Local "Characters"/Nutboxes

[George White]

One time on the bus, a Ned Flandersy American guy told me he was leaving Ireland because he "couldn't live in a country where sodomists were allowed to marry."

Then, there was Leslie. Leslie was a student who lodged at our house for a while a few years ago. She was a fire eater, a rather attractive, exotic hippie chick/fringe cultst who seemed quite nice, then turned out to be fire eating inside the house, and generally causing misery for everyone in the house.

[yesitsme]

One day as we sat in the pub we started talking about the nutters who used to stand in front of us at Bolton games.  There was one bloke who used to look like the 'This is MY train' bloke from Ghost, one we just called Johnny Tight Pants and one who used to wear one of those big Arsen Wenger style coats, swearing non-stop.  They all used to stand near the railings - ie near the kids who used to stand near the railings.

There was about 8 of us at the table, four of whom were 2 brothers and their two cousins.

I said 'You know who I've not seen in ages..?' and I reminded them about this nutter who used to run about carrying his bike above his head.  Rumour was he was a 'mad axe man' - if you plucked up the courage to call him that the legend was he would jump on his bike and ride off, how this made him a mad axe man I'll never know.  If you asked him 'Why do you carry your bike above your head' he'd say 'Because the god of fitness is my god.'  but we'd also say 'Turn the instructions the right way up!' to him - stuff like that.  Anyway, back to the pub.

'...that nutter who used to carry his bike about St Mary's Park.'
'That was our dad/uncle!'

Luckily they saw the funny side as he'd had a nervous breakdown.

We have a street nutter who feeds the foxes and sits on the Grassy Hill saying the Rosary.  He's not harming anyone but that's the rpecise behaviour people do two minutes before they start harming people isn't it?

[Endicott]

I once went to the corner shopand there was a spinster with a poodle in a bright pink pram. I assumed she was a little mental but my mate reckoned the dog might have been a bit disabled, apparently some people use prams for that.

Dog mobility is a serious issue I find these hard to believe

[doppelkorn]

There are a few in South London but one who stands out is Percy/Jessica, a.k.a TRIGGER WARNING the South London tranny.

A (former) bloke who's easily in his 60s, if not 70s. Very tall and still quite athletic who dresses like Nicky Minaj in all weathers so you can see his tits/knob/bollocks. He's usually either cycling in very high wedges or pulling one of those granny shopping caddies around.

He quite often pops into Foodbank just for a cup of tea.

[TheWoodenSpoon]

Used to be some guy who'd get on the bus, sit at the back, then proceed to 'sing' from a book. He would often be holding the book upside-down. Speaking of which, there was also a bus driver who'd be tearing down the road and yell "does anybody want this one?" about two seconds before zooming past the bus stop.

[doppelkorn]

Only saw him the once, many years ago:  a man striding in the direction of Balham station at around 4pm in the summer, wearing a smart suit and holding an attaché case.  Everything perfectly ordinary about this professional-looking fellow except for the fact that his cock was out and he was doing hands-free pissing.  Somehow the piss was jetting directly forwards, not deviating to the left or right, and not going on his clothes at all.  It was clearly a man who'd done this many many times.

I've clocked this perv.

[doppelkorn]

In Leeds c. 2004 there used to be a bloke who'd just sit on the bus all day. He had a tonne of facial piercings and would take small bits of paper and spit them at whoever was sat in the seat in front. Also a lady who may have had mental health problems. She would wear a lot of make-up and sit in the seats just behind the driver and then lurch at you as you got on, like she was going to punch you.

[RenegadeScrew]

Massive shout out to Arthur Williams of Leith fame, who is known as Rastatramp apparently, but I can't remember what we used to call him.  I think Jimmy Boco.

http://localheroes.wikia.com/wiki/Arthur_Williams

http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/rastatramp-found-in-leith-half-way-house-1-3199790

[Serge]

Derby legend, "Walking Backwards Man":

http://derbyphotoscouk.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/the-famous-derby-man-that-walks.html

Oh yes, I've seen him quite a few times. Once when I was at the hospital waiting for a blood test, he was standing in the waiting room and kept taking tickets from the machine and then wandering off, leaving the nurses calling out numbers that no-one had. There was a post on Facebook about him a while back, showing pictures from when he was younger and explaining that it's some kind of medication that has made him this way.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Dog mobility is a serious issue I find these hard to believe

Well obviously I'm aware dogs can have wheels.

[yesitsme]

My experience is that it's always 'winning the lottery' that sends these people bonkers.

There is (almost certainly WAS now) a bloke who used to push a shopping trolley around the greater Bolton area filling it with any bits of wood he could lay his hands on from railway sleepers to twigs.

According to the legend he was building a massive Georgian house bit by bit.

The reason for this folly? 

Won the lottery - sent him bonkers.

[George White]

"Pinky and Flat Cap", a couple who used to live near me who'd always have arguments on the bus.
Pinky was so-called, because she had straggly pink hair, the dye running out. In her twenties/early thirties, but prematurely aged, barely any teeth, a junkie of some sort, her paramour Flat Cap was a similarly aged, not quite as careworn Traveller in a leather flat cap, sometimes accompanied by his father. Flat Cap bore an uncanny resemblance to Irish TV eejit Hector - https://www.google.ie/search?q=hector+o%27heochagain&client=firefox-b-ab&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjYzZCbsd7UAhUMC8AKHfiMDNcQ_AUICigB&biw=1525&bih=736

[Brundle-Fly]

I still miss Horace's jolly shouting in the Camden Town Sainburys

THE BEST OF LUCK!!!!
https://richardosley.com/2012/09/25/the-best-of-luck-horace/

[Sebastian Cobb]

My experience is that it's always 'winning the lottery' that sends these people bonkers.

There is (almost certainly WAS now) a bloke who used to push a shopping trolley around the greater Bolton area filling it with any bits of wood he could lay his hands on from railway sleepers to twigs.

According to the legend he was building a massive Georgian house bit by bit.

The reason for this folly? 

Won the lottery - sent him bonkers.

Yeah, you've got to be careful with that. It's all well and good to say you'd piss your winnings up the wall and be dead by 35, but if you get it slightly wrong, and forget to die, then you could end up like Shaun Ryder.

[shiftwork2]

Not sure this belongs in here as he has a wiki page but Norwich puppet man.

There was some consternation when he announced his retirement from 'waving a puppet around out of time with the music' and as you can see from the video that would be a rare loss.  But he's still there and now performs in Yarmouth too.

From Wikipedia:

Attracting fans and hatred alike...

Lovely phrase, very simple, very moving.

The puppets David Perry has used since appearing as the Norwich Puppet Man are:

"Dougal" (a purple dog, on string)
"Billy McDog" (a canine hand puppet)
"Gary" (a banana eating gorilla, named after Gary Glitter)

Possibly the final use of Gary Glitter's name in our culture.  End of days.

[George White]

In Bray, there's a few I noticed today and on most days. There's a bald female dwarf covered in piercings dressed in denim, and a middle-aged woman with intellectual disabilities who wanders around with short blond hair wearing a T shirt with a photograph of her riding a horse. And an older woman in her late fifties, blond with her grandchildren. She is dressed in a denim jumpsuit.

[Twit 2]

Saw the Norwich puppet man chasing after some Legend Garys who'd knicked his puppet and ran off. He looked upset. I think he's mentally ill and so his celebrity status is a little bit dubious.

[kngen]

In Glasgow there's loads, there's Mad Gav who dressed like a weirdo

Turned up in my hallway once - as he'd followed a lassie he was obsessed with back to an after-pub sesh with my flatmate and a bunch of folk, one of whom left the door on the snib when they went out to buy more fags, thus allowing him entry after waiting outside our front door for at least an hour, the creepy bastard. I was sat in my room, and not really engaging with the festivities, but went for a piss - and there he was with his hair dyed like a football (bleached with hexagonal patches) and a silver bomber jacket on - and literally the last person I expected - or wanted - to see in my own house. I let out an anguished 'Wooooaaargh - what the FUCK are you doing here?' and threw the first thing to hand at him which, rather inconveniently, was a clothes horse, then started booting him towards the door. Hearing the commotion, my flatmate came out, groaned and said: 'Fuck's sake, Gavin, you KNOW you're not fucking coming in.' and then huckled him out of the door while he was still covered with my damp pants and socks. About as an inauspicious, undignified exit as I've ever seen, it has to be said.

[H Scorn]

This man, who lived in a car shanty by the A9 for a couple of years. I think the sign on the window is a reference to his deceased mother. Apparently cast out on the verge by a business deal gone wrong, he was evicted from the layby in 2015 and hit an official with a china mug. He was once fined 500 pounds for driving through the set of TV soap Strathblair.

Google maps took me on a ridiculous route to the west coast at the weekend, I passed by a Fiat Panda and a motorbike parked by an unclassified road in Perthshire, apparently that's his new abode. I feel bad for him but he has been offered housing and social support, maybe he likes living in a car by the roadside.

[Bobtoo]

He gets around, here he is at Knockhill.



People stop and give him food, probably not as much as they did when he was on the A9 though.



Somebody even made a film about him.



Edit- the film is now online https://vimeo.com/190744213

[George White]

Charity shop is run by weirdos.
One hasa shrill voice, and resembles Sally Hawkins channelling Una O'Connor.
Another is basically Father Bigley, big lips, blotchy face, childlike, the sort who listens to Dana.
Their leader is an emotionally manipulative Chinese woman who once claimed to have my father's phone number, but then after much bulllshitting, eventually had to own up.

[George White]

Also that crazy African woman at the bus stop who once asked, "Do you know the Chinese dragon? He is the devil."

[NattyDread 2]

This man, who lived in a car shanty by the A9 for a couple of years.

I always wondered what was going on there. I wouldn't have been any the wiser had I been able to see his sign. Why didn't he have it facing the traffic? Mighty strange. There are some cracking spots to camp around there, though you probably wouldn't be getting brought posh pieces from House of Bruar elsewhere right enough.

[BlodwynPig]

What is the smaller tent for - toilet?

[Glebe]

Charity shop is run by weirdos.
One hasa shrill voice, and resembles Sally Hawkins channelling Una O'Connor.
Another is basically Father Bigley, big lips, blotchy face, childlike, the sort who listens to Dana.
Their leader is an emotionally manipulative Chinese woman who once claimed to have my father's phone number, but then after much bulllshitting, eventually had to own up.

Also that crazy African woman at the bus stop who once asked, "Do you know the Chinese dragon? He is the devil."

Heh!

Btw George, how's your 'squashed Ruth Madoc' aunty? I ask because I was on the bus passing Cornelscourt earlier, when I noticed an ad for a Calender Girls stage show on the side of another bus... featuring Ruth Madoc! I do quite fancy seeing Gladys Pugh in the nip, actually.

[gilbertharding]

There used to be a bloke I saw most mornings on one of the North-bound platforms of St Neots railway station. He was dressed as a biker, in jeans, leather jacket and work-man's boots, with longish hair tied back and a bit of a beard. So far, so normal... the thing which caught my eye, and made me wonder - even now 30 years later - was the way he stood, which was as if he was on crutches, even though he wasn't on crutches at all. Every time I saw him, which was most mornings as I got off a London-bound train and saw him waiting to go to Huntingdon, he was stood completely still, leaning forward, and as if his hands were gripping a non-existent pair of crutches.

[gilbertharding]

In the early 90s there was a bloke who used to walk around Canterbury in a very old, shiny black suit with a grey plastic mac over it. He used to wave at buses.

Is this the kind of thing for this thread?

[BlodwynPig]

Beetroot faced "perch pint". Frequenting all the student bars in Newcastle AND the better establishments. Became a figure if fun. Turned out he was in my mum's class at school and when confronted spoke with an eloquence and awareness that belied his demeanour and stench.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Saw a bloke at the local tube station recently take out a bottle of balsamic vinegar from his coat pocket and start washing his hair with it. The mad glint in his eye was the only reason why I didn't ask him what he was doing. And he did smell lovely, admittedly.

[George White]

Heh!

Btw George, how's your 'squashed Ruth Madoc' aunty? I ask because I was on the bus passing Cornelscourt earlier, when I noticed an ad for a Calender Girls stage show on the side of another bus... featuring Ruth Madoc! I do quite fancy seeing Gladys Pugh in the nip, actually.

Catherine's fine, well as fine can be, when her cousin-in-law (my mum) is having chemo.