An Overdue Introduction

There’s this guy, I’ve seen him around Old Swan for perhaps approximately 25 years, he’s a great big, tall fella. When he was younger, he looked like a James Bond villain, he would seem to many a little surly, as he wasn’t the friendly type. He always seemed flustered and avoidant of eye contact. As a male, especially one with the background I have, sometimes you look at fellas and think “He’d be a handful if he turned”. I suppose it’s natural to assess threats, especially with his behaviour seeming a little erratic at times, and him being so large. He’d talk to himself at times and seemed to have strange ways of moving. As the years have gone by, he’s changed, he seems to have lost weight, become more ‘tall-thin’ than ‘big and imposing’. I think somebody looked after him once upon a time, maybe a parent or family member, and at some point, some time ago, they left him all alone. I think this because; he started to not look after himself properly, his clothes became dirty and his teeth started to crack, he took on a bereft and dishevelled look. And as the years have slowly ebbed away, and as I’ve traded my youthful ignorance for sagacity, I’ve realised that this was never anybody potentially dangerous, but a man who needs a little more help with life than most of us do. A man who faces certain challenges that have probably never been picked up on or diagnosed. When I was younger, I viewed him as a potential threat (an unknown quantity) but now I see quite clearly that he’s just a lost soul. I went from being weary of him, to feeling sorry for him. I’d worry about him sometimes when I saw him, with each increment of social decline I witnessed, I’d think “God bless ya lad”. I’d think about how so many people of that generation with special needs fell through the gaps in society’s safety net.

Today I was walking through Old Swan and one of the cars at the lights must have had Classic FM on, there was this gorgeous solo violin piece playing, and as I looked up, as I scanned across the cars to see who would be playing classical music full blast out of a car window on the mean streets of the Swan, I couldn’t see the car or driver in question. But there, on the other side of the road I saw him. It was him wasn’t it, busking with this old tatty violin, playing so perfectly it could have been a grand master. I walked over to watch him for a while, I was so moved I nearly dropped a tear. He was absolutely amazing. In-between each piece he’d stomp up and down and say “Come on, come on!” as if getting himself ready for a fight. I wondered if this may have been why nobody was watching, maybe people found his self-soothing needs a little scary. I stood there for a while, and when he saw me smiling, he smiled too, we finally held eye contact after such a long time, we found a way to seeing each other. I think he might have needed the acknowledgement today, I think he needed to show people how beautifully he could play, today he needed to be seen by somebody. Later we talked and I asked him if he was taking donations as he didn’t seem to have a bowl and he said “People can just put the money on that piece of cardboard there”. I looked down and he was pointing at what looked like a piece of rubbish on the floor, that gave no indication that it was a collection plate at all, and I thought “You’ve not earned a fucking bean here all day have you lad”. I passed him a fiver and he got so excited he actually kissed me on the head when he hugged me. He ecstatically pushed the note into his wallet. And we talked for a while, and I told him how talented he was, and after 25 years I learnt his name, and that people shouldn’t really be scared of him, and that he plays violin beautifully. Today we finally met each other as humans.

Ged Thompson