Day 14: Totnes to Paignton — I’m Proud to Be A Busker

27 Jul

Yesterday morning, I arrived in Totnes looking forward to spending a few hours busking before continuing my journey to Paignton.

I had only just ridden into the Market Square and was still trying to understand the layout when a man and a woman approached me. There was no introduction, no "hello" and no "good morning." The first words I heard were, "You can't be here."

At that point, I did not know who either person was. I had not opened the piano or started playing. I was simply trying to get the lay of the land, understand where the market ended and work out where I might be able to perform without obstructing anyone.

The man later identified himself as the market manager and explained that buskers were not permitted within the market. He described it as a longstanding or historic rule and warned that if I attempted to set up among the stalls, the traders would "lynch" me. I understood that he was trying to say they would react badly, but it was still a surprising way to greet somebody who had only just arrived.

I tried to understand which rule he was referring to because we had already reviewed the published guidance before I reached Totnes. The Town Council's official information says that Totnes welcomes buskers and directs performers to its Buskers' Code of Practice. That code contains sensible requirements concerning volume, pitch duration, obstruction, consideration for businesses and instructions from police or council officers, but we could not find anything in the published document stating that buskers were prohibited from the Market Square.

We also reviewed the published information about the market itself. In the publicly available documents we reviewed, we could not find the historic prohibition described during the conversation.

That does not mean an internal arrangement or longstanding operational rule does not exist. It may simply not be included in the public information we were able to find. If that is the case, publishing it would help everybody. Clear rules allow visiting performers to prepare properly, respect local arrangements and avoid unnecessary conflict.

To be fair, once the market manager and I actually began speaking to one another, the conversation became much calmer and more productive. He explained that he wanted to help ensure I had a positive experience whenever I returned. It was a kind thought, but it also showed how much can be missed when a conversation begins with a conclusion. Had he introduced himself and asked what I was doing, he would have learned within a minute that there will almost certainly never be a next time.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime journey from Land's End to John O'Groats. It is expected to take between nine months and a year because I am deliberately travelling through communities rather than following the most direct route. Once I leave many of these places, I will never perform there again.

The interaction made me think about something much bigger than one market or one town.

It made me think about busking.

I've been a full-time professional busker for nine years, not because I couldn't find another job, but because I chose this one.

Before becoming a busker, I worked as a chef, a rock-climbing instructor, in business-to-business marketing, and in foreign exchange and cash handling. I have also had opportunities to pursue other paths within the music industry, but I turned them down because I had already found what I wanted to do.

One of the biggest misconceptions about busking is that everyone standing on a street is hoping somebody important walks past and changes their life.

I'm not waiting to be discovered.

I'm not looking for a record deal.

I'm not hoping to become a professional musician.

I already am one.

Busking is not the absence of a profession. It is the profession I chose. I do not busk because I am waiting for my career to begin.

I busk because I am already living it.

People tell me to "get a real job" more often than I could possibly count. I am called a beggar, criticised for selling merchandise and asked why I do not work like everybody else.

The truth is that I already have a real career.

It simply does not look like the one some people expected.

Until I collected the VOK, in June, for this LEJOG challenge, I transported my upright piano on a trolley. That often meant pushing it from my van to my pitch, sometimes nearly a mile each way, before I had even played a single note. At the end of the day, I completed the entire journey again in reverse.

Then came the performance itself. I played through bitter cold, wind and whatever else the British weather decided to offer. The only weather that normally stopped me was heavy rain, because it could damage the piano, or extreme heat, because the wellbeing of my dogs will always come before a performance.

People sometimes call that begging.

I call it my career.

Like any profession, the part people see is only a fraction of the work involved. There is the travel, route planning, equipment, maintenance, insurance, merchandise and the countless conversations that continue long after the piano has been packed away.

Every contribution placed in my bucket is voluntary. Nobody has to stop, listen or give anything. People choose to contribute because they enjoyed the music, appreciated what I brought to their day or believed in the journey and mission behind it.

The same is true of my merchandise. Bands sell T-shirts. Sports clubs sell scarves. Museums sell souvenirs. Theatres sell programmes.

When somebody buys a hoodie, they are supporting an independent musician, a small business and a mission they believe in. If they choose not to, that is completely fine too.

What I love most about busking is not the possibility of being noticed.

It is the communities I am able to serve.

Over the last nine years I have played in hundreds of towns and cities and met thousands of people I would never otherwise have known. I have celebrated birthdays, shared difficult conversations, laughed with complete strangers and watched music bring people together in ways that still amaze me.

There are markets I genuinely look forward to returning to. Beverley, Stamford and Bury St Edmunds do not simply allow me to play; the traders make me feel welcome. I know many of them by name. We catch up, have a laugh, I buy food from their stalls and, more often than not, end up making change for somebody who needs coins.

Those relationships did not begin because anyone knew who I was.

They began because somebody said hello.

That is why yesterday felt like a missed opportunity—not because I expected special treatment or believed I had an automatic right to play, but because if the conversation had begun with curiosity rather than a conclusion, we might both have walked away understanding each other a little better.

Markets may have had difficult experiences with amplification, repeated performers or people who did not behave respectfully. I understand that. Even when the eventual answer must still be no, kindness and mutual respect make the conversation far more productive.

Every conversation has to start somewhere.

I simply think "hello" is a much better place to begin than "you can't."

After spending a couple of hours busking in Totnes, I continued on to Paignton. The route included two long, steady climbs, and at one point the battery overheated while I was in a precarious position. I was able to reach a safer place, allow it to cool and then continue, but incidents like that demonstrate why every ride is documented so carefully.

Every route is recorded through Komoot, and the completed ride data is analysed alongside the terrain, speed, elevation, battery behaviour and any incidents experienced along the way. A full review is completed after every journey, helping us understand what the VOK can handle, where its limits may be and how we should adjust our approach in the future.

That analysis is not only useful to us. The ride data, together with details of incidents such as the battery overheating, will also be shared with VOK to help inform them on how their equipment is handling this challenge. VOK also has access to telemetry from the bike, giving its team additional technical information about how it is performing during the journey.

A great deal of work happens before and after every ride. What people see on the road is only one part of a much larger process designed to keep this challenge safe, sustainable and moving forward.

Wherever I play next, I will introduce myself in the same way I always have.

Hello, I'm James...

...and I'm proud to be a busker.

— James

Day 14: Totnes to Paignton — I’m Proud to Be A Busker

Further Reading

Day 15: Sometimes the Journey Has to Come First

Day 13: Plymouth to Totnes — The Power of “No”