busker

Minding the Gap

That Yorkshire Afternoon rambling started life as a convoluted musing on the London Underground and the large part it played in my life as a street singer back in 1966 and most of 1967.

Listening to the radio reports of the appalling effects of the bombs, I was reminded of a book I once promoted - The Underground Connection - that dealt with a bomb aboard a Northern Line train set to detonate when it reached a crucial depth. And that's how the reading public got to learn that, at 192 ft (58.5 m), Hampstead tube station holds the record (reached by the deepest lifts on the system which descend 181 feet.)

I don't suppose one could publish such a novel these days lest it be regarded as a handbook hint for terrorists.

Brooding amazed that I even remembered the book and the Hampstead trivia, I decided to look up more facts on this oldest of underground rail transport - and gosh there's a lot out there to Google.

But I'm getting ahead of myself: this blog is not called 'Busker' for nothing.

Back in '66, al fresco musicians were a scruffy lot, poorly garbed and capable of little else than mumbling Bob Dylan at their tatty shoes and with narry a thanks for the pennies tossed to them by the affluenti. Even the police were unsure of what exactly to charge us with and it got even more complicated when one was croaking in the underground because that came under the aegis if the transport police.

I lived in a one-room hovel off Baker Station, occasionally catching the Metropolitan line back to my granny in Preston Road.

The very first song I sang was actually on the train heading south from Preston Road and I remember it clearly:

I'd said goodbye to granny but, naughty lad, had detoured via The Fox pub to chat up the buxom barmaid so, by the time I got on the train I was pretty tanked and feeling in good voice.

I got out the old guitar and launched into a hearty "Greenback Dollar" which went down so well that one or two fellow passengers came over and looked for my 'collection box', of which I had none, not thinking that I'd actually make any bread out of the impromptu gig. I soon fixed that, spreading leather guitar case in front of me and adding a brace of £1 notes pour encourager les autres. By the time I reached Baker Street, I'd collected around a fiver and, being no soberer, simply lugged my guitar and case and 'float' down the Baker Street/Marylebone Road pedestrian underpass and carried on singing.

The Muse of Buskers was with me because when I finally decided to call it a day, I took my pile of coins into the Globe pub, counted my takings (£15+) and ordered a pint of Charrington and a whisky chaser. Embarrassed by having to pay in pennies and silver, I also counted out a couple of quid for the bar staff and manager to have a drink on me, so it went:

"Pint, please, and a whiskey and - look, sorry to pay with all coins but here's three quid to buy you all a drink and please ask the guv'nor and his missus what he'd like."

"Oh no, we can't do that," said grouchy Ernie, but just then the boss asked what the problem was and when he heard I was buying - and that I'd counted it all out precisely - all was OK and i got my booze and the perfect intro to the manager.