Diary Of A Busker Day 362 Saturday May 4th 2013 Winchester High Street 1. Opposite Oxfam. Time: 1:45-3:47pm 2. Opposite Vodafone. Time: 4:25-6:05pm
I’m most of the way through the first song, Albatross, when a woman comes over from the British Heart Foundation shop, across the street and asks if I can stop playing for a few minutes while they do some interviews. Apparently, my playing in the background will ’cause problems for the continuity.’ ‘OK – how long,’ I ask. ‘About six minutes?’ – it’s a question but why is she asking ME? Doesn’t she know? Anyway, I say OK and she says ‘OK, thanks. I’ll come over when it’s done,’ and goes back. Sod it, I haven’t even done the first song and I’m now just sitting here. And I can say is, a minute’s a long time to sit and not play. I should have said ‘Sure but can you give me a couple of quid, as that’s how much I would have made if I was playing.’ Too polite for my own good. It’ll be my downfall…however, about four minutes in, I’m rescued by an elderly couple from Overton who buy a CD.
It’s really noisy here today. There seem to be more than the normal amount of a lot of buses, like yesterday, but also a few noisy generators from the mobile market stalls…and a lot of people, the odd muffler-less motorbike, fire alarm, police siren…airplanes!…and me. In short, a bloody racket.
A little old lady comes up and shakes my hand and an odd conversation follows. She starts it – ‘I wonder if you could write out something for my friend Bob. Next week?’ ‘Write out something?’ ‘Mmm, yes. Do you have any music written out?’ ‘Well I have this sort of thing’ – I point to my tablature book on the ground. ‘Some poetry, do you read poetry?’ ‘Poetry? No, I’m a guitarist, sorry.’ ‘Well, will you be here again soon?’ ‘Oh yeah, I’m here all the time, probably even tomorrow!’ ‘Oh good. Do you know anything classical?’ ‘Well…only Bach, one of his.’ ‘Sorry?’ ‘Bach. Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring.’ ‘Oh yes. You see…I’m pining for him.’ ‘Pining?’ ‘For Bob. He died…he was my neighbour.’ ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I really am…you knew him a long time?’ ‘Yes, I’m pining. He was a smoker, you see.’ ‘Ah. I’m sorry…a smoker, yes.’ ‘What’s your name?’ she holds out her hand. ‘It’s Marvin, what’s yours?’ ‘Rosemary. Well I hope to see you again,’ and off she goes. I begin Jesu and Rosemary looks back at me and waves as she crosses Colebrook Street, just to my right. Pining for her dead neighbour Bob. Poor thing.
After two hours (and two minutes, to be precise) – a long session, I retire to the cathedral grounds to enjoy my Cohiba Robustos which I intend to wash down with my small apple. About three minutes into the cigar, one of the drongos, Brian from the North, comes drongoing by, and there ensues another curious dialogue. Brian starts it – ‘Hey, can I have your dog-end after you’ve finished?’ ‘Well, I’ve just lit it up…it won’t be today because I’ll save some for another time.’ ‘It’s OK, just jokin’…’ave you got family?…I know we see each other around.’ ‘Yeah’. ‘I ‘aven’t. I’ve been in care since I was six months.’ ‘Oh right….what about your parents?’ ‘Me dad was a traveller, me mum she was in care, ‘ee fucked ‘er, phtt…here I am, thirty-six years later.’ ‘Oh, right…and you don’t have a home?’ ‘No, don’t pay no bills, though. No rent…was born when Maggie Thatcher was around. Hey, they should ‘ave the Monster Ravin’ Looney Party, eh?’ ‘Yeah, I think you’re right.’ ‘Screaming Lord Sutch…what was that song?’ ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember what it was called…good, though.’ Brian went off to join some fellow drongos sitting nearby. No wonder some of these people are totally messed up…in care all his life. I’ve often wondered about Brian and some of the others. There you go (but for the grace of god), now I know.
Back on the street, my old-lady-regular, Lily, gives me a fiver – ‘Lily, that’s a lot of money! Of course, I don’t want to refuse it’. ‘No, don’t!’ – then we have a chat but she’s so soft-spoken, I have to get up and lean forward to hear. She tells me she lives ‘in a place with a lot of old people’ – said as if she’s a lot younger and doesn’t consider herself one of them, although she must be around 80, probably older as she says she has two sons, the oldest being fifty-nine. Apparently the place is a bit boring for her; the conversations are, anyway – ‘You say something and they don’t say anything back so you end up doing all the talking. And they watch TV all day. I don’t watch ANY TV in the day. I like to get out and get some fresh air. It’s good for you…only in the evening I watch the TV, just for the sound of other people so you don’t get lonely. And I go and stay with my son in Forest Gate for a week, every month, and when I’m at home, he phones me every day, and I take a tablet – one every day, for my blood. I ‘ave it with a cup of tea and a biscuit ’cause you shouldn’t take it on an empty stomach, they say.’ While this is going one – A Day In The Life Of Lily, a kid puts a 5p coin in the bucket, which prompts me into a minor rant – ‘That really annoys me, Lily. The parents give the kid a coin which is almost worthless, to give to me – is that any example to set?’ She agrees – ‘It’s disgraceful. They’ll grow up thinking that’s the right way to behave.’
Finally, about twenty minutes before I stop, a man donates and says ‘Don’t tell me, you used to be…what…an airline pilot?’ I say no, I’ve definitely not ever been one of them. ‘I am (ah, I get it. This is his way of launching into what he really wants to talk about)…well, a pilot. Just got back from Biggin.’ Haha, it’s not often you meet an airfield-dropper in Winchester! I say ‘From Biggin,’ not as a question. ‘Yes, Biggin Hill. I’m seventy-eight. Just had my licence renewed for another three years.’ Having been passing the gauntlet, I take it up – ‘Really, what planes do you fly?’ ‘Oh, nothing big – Cessnas, the smaller ones. Take the girlfriends up, you know!’ Girlfriends? He goes on – ‘Not a bad spot here, all these people like you, eh?’ ‘Well, there are good days and bad days, like yesterday – I got 86p for playing forty-five minutes.’ ‘Oh well…people, eh? Anyway, so long,’ and he’s off, clearly not wanting to hear the FULL version of my hard-luck-story. Girlfriends! – It’s a shame he didn’t drop by earlier; maybe Lily would have liked a trip to “Biggin” for a ride in his Cessna. It would certainly be a change from sitting in a room where no one talks to you, although she couldn’t very well get up and leave if things got too…hot!
Near the end, a man – ‘That guitar, it’s like George Harrison’s, isn’t it? (looks at name on guitar headstock)…an Epiphany, isn’t it?’ ‘Almost – it’s Epiphone’. Epiphany – brilliant!
Earnings: £62.32 (including one CD)