Diary Of A Busker Day 2462 Monday November 4th 2024 Winchester.
I’m hoping for a better day than yesterday in The Square. I was there for an hour and a half and collected a mere £6.30.
Good luck so far, as The Buttercross is free. I’m unzipping the gigbag and a pair of stockinged legs appear and I know who they belong to straight away, without seeing the rest of the person. It’s Claire and once again we’re both amazed by us both turning up at the exact same time.
‘So, here we are again Claire.’
‘Yes’, she laughs, ‘It’s strange, isn’t it?’
‘It certainly is. You haven’t been hiding round the back of the monument, waiting for me, have you?’
‘Oh no! I’ve just come from round the corner.’
‘Well, you’re welcome to have a dance. I’ll just set up – it doesn’t take me long – and then we can get this party started. I’ll probably just do an hour, though, as it’ll get cold and my hands won’t take it – they’re very sensitive, you know!’
I’ve been favouring the Squier Strat for the last couple of weeks as the high strings ring out much more than the Gretsch, which means I can do Telstar. It’s also a bit less cumbersome, a bit more comfotable than the Gretsch. I’ve also got a nice new Fender strap for it. So I start up, Claire starts up her dancing which everyone loves – though there aren’t a lot of people about.
Some people film her; one of those, a woman, came over and put a 20 euro note in the case. That’ll help towards my Paris/Berlin trip in a few days. I’ve collected a total of 120 euros from playing out here in the past year or so.
After an hour, two men turn up from the direction of Jewry Street. They look Turkish and around 40 years old. One shouts ‘Hey, grandma!’ and starts dancing with Claire, his arms around her and hers around him. He’s talking to her, smiling away at her with his face very close to hers, then he attempts to zip up her fleece (she’s wearing two. The inner one is zipped up but not the outer one) but he can’t seem to zip it up. He tries for a couple of minutes but can’t do it. He’s beckoning to his mate ‘hey, let’s go for a cup of tea, with grandma…eh grandma? You like a cup of tea?’ but his mate isn’t interested and waves goodbye and walks off.
Over the next couple of minutes this bloke keeps asking Claire if she would like a cup of tea. She’s replying but I can’t hear what she’s saying. She points to me a couple of times – or rather to her bag and gloves she’s left behind me. This bloke becomes very insistent on the tea issue and he’s also touching her clothes and I’m starting to think there’s something weird going on and it doesn’t feel right. At the start, I thought she might know him because loads of people come up and hug her and chat and because she’s around here so much, I assume she must know some of them but I’m not sure about this so I stop playing and say ‘How’s it going? You OK, Claire?’ She mumbles something and the bloke again says ‘hey, let’s go have a cup of tea.’ I say ‘I don’t think she wants a cup of tea.’ At this, the bloke looks at me for a few seconds, laughs then walks off.
I ask Claire if she knows him. ‘Oh no, I’ve never seen him before. He just came up and kept asking if I wanted to go for a cup of tea and I kept saying “no, I don’t WANT a cup of tea. I’ve got things to do.”
‘I heard him keep asking you that and thought there was something weird going on but I didn’t know if you knew him.’
‘No, and he asked me if I wanted to go for a meal and I said “no I DON’T want to go for a meal.” Then he asked if I lived here and I said “no” and he asked where I lived.’
‘And I saw you point at me a couple of times’ I said.
‘Well, he asked me if I had my things with me, so we could go have a cup of tea and I pointed to them – they’re behind you, but I didn’t WANT a cup of tea, I kept telling him!’
I said that if that ever happens again that she should just walk into the nearest shop and tell someone – there’s loads of places here and they’re all open until 5 or 6 o’clock.
‘Yes, I’ll do that…I’m glad you were here.’
‘Well, if I wasn’t, that probably wouldn’t have happened because you wouldn’t have been dancing! But if you’re dancing to someone ELSE and this happens, I mean if someone weird comes up, then you just go into one of these shops – that coffee shop – Nero’s or the chocolate shop or whatever, OK?’
‘Yes, I’ll do that…I never even met him before.’
Oh dear, she’s 80 and needs to watch out, especially when there’s not many people about because sooner or later someone’s going to take advantage.
I resumed playing but it took Claire a few minutes to regain her composure as that incident had obviously disturbed her. Bloody hell, come to Winchester to dance away the day and one week you’re at the police station giving a witness statement and the next, you’re being hassled by some dodgy bloke trying to get you to go off with him for a cup of tea!