Day 2643
Sunday January 20th 2026
Winchester
Rockin’ Rob and his famous skeleton drummer (looking a little worse for wear these days) are at the top spot but there’s no one around the corner at my traditional Sunday spot in The Square. Well, there’s no one playing but the Veteran Cycle Club are there with around ten bikes on show. There are four blokes and a couple of women milling around, all looking the part in plus fours, tweedy jackets era-appropriate caps and woollen socks. the youngish guy I was chatting to before I set up had on one of those Victorian/Edwardian shirts with the funny rounded collar. I said to him ‘My bike looks positively modern compared to what you’ve got!’ I then asked if he would mind if I played for a bit and he seemed OK with that – ‘It would be good to have some music.’ Very polite as he hadn’t even heard me yet.
Weather-wise it’s overcast but no sign of rain and no wind. Quite an early start because I have to get back for 2 o’clock as we’re going for a late lunch at Clare’s pub in Oakhanger. It’s quite nice because while I’m playing I can gaze at the old bikes which get a lot of interest from passers by. After a few minutes I notice the two bike women – the wives I’m assuming (correctly, as it turns out) are against the museum wall…knitting while they chat! I don’t know if it’s part of the act but they seem to be enjoying it, and they ARE actually knitting.
The coinage is slow and I was well grateful for a £10 CD sale after half an hour…then an old woman came up and said ‘Oh, you should be sitting on a bicycle!’ Fortunately, the time went quite quickly (just under two hours). Unfortunately, the coinage didn’t amount to much, certainly not the usual Sunday windfall at this spot. The total was £21.50.
The bike lot packed up just before I did and before they left one of the knitting women came over –
‘We were a bit worried when we saw you had an electric guitar, we thought you were going to be really loud.’
‘Oh no, not me! You don’t need to be loud here. I mean everything reverberates around, there’s no point. I just hope you could hear what the people were saying to you.’
‘Oh yes, it was nice. You played the Tales Of The Unexpected – do you know who wrote that? (she didn’t give me time to answer). My husband said Roald Dahl wrote that.’
‘The music?’
‘Yes.’
‘Um, actually, I’m sorry but it was a bloke called Ron Grainer.’
‘Oh really?’
‘Yeah, he did a lot of stuff for the BBC back then. He did the Dr. Who music and I’m pretty sure he did Tales Of The Unexpected…well, I’m 99.9% sure (I’m 100% sure).’
‘Oh…well, I’d better go and burst my husband’s bubble. That’s my role in life!’