Day 2634
Sunday December 21st 2025
Winchester
It’s a pre-Christmas full house, with Saxophony – they’ve been around as long as I have! in front of the tree at the top spot, a young Gareth-ish, Hat Fair-ish performer drumming up a crowd in The Square and Dean Dyson down at MY Nando’s spot! This means there’s only one place to play and that’s next to the phone box opposite Gieves & Hawkes, where I haven’t been for years but needs must. In fact, it’s not a bad place this time of year because I get all the people who’ve just been, or are going, to the Christmas Market, and most of them are out-of-towners so I’m new to them (and exciting, hopefully!) The other bonus is that I’m afforded a bit of shelter from the occasional drizzle, by the tree behind me.
Straight away the coinage, indeed the noteage, is an improvement on the last few days as I sell a CD in the first ten minutes and even a tenner, from a woman who’s seen me loads of times but has never donated before.
An Indian family stop – the mother says, ‘Winchester Cathedral?’ I point to my left and say, ‘Yeah, just over there, keep going, you can’t miss it.’ ‘No…song?’
‘Ah, right! Winchester Cathedral, the song. Oh dear, I don’t really know it but I’ll have a go…’ and so I do and it’s a good job the main bit is so easy and even better it’s so recognisable because I’m able to literally “busk” it reasonably well. I’ll make sure to go over it a few times at home, though, before I do it again. Anyway, my admirable effort earned me a fiver from the dad.
I have a very embarrassing moment when an old acquaintance turns up and I haven’t got a clue who it is. It’s none other than legendary Southampton radio presenter Xan Phillips. I couldn’t work it out – he said ‘how’s the music going?’ and it didn’t sound like he meant the busking stuff so that threw me a bit but I still didn’t equate it. After a few minutes, he said he was going back to join the queue for the Christmas Market and said ‘OK, Marvin…’ and I thought well, he knows my name but I’m going to have to ask him his. So I did and he said ‘It’s Xan, you said “Hello Xan” just a minute ago when we met!’ ‘Well, I don’t remember that. I think i’m losing the plot! Anyway, in my defence he was adorning two things he didn’t have when I last saw him years ago. (a) he had a beard and (b) he was wearing a red beany hat…which had Voice FM stitched on the side but I only saw that when he turned his head to show it to me!
Speaking of the Christmas Market queue, a couple came up, donated, went off and came back a few minutes later and the man said ‘That’s the queue for the Christmas Market’ and he points to my left and I couldn’t believe it. The end of the queue was right at the entrance, just beyond the crash barriers, which they’ve put at both entrances to the cathedral grounds. I said ‘Bloody hell, that’s mental. There’s no way I’d queue up for that.’
In fact, one of the stall people came by and bought a CD. He was a young bloke – very friendly, and he’d just bought a CD player. I said, ‘There must be millions of people there, at the market.’ He said, ‘Well, not millions.’ ‘OK, thousands!’ ‘Yeah, a lot!’
Another couple came up and the man started talking about all the people out.
I said, ‘Yeah, and there’s loads of people playing – I don’t usually play here but I didn’t have a choice.’
He said, ‘Well, there’s a bloke round the corner.’
‘Oh, Dean Dyson. he’s wearing a flat cap?’
‘No, he’s sitting down.’
‘Oh, that’s Kevin, “Kev”. He’s slouching in a chair, he’s got a really low voice.’
‘Yeah, that’s him.’
I couldn’t resist. I told them the gossip, how he was kicked out of Winchester for selling drugs, went to Sherbourne and was kicked out of there and now he’s back here.
I managed just over two hours, by which time my fingertips were so cold I couldn’t feel the pick (or plectrum as they say over here) during James Bond. But it was a good day. In fact, at £96.60, it was just under £4 short of a Golden Day and I haven’t had one of those for yonks. Nothing wrong with this spot.
Late to the press – a late night donation of £5 tipped the total to just over the magic number, so in the end it WAS a Golden Day.