CHARACTERS 1.

He must be almost famous by now, always in the busiest parts London, but when I first bumped into him, he was hanging about outside the museums of South Kensington, near where I used to work. There’s never a silent moment, never more than a few seconds before he said something, even if you were lucky (or unlucky, depending on your mood) to be sharing a tube carriage with him, he would be addressing each and everyone and sharing his “wisdom”.

He is the ultimate evangelist, the one that really exists but should be in a film, a bit like George Bush – he should be fictional, but is out there being the man he is. Oh, and he has a perfect Scouse accent (if there’s such a thing), that’s someone from Liverpool if you didn’t know!

To start with he only had an A4 binder, filled with laminated cartoon pictures of the devil and Christ and all of that, with slogans written in italic print, the classic one that I can only remember was of course “don’t be a sinner, be a winner”. Spreading the word that we should all turn to the almighty now and be forgiven, otherwise we will certainly burn; he was quite open and honest about it. I saw him so much on my way to and from work, and sometimes out at lunch, that I started to say “alright” to him and even got a raised eyebrow response, but after a few weeks of not seeing him (he was probably lurking around his favourite haunt of Oxford circus) I knew he didn’t recognise me. He just saw and spoke to too many people, couldn’t place a face anymore, just so many of them.

He first spoke to me outside my workplace at lunchtime; telling me the usual, how I could save myself etc. I was with a colleague, a woman who just couldn’t sit back and take it, they argued, he wound her up so much she just stormed off, and he satisfyingly just turned to me and said “that’s the trouble with women, they just don’t listen, they just can’t be told; you stick to the right path son”.

Soon after this he managed to acquire a megaphone, the word now being spread at a much greater volume, a favourite of his was to wait until a coach full of school kids were alighting to go for a day round the science museum. I think his idea was to get the message to the kids, nice and early, give them all the facts and they can do the rest with time. I’ll never forget the look of worry on every teachers face, trying to protect “her kids” from what she can only conclude to be a crazy man who lost his head from Liverpool and moved to London.

Now I don’t live in London, but I know he’s there, everyday without fail. I read about him in Timeout magazine, an amazing article, apparently he used to own a business in north Wales, employed 15 people……..whatever happened? These are the type of questions that I want to ask, but feel I will never have answered; maybe he doesn’t properly know the answer either. The last time I saw him he had upgraded again, now a microphone and amplifier, a louder, clearer message being delivered to the people. The London evangelical Scouse, to me part of the London experience, as famous as St. Pauls or Parliament……..I hope I see him in action again soon when I’m back…….that wonderful crazy bastard.