Diary Of A Busker Day 2502 Wednesday March 12th 2025 Chichester.
I get the train an hour earlier than usual but it’s not early enough as all the spots are taken. There’s a saxophonist with backing tracks at The Cross, a bloke sitting down with a classical guitar and backing tracks down North Street near the “Murray Or None” statue and a woman with an accordion down East Street, in between the market stalls – I keep forgetting Wednesday is market day here. Well, I might as well have a wander so I walk by her and a bit further down I find another space between the stalls, so I set up, tune up and I’m just about to start when the bloke from the stall on my right comes over and says ‘Sorry, would you mind playing somewhere else, I’ve got two clients coming along a bit later and I need to hear what they say.’ ‘Look, I’m not very loud’, I say. ‘Well, I need to hear what they’re saying to me, would you mind?’ – he’s obviously not having it but it fucks me off – ‘I wish you would have told me that five minutes ago, before I set up!’ and with that, I “rig down” and fuck off up the road.
When I get to the accordionist, I ask her how long she’s been playing. ‘About 40 years’ she says. Ha, this is what I usually say when someone asks me that. ‘Yeah, good one. How long today?’ ‘Five minutes.’ I tell her about the bloke down the road – ‘Oh, don’t worry about them, just play wherever you want’, she says. ‘No, I don’t like him, it’s not worth it. So how long will you be?’ ‘About an hour. Have you been up North Street?’ ‘Yeah, there’s a bloke there, playing a classical guitar near Marks & Spencer.’ ‘Ah, Christian…well, you can play further up, where the comic shop is – it’s good there, then come back here in an hour and we can change places, and I’ll go up there, OK?’ ‘Yeah, alright.’ She holds out her hand – ‘I’m Lucinda and you’re?’ ‘Marvin. Nice to meet you Lucinda.’ ‘Well, Marvin, God will bless you wherever you set up.’ ‘Wow, hallelujah! OK, I’ll see how I get on.’
I find the comic shop, not too far from the usual spot, set up (actually just left of the comic shop, and opposite Toni & Guy) and got lucky early on with a CD purchase, so that’s a £9 profit which means I need £6.45 to make up the £15.45 train fare…and it’s a long time coming. Just after the CD sale, a young woman pushing a wheelchair with a man with no legs appear. He fumbles around his wallet for some change – he takes ages and the longer it takes the more sorry I feel for him. In fact, when he eventually puts some change in the case – around £3.50, I say ‘Here, have a CD, please. No charge.’ Oh dear, was God looking down on him when he lost both his fucking legs?! After an hour, my fingers are getting cold and anyway, I’m expecting Lucinda to turn up so I pack up. It looks like I’ve cleared the train fare and got around a fiver in profit, so that’s OK. Job done. My hands warm up a bit when I put my gloves on so I decide to go to the toilet round the corner then see if I can set up where Lucinda was, if she’s gone, that is…and she is so I set up – this is opposite the Oliver Bonas shop. There was a spot next to a fishmonger not as far down but I reckon the smell would get to me after a few minutes so I decided against setting up there!
Well, If God was looking after me up North Street, he must have gone on a lunch break here because I played for 40 minutes for zero coinage. Not a fucking penny. Lucinda appeared near the end and I told her about it. ‘Yes, well…you never can tell, can you?’ she says. ‘No, you can’t. I usually have quite a good time here – I come up from Winchester on the train – it’s usually pretty good, but there you go.’ After that, I needed a break so I had my packed lunch of two sandwiches; peanut butter and cheese/sandwich spread, in front of the cathedral then went up North Street to The Little Eating Company for a cup of coffee. I usually have a “large” one but for once I had a “medium” one but it was about half the size of a “large” one and only 20p cheaper, so fuck that. In future, it’ll be back to “large”.
When I’d come out, the bloke at The Cross had gone so I nabbed the spot. After a few minutes, the woman from the council came up. I can’t remember her name but she knew mine, which is always embarrassing! Anyway, it was ‘Hey Marvin, you’re back! Do you fancy doing some more market days?’ ‘Yeah sure…sorry, what was your name?’ ‘Frances. OK great, I’ll email you…and pay you’ she says as she’s walking off. ‘OK, wow, that’ll be a first!’ I shout. At least I don’t THINK she’s ever paid me before! After 25 minutes, it starts to drizzle and I have to pack up and take shelter inside the Cross, behind me. I’d got a few pound coins. It never started to pour down and I was hopeful it would stop but it didn’t so I decided to head back to the train station and that was it. I was beaten. Back home, I counted the takings and after the train fare the profit was £8.99…but no it wasn’t, was it? What about the coffee? That was £3.50?! Come on Chichester, you can do better than that! Next time…