Diary Of A Busker Day 2556 Saturday June 7th 2025 Winchester.
Out during a break in the rain…there’s a singer up from The Buttercross but no one around the corner in The Square. I get through La Vie En Rose and right on cue, it starts raining so I drag everything back a few feet under the tree at the side of the cathedral grounds entrance and wait…five minutes later, I’m fed up with waiting and set up again but not as far out. I make sure I’m just under on the tree cover. In a few minutes it’s dry again.
Awhile back – it might have even been a couple of years ago, a young couple were having a pizza outside Three Joes. They really liked me (not as much as they liked each other – they clearly had just started going out together) and invited me to join them at the tail end of their meal. The woman worked for a Southampton entertainments magazine and said she was really keen to do a feature on me – ‘It could get you a bit of work’ she said. She gave me her card and said she wouldn’t forget to contact me. I waited a few months then sent her a message saying ‘You forgot about me!’ She apologised and said she would sort something out. She never did.
Anyway, the bloke turns up today with a different girl (clearly they are going out together), says hello and asks how I’m doing. I said I was fine, that I was pleased he remembered me, and ‘…I never heard back from your friend.’ ‘She’s just very busy.’ He was friendly enough, though, and sat down outside The Old Vine with his new squeeze and a couple of other men. After half an hour they left but he did say goodbye to me. I thought, see you in another couple of years…with another lucky lady!
A friendly American woman who lives here and has heard me many a time, sits on the bench just behind me and after a bit gets up and buys volume 2 of the book. She already has volume 1 and this one’s for her husband. She then says she really likes my Satie which naturally leads me to relate the incident of the bloke who lives nearby who can’t handle me playing the Gnossienne. We reach a deal; if I play it and he comes out and lays into me I’ll just say “Actually, see that lady sitting there? Well, she requested it and a request is a request so I have to play it. Don’t want to disappoint the punters, you know. So if you’ve got a problem with it, I suggest you take it up with her.” She agrees to take any flack, which I guarantee won’t happen. So I go into it…and he doesn’t turn up and I have to say I was a bit let down! Oh well, maybe he was out…or maybe he’s done himself in.
There are five blokes in their twenties chatting near the bench near the museum. I’ve seen them before and remember them because they’re dressed very smartly; dinner suits with bow ties. One of them – oriental-looking, is very short with a trilby, old Burberry-ish raincoat and he’s got a very Poirot-ish moustache, all waxed up. They look like they’re from the 40’s. Apart from their mobile phones, which sort of ruins it a bit. I’m too busy playing to stop and find out what they’re all about but I might ask them next time.
After an hour and 15 minutes, the rain starts up and this time I know it’s not going to let up – the sky is grey as far as the eye can see and it’s heavier than before so I’m no longer protected by the tree cover. Time to go.