Diary Of A Busker Day 2621 Monday October 27th 2025 Winchester.
The Buttercross is taken – there’s a bloke singing to backing tracks so it’s round the corner to The Square – unusual for me to venture there on a weekday but school’s out and there are lots of families about and that means parents giving sprogs coins to give to ME to get them off their backs.
Even so, there’s not a lot of coinage about. Maybe the parents have spent all their money. However, all is not lost. During Wouldn’t It Be Nice a young couple come up –
‘We’re just married!’ says the chap.
‘Really? When?’
‘Friday.’
‘Well, congratulations!’
‘We’re staying here and heard this music and thought “Oh, where’s that coming from?” and we found you here. Anyway, here’s something (he pours in a load of 50p coins)…there should be around £5 there.’
‘Oh, thank you! So you’re on your honeymoon here?’
‘Yes, we’re staying there.’
‘Oh, The Old Vine. What’s it like in there? I mean the rooms?’
‘Oh, very nice, sort of old, you know. But nice.’
They then go off but 15 minutes later, I hear some clapping after Everybody Wants To Rule The World and it them sitting down outside The Eclipse! After a few more songs, they come over and this time I ask their names – Sachin and Laura, who live in London but spend a lot of time working in the Emirates. Sachin also plays the guitar and loves my 12-string, pointing out my attempt at the Requerdos technique in my Wouldn’t It Be Nice arrangement –
I’ve never heard that on a 12-string.’
‘Yeah, sorry about that! I do my best but one of my fingers doesn’t work so I can’t do the sequence right. It’s impossible!’
Well, these lovely newly-weds turned out to be not only very nice people but also my Saviours Of The Day because, in addition to the £5 coinage, they took advantage of the Two CDs for £15 – ‘Only today in Winchester!’ and not only that, they bought a book AND paid another £2 to the QR code. In fact, they contributed no less than £29 of the £39.77 total for the two hour set. In closing, I said they could always look me up on YouTube – ‘So you’ll never be far from me!’ Thank you Sachin and Laura. I do hope you have a long and prosperous life together.