direction of Covent Garden tube station, a few yards further up James Street.
I couldn’t stop myself from bursting out laughing.
‘Are you OK? Is that a problem?’ she said, looking confused. ‘I can look to see if there’s somewhere else.’
‘No, it’s not a problem at all,’ I said. ‘It’ll be great there. It’ll be a real walk down memory lane. I’ll get started right away.’
I wasted no time and set up immediately. It was mid-morning, a few hours before I’d normally have set up busking, but there were lots of people milling around, mostly tourists. It was a bright, sunny morning, which, I knew from experience, always puts people in a better and more generous mood.
When I’d been busking I’d always felt like I was running the gauntlet of the authorities by playing here. Selling the Big Issue was a totally different prospect. I was officially licensed to be there. So I placed myself as close to the station as possible without actually being inside the concourse.