Diary Of A Busker Day 393 Thursday June 27th Winchester High Street (1. Opposite Vodafone, Time: 1:20-3:05pm, 2. Opposite Oxfam, Time: 3:18-4:27pm).
A long first set: an hour and 3/4, followed by a short break, then down to Oxfam. An old guy from the north tells me he’s ‘been to many towns but you’re the best-dressed busker’!! And I think, yes, it’s nice to be appreciated in a…sartorial way.
…two girls, late teens I’d say, walk by. One’s wearing a white T-shirt with the lovely slogan I HATE YOU written in big black letters, and I think ‘how can anyone wear something like that?!’.
One of my old regulars, in a wheelchair or disabled scooter or whatever they’re called(!) comes by and says he reckons I’ve learnt a load of new songs. I was playing Ne Me Quitte Pas, which he mustn’t have heard me do before. Then he says he’s just been resuscitated for four hours. (Does that mean at the end of the four hours, he’s going to conk out?! When? – when was he resuscitated?! Not 3 hours and 59 minutes ago?!) ‘I cheated death, that time’, he says. I say ‘I’m sure you’ll do it again’. He says ‘Well, I’d rather not spend four hours in resuscitation’. Oh dear, but what’s the alternative – death? I’m told that goes on a bit longer than four hours.
On the subject of death, I take the opportunity to inquire of Anthony, who’s stopped by for the first time in months to have a chat, if he’s heard anything of Ralph, the really old guy, who lives (or lived) in the same block as Anthony, down the road. I haven’t seen Ralph in ages. He says he hasn’t seen him either, and he thinks he’s died, which doesn’t surprise me. Oh dear, I think it’s pretty certain, then.
Observing the agedness of a lot of his fellow alms-house neighbours, Anthony says, ‘Quite a few pop off’, then he asks me how old Ralph was. I say I think he was 92. He says, ‘I’ve still got a few years left…I think’.
Earnings: £36.05p