He was an imposing six foot seven in heels, with muscular sea-faring arms and a crinkled yellow perm spun from the lost lines of fishermen on the pier.
His skin was the colour of a Kent peg-tile, a unique brownish red hardened by a cold easterly wind and rain that never seemed to dry out till the summer .
His wardrobe was an array of shimmering ball-gowns that should have graced the dinner-dance circuit of Grosvenor Square. However, his own gait had forbidden him from joining that elite Mayfair clique and he'd had to settle, rather frustratingly I imagined to rare 'last-dances' at the local rugby club's disco.
It was in Deal market I first caught a sight of him, busking near the flower-stall on a dull grey morning as I browsed for old books, antiques and objet d'art.
His act was a similar jumble of camp torch-songs, amplified by a backing-tape that he incoherently spoke or shouted over. Some people drew a crowd naturally but his gift was to drive them away, dispersing passing trade like a barking dog without a lead.
Despite complaints and there were many, he turned up in the same spot every week like a protest singer without a song, or a confused Suffragette waiting in vain for a horse.
Ageing him feels clumsy now, like asking a lady's age. In truth, I never dared get near enough to look at his face close-up but realise now I was far too quick to judge him and believe the local myths, leaving me with only the lingering hopes of an old man left in a charity-shop doorway by his wife who thought he was witnessing a performance by jazz chanteuse Cleo Laine in her prime.
"I saw her with Dankworth at The Fairfield Halls once." He told me as we watched from across the road.
"Some people think he's a eye-sore." I said, passing on the views of local traders as if they were already mine.
"What?" He asked incredulously as the rain began to spit.
"Some people think she's an eye-sore, bad for business."
Cursing me under his breath, I watched him step through the traffic and stand in front of the exotic singer in the flowing silver dress. Reaching into his coat pocket, the old man threw some change into the waiting bucket that sounded, even from across the street, like a coin being dropped down a well.
His skin was the colour of a Kent peg-tile, a unique brownish red hardened by a cold easterly wind and rain that never seemed to dry out till the summer .
His wardrobe was an array of shimmering ball-gowns that should have graced the dinner-dance circuit of Grosvenor Square. However, his own gait had forbidden him from joining that elite Mayfair clique and he'd had to settle, rather frustratingly I imagined to rare 'last-dances' at the local rugby club's disco.
It was in Deal market I first caught a sight of him, busking near the flower-stall on a dull grey morning as I browsed for old books, antiques and objet d'art.
His act was a similar jumble of camp torch-songs, amplified by a backing-tape that he incoherently spoke or shouted over. Some people drew a crowd naturally but his gift was to drive them away, dispersing passing trade like a barking dog without a lead.
Despite complaints and there were many, he turned up in the same spot every week like a protest singer without a song, or a confused Suffragette waiting in vain for a horse.
Ageing him feels clumsy now, like asking a lady's age. In truth, I never dared get near enough to look at his face close-up but realise now I was far too quick to judge him and believe the local myths, leaving me with only the lingering hopes of an old man left in a charity-shop doorway by his wife who thought he was witnessing a performance by jazz chanteuse Cleo Laine in her prime.
"I saw her with Dankworth at The Fairfield Halls once." He told me as we watched from across the road.
"Some people think he's a eye-sore." I said, passing on the views of local traders as if they were already mine.
"What?" He asked incredulously as the rain began to spit.
"Some people think she's an eye-sore, bad for business."
Cursing me under his breath, I watched him step through the traffic and stand in front of the exotic singer in the flowing silver dress. Reaching into his coat pocket, the old man threw some change into the waiting bucket that sounded, even from across the street, like a coin being dropped down a well.
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