Days 42–43: The Right Place, the Right People

There are some places where I sit down at the piano and almost immediately know I'm going to enjoy myself.

Bridgwater was one of them.

I'd been warned about Bridgwater before I arrived. A few people told me it could be a little rough around the edges and perhaps wasn't somewhere I needed to spend much time.

Maybe that's why we got along.

I'm a little rough around the edges too.

I busked the market on Friday and genuinely enjoyed it. People stopped, talked, listened and asked about what I was doing. There was an engagement with the people around me that I've realised matters enormously to the way I play.

I've written recently about busking being my profession, but I've also been thinking about why I've chosen to make it my profession.

I don't busk because I'm hoping somebody will "discover" me.

I've lost count of the number of times someone has approached the piano and told me I should go on one of the television programmes where musicians are supposedly "discovered." It's always said kindly, as though the greatest possible outcome for someone playing music on a street is that eventually somebody comes along and offers them the opportunity to stop doing it.

The truth is, I've been offered some of those opportunities.

I've turned them down.

Part of the reason is that programmes like that understandably want a story to tell alongside the music. And once you hand your story to somebody else, you also hand them some control over how that story is told.

I'm not particularly interested in doing that.

Nothing about my life, for as far back as I can remember, has ever been especially easy. There are parts of it I haven't spoken about publicly and parts I probably will talk about when I'm ready. But difficult experiences don't mean someone's story should be defined by hardship, and I don't want mine packaged that way simply because it makes better television.

The difficult things that have happened to me are part of my story. They aren't the whole story.

There is laughter in it. There are ridiculous decisions, mistakes, people I've loved, people I've lost, things I'm proud of and things I'd do differently. There's the person I was before I found the piano and the person I've become since.

If that story is going to be told, I want to recognise myself in it.

That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with those programmes. They can change people's lives, and there are musicians whose stories begin behind a piano somewhere and lead them somewhere completely different.

Their story is theirs.

Mine is mine.

And there is still an awful lot of mine I haven't told yet. Some of that is because I'm still trying to find the right words. Some of it is because I think certain parts of a story deserve the right moment to be told.

For now, what matters is that I've already found the career I want.

I busk because I love being a busker.

Yes, it's how I earn my living, and this journey is completely self-funded. With everything we've spent recently keeping the van moving, there are certainly days when the sensible thing financially would be to set the piano up somewhere, put the bucket out and play whether I felt like being there or not.

But money has never been the reason I sit behind the piano.

For a long time, I didn't feel particularly connected to anywhere or anyone. I moved through life without ever really feeling as though I'd found where I belonged.

Then I found the piano.

More specifically, I found a piano in St Pancras and, eventually, I found the street.

The street became my stage, but it also became somewhere I belonged. Sitting behind a piano gave me a reason to talk to people I would never otherwise have spoken to. Strangers stopped being strangers. Towns stopped being places I simply passed through. Music gave me a way into communities that I'd spent much of my life feeling separate from.

Nine years later, I think that's why connection still matters so much to me when I busk.

I need to feel something about where I am. I need to connect with the place, the people around me or preferably both. When that happens, I can sit behind the piano for hours and forget I'm working. The people around me become part of the experience and, for however long I'm there, I feel like I belong.

When that doesn't happen, I call it "making sausages."

It's like working in a sausage factory, just going through the motions and producing the next one because that's what you're supposed to do. I can sit down, play the songs, put the bucket out and technically call it a busk, but I hate it.

If all I wanted was money, there are easier ways to earn it. If all I wanted was to be discovered, I would have spent the last nine years trying to leave the street behind.

I haven't.

The street isn't where I'm waiting for my career to begin. It's where I found it.

And after spending so much of my life without that sense of connection, I'm not interested in turning something I love into making sausages simply so I can add another town to a list.

Bridgwater had the connection I look for almost immediately.

It also gave me a wonderfully ridiculous reminder that there is no single correct way to make this journey.

Back in Falmouth, I'd met two cyclists called Harry and Nick who were travelling from Land's End to John o' Groats.

I ran into them again in Bridgwater.

They'd already made it to John o' Groats and were now cycling all the way back to Land's End. 😂

We started from the same end of the country and somehow met again while travelling in opposite directions.

I absolutely love that.

Their journey is theirs. Mine is mine. Neither needs to look anything like the other.

After Bridgwater, the plan was to ride through Glastonbury and continue towards Wells. The van was still struggling, particularly with the clutch and brakes, so we stopped in Glastonbury for the night.

I'd planned to busk there on Saturday morning, but when the morning came, I didn't.

There was nothing particularly wrong with Glastonbury. I simply didn't feel that connection I need to want to sit down behind the piano.

There is no prize for being able to say I busked every town I passed through. This journey isn't a checklist, and neither is my career.

By late Saturday afternoon, with the van still struggling and knowing we needed somewhere ahead where we could get it properly assessed, Yorkie and I changed the plan again.

Frome became the next destination.

We've learned enough over the last few weeks to know that we can't control whether the van breaks. We can only control what we do next.

And perhaps a journey based on change isn't only changing me.

The new Stig joined us in Taunton and has now successfully shepherded the van, the dogs and everything else through to Frome despite the mechanical problems.

He's an incredibly relaxed person, and that calmness has quietly changed the atmosphere around the team.

The dogs adore him.

Jakey is back where he loves to be, riding in the passenger seat with his head happily out of the window beside his new friend. What has surprised me most is that he doesn't seem particularly concerned about where I am anymore. The van can pass me while I'm riding the VOK and Jake simply looks out of the window, sees me and carries on happily with his journey.

Tonight, on the way to Frome, Jeff and Jules were riding with me on the VOK while Jake and Jaxon were in the van with the Stig. At one point the van passed us and, for a few seconds, all four dogs spotted each other as we went by.

It was such a small moment, but it really got to me.

There were Jeff and Jules beside me watching the van go past, while Jake and Jaxon looked back at us through the windows. Then both halves of our slightly unconventional little travelling family carried on towards the same destination.

They have absolutely no idea what we're doing.

They don't know they're travelling from Land's End to John o' Groats. They don't know what LEJOG is, why there's a piano involved or why Yorkie and I spend an unreasonable amount of our lives talking about gradients, mechanics, batteries, clutches and routes.

As far as they're concerned, this is simply their life.

New places to see. New things to sniff. New people to meet. Sometimes they ride with me. Sometimes they ride with the Stig. And at the end of the day, somehow, we all end up in the same place again.

Maybe they've understood this journey better than the rest of us from the beginning.

Just enjoy the ride.

The right place matters. The right people matter. And sometimes the right thing to do is change direction.

Nine years ago, I sat down at a piano in St Pancras and accidentally found somewhere I belonged. I couldn't possibly have imagined where that decision would take me.

Now I'm travelling Britain with four dogs, a piano, a VOK, a support van that seems determined to keep every mechanic in southern England employed, the Stig, and a business partner thousands of miles away trying to keep all of us pointed vaguely in the same direction.

It isn't always easy.

It is, however, a life I'm incredibly grateful to have.

When I compare the person who first sat down at that piano with the person I am now, I'm reminded that progress rarely looks the way you expect it to while you're living through it. Sometimes it looks like moving forward. Sometimes it looks like changing direction.

And apparently, sometimes it looks like four dogs spotting each other through two moving vehicles somewhere on the road to Frome.

For now, we're safe here.

We're hoping to find a mechanic who can finally give the van the attention it needs. We're happy to pay for their time and the work that needs doing, what we really need is someone willing to give us the time, properly assess the van and help us get it sorted.

Once that's done, I'm looking forward to getting the piano out, meeting the people of Frome and hopefully staying long enough to get to know the place before we continue winding our way north.

Running into Harry and Nick again reminded me that there are a hundred different ways to make the same journey.

They've chosen theirs.

I'm choosing mine.

There is a reason we said this could take a year.

John o' Groats is where I'm going.

But everything that happens before I get there is why I'm doing it.

— James

Day 42 & 43
Bridgwater to Glastonbury to Frome
Miles travelled: 37.34
Average speed: 12.9 mph
Elevation gain: 1658 ft
Elevation loss: 1487 ft
Locations busked: 0

Journey Total
Total miles travelled: 298.5
Total locations busked: 13