Diary Of A Busker Day 306 Monday November 12th 2012 Winchester High Street, opposite Oxfam. Time: 1:22-3:14pm
The students with their Tesco-style STUDENTS – EVERY LITTLE HELPS sign are at The Buttercross. They’re not actually playing, they’re just sitting on the steps of the monument (you’d never get me doing that!) Down at the crossroads…it’s Rob, and he must be there because the students beat him to the place up the road. He’s turned the volume down considerably from how he usually is…so I’m back down the arse-end…and here he is, right on cue – Walter, with his usual request – ‘Do the Edgware Road’, so I do it – the four note end-of-the-song thing. He then starts going on about Ivor Novello and We Gather Lilacs In The Spring which I have to confess I’m not familiar with. I’ll ‘look into it’ though, I assure him.
While we’re talking and while I’m still playing, a little girl stops in front and starts dancing, to the amusement of the lady sorting out the C & H Fabrics window display behind me. I suddenly think they must get fed up with me sometimes but because I’ve got my back to them, it never crosses my mind – I never think about them, only places like Oxfam that I can see in front of me. Anyway, Walter sees this lady in the window and smiles, so I ask him if he knows her. He replies ‘No, some bitch.’ Cheeky old git!
I notice another one of my regulars, Lily, sitting at one of the Maison Blanc tables across the way. I try to catch her eye to nod ‘hello’ but she doesn’t seem to have seen me although she must be able to hear me. I mean, that’s half the reason why I’m sitting here, to play for that lot! She’s there for quite awhile before she gets up to go – I reckon she’s just trying to sneak off without acknowledgement, but she comes over, says hello and hands me some folded £5 notes! I protest (of course), saying that’s a lot of money – there must be four or five of them, but she insists. The notes are warm – I can tell she’s been holding them for a few minutes so she must have been going to give them to me all along, so now I feel bad. Well, what can I say apart from (again) ‘That’s a lot of money, you’ve just increased my takings by double (more than that, as it turns out)…that’s made my day!’ What a nice lady. Just then, another of my aged regulars appears and requests her favourite – The Deer Hunter song, and I have to apologise – I haven’t played it in ages. I can’t even remember how it starts. I also have to apologise because I’ve forgotten her name. It’s Mary. Lily and Mary don’t know each other but now, because of me, they do and now everyone starts comparing/disclosing respective ages – something that happens quite a lot, I find. I get in Lily’s good books when, to her ‘How old do you think I am?’, I reply ‘Sixty-two?’ It turns out she’s 83, but Mary’s even older – she’s 86. These two octogenarians chat for awhile and I feel chuffed I might have been the catalyst to the initiation of a beautiful friendship. I listen as Lily informs Mary of all of the things she’s already told me, such as her mother playing the piano for Max Bygraves and, something I didn’t know, The Queen Mother…ma’am. Mary asks Lily if she’d like to join her for a cup of tea. Lily says she would like that but she’s ‘got to be somewhere. Maybe another day.’ I think perhaps Lily might not like Mary very much. After they go, I discover Lily’s fivers have amounted to £25. Wow.
Before I finish, I notice Frank, who I haven’t seen in weeks, loitering down the road on the other side with his accordion and cart but no Kazoo, and at one point while he’s talking to a man, he points in my direction then points in the other one towards The Buttercross. I bet he’s annoyed there’s no place he can set up. Oh well, tough luck, old pal. Ten minutes later, he walks past me with a ‘Hello Marvin’ to which I reply ‘Alright Frank?’ He doesn’t stop like he sometimes does and I carry on playing.
Earnings: £44.86