Day 2686
Monday May 4th 2026
Winchester
Back at the traditional Sunday spot in The Square, a man pulls up in his wheelchair – ‘May the fourth be with you’ he says. ‘You know you’re the first person to say that to me today?”Well, I won’t be able to say it tomorrow.’ ‘No you won’t.’ I wondered why there were a few people with Star Wars T-shirts about!
Marcus’s friend stops to tell me once again how he’s read both my books, and that Marcus is in a care home – ‘He’s very old you know. He was born in 1942.’
‘Right, so he’s 83 or 84. How is he?’
‘Well, he’s in a care home, you know, so…I mean, he almost burnt his house down.’
‘Oh my goodness, that’s not very good!’
The coinage is very slow and I almost give up after an hour but soldier on because you never know what’s going to happen. In the event, I made an easy £30 right at the end. Firstly, a man came up and gave me a tenner – he said I’d provided the background music to a meeting of a bunch of people to do with something called the NCC Charter. He wanted me to go over and say hello to them so he led me into the cathedral grounds where there was a gazebo with a man sitting behind a table and on the table were several pieces of A4 paper, with typing and red thumbprints on. On being introduced to me, this man got a £20 note from his wallet and handed it to me! I was then given a speech by the first man – ‘We’re not political. Do people want wars? No, nobody wants war. We want to give this country back to the people, get Starmer out, give the people their country back…’ I made my excuses, thanked them all again and started off. ‘Let me help you, I’ll carry something’ said man No.1. ‘It’s OK, I can manage, cheers.’
‘No, really. Let me help you. It’s the least we can do, after you’ve been playing. We’ve really enjoyed it. Please let me carry something.’
‘You mean to my house?’ At this they all laughed.
‘No, just a short way!’
‘OK then, cheers!’ So we began walking towards the Buttercross, me with the suitcase and him with the guitar – ‘That guitar is quite heavy, isn’t it?’
‘Oh no, it’s not heavy.’
‘Is is after 20 minutes!’
He accompanied me as far as the Buttercross, where Gareth was mustering up a crowd, then said goodbye, promising to email me about the organisation. I gave him my card – I thought it was the least I could do, as they’d given me most of the earnings of the total of £52.55!