Day 8: Fowey — Kindness, Busking and a Piano Built for the Road

Today I busked in Fowey, and the people who live here really do have something to be proud of. What an absolutely beautiful place.

It may be the cleanest village I have ever visited in England. I was showing Yorkie around while we were on a video call, her sitting in America and me walking through Fowey, and she said it looked like a film set on the backlot of a Hollywood studio.

She wasn’t wrong. It is one of those places where almost every street, building and view makes you stop and look twice.

Before I talk about the busking itself, I want to take a moment to thank a few local businesses that made me feel welcome and helped point me in the right direction.

The thing about busking is that you have to judge where you are going to set up. You need to consider the people living and working nearby, how busy the area is, whether you are blocking anyone and, in my case, whether the surroundings will help carry the sound.

A full-size acoustic piano is exactly that — acoustic. There is no amplifier hidden behind it. I rely on the natural acoustics around me to help project the music, which means finding the right pitch matters.

The day started with Brown Sugar Cafe, where I was immediately given helpful advice about where I might be best placed. They were also kind enough to offer me a free coffee, and I was grateful for both.

Next came Webb Street Store, the gentleman there was generous, dynamic and one of those personalities who gives your day a lift almost immediately.

Then there was Mr Coney’s. Now, if you know me, you know I love an ice cream. Once again, it was another brilliant local business full of kind people.

I understand that not every shop welcomes a busker outside its doors. I genuinely do. But what I would ask people to remember is that we are all human.

I have been a ful-time busker for nine years. During that time, I have had some unbelievably positive experiences, and I have also had encounters that affected me far more deeply than the person involved probably ever realised.

Some experiences encouraged me. Others set me back, made me spiral and changed the way I approached people for a long time afterwards.

Poole Market was one of those experiences.

What happened there was abhorrent, and it changed me. I do not say that lightly.

I know that my past experiences can sometimes make me defensive. I am not perfect, and that is something I actively work on every day. But businesses and buskers can work alongside one another when both sides approach the conversation properly.

Turning up and immediately saying, “You can’t play here,” is rarely the best place to start — particularly when, legally, there may be no reason why I cannot.

After nine years, I know the rules and responsibilities that come with busking. I also know how hard I have worked at this craft.

Before the VOK, I manually pushed a piano weighing around 140 kilograms to my pitch every day, sometimes for more than a mile.

I am not someone who has simply turned up with a keyboard and decided to make noise outside your shop. This is my work. It is also my life.

On this journey, I may only be in a place for one day — two at the most. I will generally play for around three hours. That means our entire interaction may amount to six hours of piano music, carrying a message about healing, hope and helping other people.

Perhaps, for those few hours, we can both choose to be a little more gracious.

That is why I want to thank Brown Sugar Cafe, Webb Street Store and Mr Coney’s again. Thank you for being helpful. Thank you for being kind. And thank you for making me feel welcome in Fowey.

There is another part of this journey that people often comment on, so I also want to talk a little about the piano itself.

I am currently playing a Schreiber, probably built sometime between the 1970s and the 1990s. I have a few favourite piano brands, but Bentleys and Schreibers are probably near the top of the list when it comes to busking.

A busking piano is not a concert piano.

It needs to survive an entirely different life. It is pushed over cobbles, loaded into vehicles, taken through changing temperatures, played outdoors and occasionally caught in the rain. In winter, it may even see snow.

Inside a traditional piano key mechanism, the keys move along metal guide pins. Small felt bushings help guide the keys smoothly and stop them moving or rattling from side to side.

My Schreiber has proved particularly resilient to the damp, movement and general battering that come with life as a busking piano, because those key bushings are plastic, not felt.

When I look for a piano, I am not necessarily searching for one that has been freshly tuned. In fact, a piano that has not been tuned for a long time, but still holds a reasonable tune and has a good tone, can be worth its weight in gold.

A recently tuned piano may sound beautiful while sitting still in someone’s home, but a busking piano does not sit still.

Every cobble matters. Every kerb matters. Every journey matters.

Before this trip, the amount of moving involved meant I sometimes had to replace my piano roughly every three months. Tuning would not solve the problem, because the first rough stretch of road could knock it straight back out again.

I have now had this particular Schreiber for around seven months. That may be the longest I have ever kept one.

It has travelled across the UK in my van. It has been wheeled to more pitches than I could count. It has been rained on. It has been dropped more than once. It currently has five broken hammers.

And somehow, it still has an amazing tone.

I know the lady who sold it to me at the beginning of the year has been following this journey, and I hope she is as proud of this piano as I am.

A lovely woman is already holding another Schreiber for me. That will allow me to carry out the repairs this one needs and eventually send the second piano to a workshop to be fully refurbished.

The plan is to paint it orange and make it the first piano placed through the PianoMission.

In just one week, the PianoMission GoFundMe has already raised £534.

I want to thank every person who has donated or shared it. Every contribution is helping us build the fund that will place pianos in communities where other people may find the same hope, purpose and opportunity through music that I did.

We are now looking forward to making our first piano acquisition and taking the next real step towards placing the first PianoMission piano.

I know that may not mean much to everyone. But to me, and to the people closest to this mission, it means everything.

The piano gave me a way back when I needed it most. The PianoMission is about creating the opportunity for someone else to find what I found through music: hope, purpose, connection and a reason to keep going.

So, to the pianists, classically trained or otherwise, and the piano tuners who feel the need to tell a busker cycling a full-size piano across the country that his piano is slightly out of tune, perhaps stop for a second and ask whether it really needs to be said.

“Well done, lad,” would have been nice to hear.

An offer to support the PianoMission by providing tuning services would have meant even more.

As for my Schreiber, it is a little like me.

Imperfect, a bit battered and somehow still holding its own.

I have one more day in Fowey before I continue the journey.

Thank you to everyone who has been kind, gracious and willing to understand the mission.

Don’t Judge. Just Listen.

— James

Day 8 Counter
Fowey
Miles travelled: 0
Average speed: N/A
Elevation gain: 0 ft
Elevation loss: 0 ft
Locations busked: 1 — Fowey

Journey Total
Total miles travelled: 89.3
Total locations busked: 6