Colourful characters

[Tubby Mondays]

Naughty Boy was a legend in T WElls. Cricket matches on the common were often brought to a halt to watch him skip / dance round the ground.

Very sad story though as some twats decided to report him to the police / council as he danced round their children singing. I understand that he ended up sent off to some secure accomadation in Bognor.

He used toi stop and chat sometimes and say that he just loved singing and the fresh air. POor old boy. Harmless and treated ultimately like a criminal. Really saddens me that his life was deemed to be a danger to others.

Piers Hopson: Parents remember his 'enthusiasm and humour' - BBC News

The parents of a man from East Sussex whose remains were identified nearly two years after they were found say they will miss his "good humour".

www.bbc.com

I’m afraid it got much worse than that for him.

 

[Worthingite]

Piers Hopson: Parents remember his 'enthusiasm and humour' - BBC News

The parents of a man from East Sussex whose remains were identified nearly two years after they were found say they will miss his "good humour".

www.bbc.com

I’m afraid it got much worse than that for him.

100% That's not Naughty Boy.Would love to know how/where he is right now though, but he was significantly older than this chap, even back then - probably in his late 40's in the early 2000's.

NB used to come into the computer shop where I worked, "sorry to bother you" in his sing song voice, then proceed to dance his way down the street.

 

[sydney]

The old chap who used to frequent Shoreham high-street with a bike, straw boater and stripey boating jacket (plus monacle, if I remember correctly), was quite colourful. Have a feeling he was a bit of a git in person though.

Burlington Bertie..?

 

[sydney]

We always knew him as the mad major

Although he was also known as Burlington Bertie, Horace and Lord Bracknell

he was a dustman in /around worthing in the 70's ....proper "character" by all accounts.

 

[Questions]

Or nutter the description us up to you. But who's the best you've seen on your travels. I'm only asking because I've seen a couple of crackers the last few days.
Monday morning about 7.30 I was cycling into work a gentleman of the street walked past me. Dirty/torn clothes. Fag in mouth and bottle of cider in hand and with his other free hand was pushing an office wheelie chair in a kind of Zimmer/mobility device. It appeared to be the only thing holding him up.
And just now coming home from work a bloke, I'd say in his early sixties. Whinkle pickers, black and White dogtooth drainpipes, no top on just a heavily tattooed torso. Long grey hair, John Lennon shades. In one hand small bottle of vodka and the other hand a snake.
Beat those two

Bloke in my mates local can often be seen sitting at the bar with an owl on his arm!!!

So when someone makes a foul shot on the pool table he shouts, “Two hits to who.

 

[Brok]

he was a dustman in /around worthing in the 70's ....proper "character" by all accounts.

I think he used to work in that optical place in Ham Road at some point as well.

 

[Questions]

I think he used to work in that optical place in Ham Road at some point as well.

He did he was a cleaner there. Foul languaged chap by all accounts.

 

[Tubby Mondays]

100% That's not Naughty Boy.Would love to know how/where he is right now though, but he was significantly older than this chap, even back then - probably in his late 40's in the early 2000's.

NB used to come into the computer shop where I worked, "sorry to bother you" in his sing song voice, then proceed to dance his way down the street.

In my opinion it is. But life’s all about opinions.

 

[jackalbion]

This bloke walks around King’s Cross where I work. Absolute nutter, quite often with an arsenal shirt on his head.

 

[Eeyore]

the guy who used to walk about the bottom of west street saying got a penny mate

I think inflation may have taken that to ten pence at some stage, as per other posts.

I remember him well, early/mid 80s. So about 40 years ago. Yes, FORTY years.

I'm not sure what happened or indeed if he is still with us. Totally harmless character.

 

[Bry Nylon]

Just my view, but recollections of people from 30 / 40 years ago feels okay; but putting up images of people from the 'here and now' (who clearly have some mental health challenges) feels a bit like punching down to me, even though I'm certain that wasn't the intention. Probably best that this thread remains firmly in the past and not the present, if it is to remain.

 

[Guinness Boy]

When we played Spurs away in the cup a couple of seasons ago we (me and my son) stayed up in Euston overnight as it was iffy whether we'd make it back that night or not (8pm or later kick off IIRC).

Before we got on the tube to the ground at Euston I decided to wet my whistle in the bar upstairs on Euston station.

On a table two away from where we sat was a bloke on his own wearing relatively normal clothing until you noticed his EXTREMELY sparkly, heeled cowboy boots. But that wasn't the thing.

He had a bag. A large holdall. Now, he was just sat with it when we were sat down. My lad was 15 at the time and looks older, so had clearly been ruled out of involvement in the next part but soon a suitable family turned up, a mum with a young boy. Up gets the feller.

"Would you like a go with a light sabre?" he asks the lad. I'm on edge now, waiting for it to go Jimmy Savile but, no. Bloke produces a full, working light sabre from the holdall and spends the next ten minutes going round the pub floor with the young lad teaching him exactly how to use it while the mum films it on her iPhone.

Once that was done he sits back down and looks straight at me. "Always useful to have a light sabre" he says.

I agree with him and ask him where he got it from. The reply was not quite what I expected.

"Well", he says "I got up this morning and decided to buy a couple of horses. They were for sale in Glasgow so I needed to get the train up there. But I got to....where's that place again....oh yeah, Carlisle, I got to Carlisle and got bored so I thought I'd get the train back here instead and get pissed".

At this point, knowing there would actually be saner people on the Seven Sisters Road, I downed my pint, made my excuses and took the lad onto the Victoria line for the game.

 

[A mex eyecan]

I too live in Essex...Leigh...not many loonies around here.

Brighton has so many eccentrics I can remember. "spider" mad rasta in a wheelchair who used to go like a f***ing nut down St. James st. I also recall "Peter pants" in Stanford ave area...y fronts pulled up to mid thorax and a mad comb over..Black Widow..kemp town crazy woman all in black used to scare the shit out of all..obviously the aforementioned Burlington Bertie of Worthing town.

Also "the walker" always marching along Ditchling Road with his snorkel Parka done right up to the top and rucksack on in the middle of summer.

I miss you all.

The latter was Polish and worked at a place called Caldra House, who were in Coleridge Street, back on the 70’s/80’s.
He would often jog over to our old workplace in Coombe Road, collect 2x5lt can of acid descaler and then run all the way back with them, one in each hand. I swear his arms must have been dragging on the pavement by the time he got back with them.

 

[Hamilton]

Burlington Bertie..?

Horace Duke.

He could be quite foul-mouthed.

 

[The Antikythera Mechanism]

In the early 70’s there was a big black guy called Desmond - he used to frequent West Street and he usually smoked a fat cigar butt by inserting it in his left nostril.

 

[herecomesaregular]

Grew up in Haywards Heath in the 70s and 80s and wandering to school then college and back used to pass across many "colourful characters" from St Francis, which I think led me into working in mental health services. Often debatable what is harmless "eccentricity" and/or slightly oddball character and what is perhaps mental illness that needs treating or just neurodiversity, that should be embraced... hard to say sometimes. Of the old-skool characters I came across in my youth many were misdiagnosed for sure.