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The local characters/legends of your city


IANdrewDiceClay

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Here's a thread dedicated to people who knock about your city. I'm assuming everyone else has them, since we have a boatload knocking about. You can't turn the corner without seeing a bloke with a load of bags or a man dressed in a suit and top hat. The Tyne Tees News has even started playing vignettes for the debut of new nutters to ascend our fine streets. Here's the Three Horsemen of Sunderland.

 

The Bag Man:

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The Bag Man (a.k.a Billy Connolly) is an enigma. Like Sting was back in 1996. He'll walk for miles. You'll see him in Roker one minute, Ryhope the next. He'll stalk the city, with all those bags. His main home is outside the Bridges shopping centre. They won't let him in the Bridges anymore, so he just hangs around outside it. He supposedly has every possession he owns in those bags, and I've seen loads of people have a go at him. Just being typical cocksuckers, who think picking on an old homeless bloke is funny. Twats. But some say the joke is on all of us. A lot of people say he actually has a nice house and that he's just a bit of a social outcast. Rumour has it he chooses the lifestyle of a bearded mental. I hope this is true. It must be terrible for the poor bloke to carry all those bags around for the decade he's been in the public eye. He must have arms like Popeye.

Does He Have Shit on the Market? Few people have the balls to talk to him, so its unclear. He's one of those people who if you stick up for them, their pride is dented and he goes mental. Maybe something in his bags is worth buying, but like I said, you can ask him.

In Action:

 

Dave The Rave:

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Nice lad actually, but long gone. Always talks to me when I see him. He tells me the dole currently have him working in a charity shop, so its strange to see him in a suit and tie. Loves to preach the word of the lord while listening to classic rave songs such as 'Like a Shooting Star' and 'Children of the Night'. He'll just stand there in various corners of the town centre dancing away. Lots/everyone takes the piss out of him. Its like the old "he's everyones friend, but he has no friends" saying. Canny lad, but everyone just laughs at him. There was a facebook page called 'Dave The Rave To Carry Olympic Torch', so he still has some support from the community.

Does He Have Shit on the Market? If you want rave tapes, Davey is your boy. His prime was the early 90s though, since the demand for cassette tapes of bootleg records from the New Monkey isn't there anymore. I'm sure I could get his email address for Richie, though.

In Action:

 

The Spectre:

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Real name is Brian Moore, so the idea people created a gimmick name for him amuses me. This bloke is the most sociable local character we have. He'll talk to anyone and everyone. He's an artist and is always in the town. I dont think he even drinks. He walks in to clubs and pubs in his Victorian outfits and talks to woman, poses for photos and generally gets patronized, even though he knows the score. He's not an idiot, even if he is an old perv (always grabbing arse). He's usually in the Sunderland Echo as well. Some twat stole his mobility scooter recently. He's also trying to raise money for a young lad with cerebral palsy. They even printed it in the paper when he got kicked out of Revolution by the bouncers:

 

A COLOURFUL Sunderland character who is a regular on the city nightlife circuit was removed from a pub after a complaint from a drinker.Brian Moore, dubbed The Spectre, is well known around the pubs and clubs for his Victorian outfits and his age – Brian still enjoys clubbing at 72.

 

Brian said: “This man came over and said I’d been frightening some girls, but I knew them. How can you frighten someone you know?”

Does He Have Shit on the Market? Yes he does. He's always in Tonic, Banana Joe's and Revolution trying sell paintings (exactly what you need on a night out) to the drinkers in there. And since he's been in the papers, he must have done some public appearances. A nice bloke.

In Action:

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The Donald

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Whilst Ian's local legends basically seem relatively benign, my local nutcase is far from friendly. Claiming to run in the highest of circles, The Donald nevertheless frequently leaves the house looking as if someone haphazardly tossed a bowl full of angel hair pasta on top of his bald bonce. Makes Quixotic claims of a run at the Presidency, and repeatedly harangued the current incumbent, demanding to see his birth certificate and further credentials, and claiming that he was actually a Filipino Muslim called Barry Sotero. Once tossed many thousands of dollars into a pro-wrestling crowd, to hype a by-proxy skirmish with another tri-state "character". Knows Gary Busey.

Does He Have Shit on the Market? Constantly on the lookout for an "apprentice", and peddles a local TV show aimed at recruiting a succession of these assistants, who are never seen again, suspiciously. Nefarious real-estate dealings have resulted in numerous bankruptcies and dubiously successful edifices, yet nevertheless this miscreant maintains a shockingly high standard of living.

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Redhill has Norwich City Man - an elderly Aspergers sufferer who wanders around the town telling people about the latest football news and his girlfriend Gwen. Always seen in Norwich City shirt or tracksuit top, now has "Colin" stencilled on the back of the latter.

 

There's also Running Man, who must be about 80 years old but is ALWAYS seen running for trains and deliberately missing them so he can moan about them. He is usually carrying several bags of heavy shopping. Mrs Small tells me he's been doing this for about 20 years. He will surely die soon.

 

Oh, and Edwina Currie.

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Can't post the photo as the only one I can find is all rights reserved on flickr, so here's the Link

 

A fella named Mark. The 13 years I've lived here, he's always been on the scene around the pubs. Drank in the one I worked in for a while, plus two or three others that I use. He worked for a while in one of the oldest pubs in town, he'd pop up working at the local beer festival and at special events other pubs organised. Essentially, any time there was good real ale or cider on offer, he'd pop up. One of those people that you only had to describe him and everyone would know exactly who you meant. I remember him once telling me that he went to every session of the Canterbury beer festival every year, afternoon and evening. Going to two of the evening sessions leaves me a mess for a week.

 

A couple of years ago a new boozer opened up selling a range of decent ciders and Mark made it his local, and I did too, so we ended up spending a lot of time sitting chatting. He'd spent the eighties on the psychobilly scene in London, and had amazing stories to tell. It turned out he was living in a shitty little rooming house just up the road from me, and very often when he left the pub hammered, I'd leave a few minutes later and find him standing in the street halfway home on his own. I'd try to offer him a hand getting home but he always just snapped off a salute and politely declined.

 

He stopped appearing in the pub in February and about a month later we heard that he'd died. We all assumed that it was booze related, but apparently it was meningitis. We organised a few taxis from the local for his funeral, and it was incredible. An unmarried guy with only a handful of family, yet the crem was full to bursting with Canterbury characters, standing room only. We filed in to the theme from the Magnificent Seven, halfway through the service they played Shake, Rattle and Roll (Big Joe Turner, naturally), and in a stroke of genius, the curtain closed on his casket to 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'.

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There was a thread on here about local nutjobs but I'm fucked if I can find it. Was a good read with a lot of familiar names cropping up. Purple Aki, Stanley, the Accordian Man, The Keymaster etc. Was a great read so hopefully this will be too!

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Some of you will have heard of Aberdeen lunatic Peter Dow -

 

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http://scot.cyberhost.me/

 

Everybody in Aberdeen has a story about him. My favourite was seeing him on WH Smith casually browsing through the gun magazines with a massive home-made badge with the message "Ladies - say hello, don't be afraid" written on it.

He's been quiet lately but I doubt he ever did find his dream woman.

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No pictures unfortunately, but Ian or one of the other north east lads might have come across them at some point - I know the second one regularly travelled into Sunderland.

 

Tynerider:

 

A gangly teenager who is known around South Shields for his love of buses. He has some form of disability/autism/tourettes that compels him to wander up and down the bus picking up used tickets, and he talks to every bus driver as if they're his best friend. When he does this, he ALWAYS sits in one of the side seats behind the driver and leans forward so his arse crack is hanging out like a cartoon builder. He has the exact same voice as the Curious Orange. I've never seen him outside his natural habitat of buses and bus stops, and the last time I saw him at a bus stop, he sidled up loudly singing 'Rolling in the Deep' in his trademark croaky falsetto before launching into some sort of dance which seemed to involve stepping over and under imaginary barriers, and at the climax of which he flung his plastic bag of shopping into the middle of the road.

 

Gossip Man

 

I made up this name myself, as I don't know if he has an actual street tag and I've not seen him for a few years now. He was a fat greaseball who looked not unlike Newman from Seinfeld and used to get on the buses between Shields and Sunderland (again, public transport seems to be a breeding ground for oddballs). The first few times I heard him I just thought he was a bit of a gobshite who was constantly yammering on to his mates throughout the bus journey, but then I realised that every time, he had the same topics of conversation that he would talk about in the exact same order, and his 'friends' were actually just strangers unfortunate enough to end up sat next to him and too polite to tell him to fuck off. He was basically reading a prepared script by the world's worst scriptwriter.

 

He talked about a weird mix of celebrity gossip and conspiracy theories, mainly involving the Pitt/Jolie/Aniston love triangle and Rupert Murdoch's domination of the media. He was always talking to women - he'd obviously heard that they liked celebrity gossip - but he would always slightly mispronounce the names of the people he talked about so that they wouldn't think he was one of these puffs who watches The Wright Stuff and reads Heat. Consequently, 'Brad Pitt' and 'Angelina Jolie' became 'Brad Pitty' and 'Angela Jolene'. He was still going on about the Pitt/Jolie/Aniston affair at least 18 months after it was in the news - his material, like him, never changed and absolutely stunk.

 

Paddy the Tramp

Peace be upon him. Used to walk around Shields with a small christmas tree sticking out the hood of his coat. Went through a period when he used to play a child's toy trumpet outside McDonalds, but then he smashed it in a fit of rage because people kept asking him to do requests when he wanted to concentrate on his own material.

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The man known as the electric scarecrow. You can see him walking about the city centre of Glasgow almost daily it seems. On a drunken night out one of my mates said alright to him and the scarecrow started singing I'm a little teapot at him. Total nutter. There's a guy that lives beside me that walks about blinking uncontrollably and speaks to himself. I only recently found out that he was in the Falklands and suffers from Post War Syndrome, which is pretty sad. He once kicked a McDonalds drink carton at me.

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When I lived in Nottingham, a mate of mine became one of these local characters. His name was Michael Simpson, but he was whichever one of the two types of little people is perfectly in proportion, but just tiny, so his nickname was Gremlin, or Grem. He was always up to mental stunts at school, like taking all of someone's cricket kit out of their bag and replacing it with himself, so they unzipped their bag at their destination to find that they would have to wear Grem, or not play. He was always in a good mood, and was a cracking lad, although obviously he was going nowhere in life (always attended school for a laugh, rather than actually going to class once he was there).

 

Once we got to 16, it seemed unlikely that people would carry on seeing Grem, who'd quit before his exams came up. However, I and my mates kept running into him, as he transitioned into one Arnold Town's local street characters. My friend Keith ran into Grem in the chinese, where Grem told him that the food was on him. Surprising this was, as he had no income, but it soon became clear how he was eating (don't know if he was homeless yet), as he waited till the food was out on the counter, and then he told the guy he'd forgotten to ask for a coke. Whilst the fella turned round to get Grem's pop, he shouted "leg it!" and sprinted off with the food, leaving an embarrassed Keith to pay. Obviously, this was a short-term strategy.

 

Another time, I was shopping in Morrisons, several miles away, and went to the bogs. When I got there, Grem was sat in the sink, drinking a four pack of Morrison's budget mild. He offered me one, but I demurred, asking him why he was sat in the sink in Morrison's bogs. "Martin, I'm drinking my mild" said Grem. Fair enough.

 

I didn't know that this would be the last time I'd ever see Gremlin - I went to Uni, and didn't really go back to live in Nottingham for very long afterward. A few months back I was chatting with an old school colleague on Facebook, and he told me that he and another friend had been to Gremlin's funeral - he'd been found dead in a doorway. Terrible news, but I'm sure that in amongst the shit of his last decade, he will probably have fit in a fuckload of fun too. RIP, Gremlin.

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Well Halifax breeds these kind of characters but heres a one.

 

GORDON

 

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When Fox Piss is down Accapulco on a Saturday night taking advantage of 75p per drink it's not long until i bump into this pussy popping pensioner. Lad loves a medallion. Normally he has some gopping pussy hanging off him for a photo.

 

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At some point in night Gordon fucks off the mingers and finds himself some decent pussy to make sweet love to.

 

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Local youths bow in amazement

 

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All in a nights work for Gordon.

 

Until next Saturday night.

 

*Changes suit hourly to keep photoshoot fresh*

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The Ipswich twins who work on Norwich market are real characters, they used to support Norwich, they don't anymore:

 

 

 

There's a shitload of videos of them on Youtube, brilliant characters but you wouldn't want to be stuck sat behind them on a coach journey.

 

 

 

Norwich puppet man is another character, he's pretty well known though, it was once alleged that he was kicked out of Great Yarmouth for groping a girl. Here's his rebuttal:

 

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Rasta Arthur's been sleeping on the mean streets of Leith for over 30 years. Loads of different stories going about him, the top two being: that all his family died in a house fire, so he decided he never wanted to live in a house again, or that he used to be the prince of an African country but got deported for being gay. He's not a begger or that, he's been seen giving food and money to other homeless people, never been trouble to anyone. He fucking stinks, though!

 

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Cowboy Joe. Sadly passed away a year or two ago, roamed the bottom of Leith Walk for over two decades shooting people with his capguns or water pistols. In his sprightlier years if you shot him back he'd drop to his knees and do a "you got me, you dirty rat!" routine. Was reportedly doing the "Bang Bang!" gimmick long before Foley stole it. A legend, will be sorely missed.

 

Buzzer James. No photo, but he looked the double of Raven. Used to just sit around buzzing gas and annoying people. Chased a lassie I know down the street after accusing her of stealing his piano. He's a fucking nutjob. Haven't seen him about for years, last time I'd heard of him he'd cut his knob off and handed it in to a cafe.

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