Day 2669

Day 2669
Friday March 20th 2026
Winchester

It’s warming up and I’m back with my beloved white Saint Hilaire summer jacket. There’s a young bloke on the keyboard up from the Buttercross, now totally hidden by scaffolding, so I go to The Square – not much happening…a couple of tables outside the Old Vine and Three Joes and some middle-aged blokes on tables outside The Eclipse who look at me somewhat warily – they put me off setting up there, so I walk down Market Street, there’s a stall at the crossroads spot and the Nando’s spot is too much in the shade so I walk back up to The Square – sod the blokes!

Out comes the 12-string, set up, stand up and start up with Albatross, then Here Comes The Sun – the last time I played that was yesterday up in a Cotswolds farm with horses King and Sulis circling me, inspecting me and occasionally slobbering over the 12-string – all filmed by Rebsie. Fifteen minutes later, having not earned a single coin, I sit down, despondent…half an hour later and I’ve STILL not earned a single coin. Is it the jacket? Will this be the first session I’ve done where I get sweet F.A.? In a weird way, I’m looking forward to that – and come it will- just so I can record it here for posterity. But no, it’s not today because no sooner have I thought that, when I see a man emerge from the alley and he’s holding a blue-ey (fiver) and yes, along with Churchill’s, it’s got MY name on it. Mine, all mine! The kind chap is thanked profusely.

And then it happens again – but this time it’s even more lucrative – a tenner from a woman with two friends who are all dressed in black and come from the cathedral. In fact, there are loads of people in mourning gear around. Most are holding a service program with a photo on the front but I can’t make out who it is – obviously a prominent Wintonian. I mean, it’s not every Tom, Dick or Harry who has a service at the great Winchester Cathedral.* Anyway, I even stopped playing to thank the woman but she didn’t even look at me. Weird. Still, I’m not complaining.

After that, a couple of coins from two girls eating outside Three Joes – ‘It’s like being on holiday, with you playing.’ Funny, I don’t remember seeing them whenever I’ve been on holiday.
After an hour and 15 minutes, I decide to do one more then pack up…but then ANOTHER tenner arrives, from a man – ‘Fortunate Son?’ he says. Oh dear, he’s given me ten pounds and I don’t know his request –
‘Oh…you mean Creedence Clearwater?’
‘Yeah, you know it?’
‘Uh, no, sorry.. I know the song but I don’t do a version, sorry.’ He goes and sits down on the bench behind and to the right of me. Bollocks, I now feel obliged to play a bit more because I can’t fulfil his request. I do Albatross again…and while I’m doing it I think that next time this happens – that I can’t do a request, I should just let them see the song list and see if there’s something else they like. Of course, by the time I finish Albatross, I’ve bloody well forgotten that.
Anyway, I do a few more, the bloke gets up and leaves, giving me the thumbs up, I do Bond then pack up, making a total of one hour and forty minutes.

As I’m walking off to the side street next to Three Joes, a big group of young people sitting outside The Old Vine spontaneously break into applause. I turn, say ‘Thank you’ then say to the couple at the table I’m walking past – ‘They never gave me anything!’

*Myrddin ‘Merv’ Rees, founder of Ark Cancer Charity and pioneering liver cancer surgeon, aged 75. The eulogy was read by none other than the famous gardener Alan Titchmarsh. I’m glad I wasn’t invited.