Day 2732
Sunday August 23rd 2026
Winchester
An unusually long session of 2 1/2 hours in The Square. I meant to do not more than an hour and a half but as I was about to pack up a couple turned up, said it was nice to see me again and they were about to have a pizza and looked forward to hearing me. Well, I don’t want to disappoint my public, do I? Then after another half hour was gone and they’d finished their pizza, it happened again – someone else turned up and said the same thing so I carried on a bit longer!
Nick from the old days was already there, having a pint outside The Old Vine. He was with his daughter. He came over and donated a tenner and said ‘Maybe this will spur some other people on to make some more donations.’ I was grateful because the total for that very long set turned out to be £26.74. In addition to the tenner, Nick was there the whole time and clapped after every song. Unfortunately, he was more often than not the only member of the Clap For Marvin Club.
A couple of amusing incidents – a young couple came over – I think they were students – and the boy produced a plastic wallet and took out my business card, which looked like it had been in the wars. ‘We’ve seen you for years and you gave me this a long time ago. Do you think I could have another one?’ Of course he could!
Then, a message came through on my phone – “listening to you right now outside of Three Joes, and I’ve got one of your CDs in the car!”
I had a glance at the people at the tables but there was no one looking over at me, smiling, which is what you might expect. But then, when I looked at the time it was sent, it was half an hour ago – it took that long to reach me, so maybe they were looking over and smiling half an hour ago but had buggered off!
At the end, Nick came over again for a chat and a minute later an old guy came to join us. ‘I heard you do Winchester Cathedral just now’ he said.
‘Ah, very perceptive of you. It goes over most people’s heads but they’re probably not old enough to remember’ I said.
Nick – ‘Actually, the bloke who wrote that, he wrote it in The Old Vine.’
Me – ‘Really?’
‘Yeah, well that’s the story, anyway. His name was…Mike Vane or Vaughan or something like that.’
I got my phone out – ‘Right, let me have a look…Geoff Stephens it says here.’
‘Oh right, well whoever he was, he’s passed on so we’ll never know.’
‘Indeed, and maybe it’s better that way! It’s a good story, though.’
‘Yeah, well that’s what I heard. He, whoever it was, he wrote it in The Vine.’
I almost forgot. I made a complete mess of Here, There And Everywhere as I hadn’t played it in ages. I abandoned it after the first verse and had to turn the sound off and go through it, then it was OK. How bloody embarrassing.