Of Further Busking Adventures - Part 9 (Ramsey By Boat part 2)

Do the locals like buskers? 

It’s difficult to say. Having got the gear off the boat, a task in itself given the narrow ledge at the mooring, I wheeled my trolley along Great Whyte (a street, not a whale) until I found a space just past the bus stop where the pavement widens. Three older people were occupying one of the nearby seats and I checked whether they would be disturbed if I played some music. They welcomed the prospect with enthusiasm, although I wondered how much of that was fuelled by the open cans they were nursing. 

They were actually interested in the songs and not just the instruments. One, whom I somewhat meanly identified as Ciderman, told me he had lost his wife of twenty-five years in the summer and the experience was clearly still very painful. As I played, he danced, sometimes wobbling worryingly close to the busy road. After the first song he offered a critique on my delivery (“what you should do is … “) and invited me to his birthday celebration this weekend. He refuelled at the B&M across the road and when he returned he crawled round the pavement examining at very close quarters the internal mechanism of the drum kit while I was playing. Small children had done that, but never before had a fifty-nine year-old man! He was also intrigued by the guitar with its internal effects. He was open, interested, very complimentary about my work, but nevertheless not quite in control. Curious locals watched this unfolding pageant from the other side of the street, from their parked cars and from behind shop window glass, but none came close enough to drop a coin in the hat. Sadly they refused Ciderman’s  marginally coherent exhortations to come closer and listen to “this great songwriter”! 

The reality of busking: earnings = 99p

Towards the end of my set I realised my audience was probably keeping others (the ones who may have had some coins to throw in the hat) away, although by this time the crowd had grown to include a number of young women. One seemed to know one of the original trio and she had been joined by friends who had been joined by their friends - you know how it goes. One of the girls asked if she could take a selfie with her friends and me. Then she was distracted by something else. Like on so many other occasions, singing in the street drew in many people I would generally never encounter otherwise and they thanked me for the best afternoon they’d had in ages. Ciderman apologised for being so drunk, but even through his filter of alcohol he got what I was singing about, particularly when I sang “Damn You, Enchiladas”. He almost told me the story behind it and listened while I filled in the specifics. He was very quiet after I sang “In Your Place”, which I was secretly dedicating to him. Somewhere behind the outward appearance was a fascinating, intelligent and well-read mind and another lesson to me in not judging by appearances.

High Lode