NOVEMBER 2001
What five words would sum up Graham�s life? �A bloody waste of time,� he says. But this negativity and the fact he has spent over 40 years wandering around the country, living from hand to mouth, belies a secret ambition. And if any of the passers-by did wonder anything about him they would never guess he leads a bizarre double life.
The homeless charity Crisis launched its Christmas campaign this week. Maybe it is just the cold weather but suddenly the people asking for money in Preston seem more noticeable than in summer. Not that Graham would dream of asking for money without entertaining the public in return. �Pride wouldn�t allow me,� he says, �I�d resort to stealing before begging.�
But pride does not stop him playing his accordion on the street corner. Far from it. �Some people would think playing music in the street degrading,� says Graham. �But I can work whenever I like, don�t need to impress management.�
But to get money he does need to impress the public. Mary Austen was so impressed she asked him to perform at the old people�s home she runs. There he decided to sing too. �Frankly he was shockingly off-key,� says Mrs Austen, �but the residents just like the tunes.�
Graham is a tall, immaculately turned-out man. When he talks he explodes into a waterfall of words as if he is so anxious that he might keel over at any minute he needs to make sure he has said everything on his mind. Well-spoken, with a Liverpudlian lilt, he gesticulates wildly; perhaps an imaginary accordion is still there under his arm.
�Having lived the life I�ve lived,� says Graham, �I should be in a doss house now. I�ve got no money, no friends, no family� but I have got these.� And from his pocket he takes car keys, a telephone and a membership card of Equity, the actors� union.
Graham describes his 60th birthday as a �watershed�, when he made up his mind to give up 40 years of drifting. �Suddenly I wished I�d done something more constructive with my life,� he says. Within three months he was acting on television.
At 16 he auditioned at RADA but it went �so embarrassingly wrong� he embarked on decades of flitting from one itinerant job to another, in too many places to remember what he did and where. (�I think I remember living in south Wales once.�) From Navy engineer to West End barman, fruit seller in Selfridges, fairground attendant, bingo caller, central-heating salesman, tram conductor, kitchen gadget �demonstrator�, Butlins security guard�
And now his life takes another twist. �My ambition is burning again,� he says. Over the last three years he has acted in various television dramas including Peak Practice, Brookside and the teen-soap Hollyoaks. Next summer he will appear as an admiral in BBC2�s screenplay, Battle of the Atlantic.
This busker has an agent. Janet Howe was one of the many he wrote to three years ago. �He�s only played small parts,� she says, �but everyone�s got to start somewhere and the fact he�s started at all at 60 is quite unusual.�
Graham does not care about unusual: �I�m resigned to working for money every day until I die.� And that�s why, despite his brush with fame, he cannot quite shake the vagabond life.
He still lives in a caravan and is still one of those vying for people�s change on a freezing night on Fishergate. So it is not quite a rags-to-riches story yet. But in five years? �If things happen, they happen,� he laughs.
[ENDS]
[650 words]
The amazing double-life of a Preston busker
Watford capitalise on Coventry's fall from grace