Anti-busker campaign

Press, 12 June 1978, Page 12

Anti-busker campaign

By

LESLEY CHAMBERLAIN,

NZPA-Reuter correspondent

London Every day in the subways of London’s underground transport network men and an occasional woman sing for their supper in blatant breach of the law.

They, the capital’s hundreds of buskers or street musicians, scrape together a meagre living from coins tossed by passers-by. For years the transport authorities have organised half-hearted anti-busking patrols, which are easily dodged. But in newlyinstalled cameras and microphones the buskers may have met their match.

At Oxford Circus Station, one of their favourite haunts mechanical eyes and ears now scan the maze of underground passages for illegal guitarists and singers. The buskers are a resilient bunch. Will they be deterred?

“Buskers are being slaughtered in London at the moment,” said one Irish singer, “but if you’ve been .busking a long time you’re not going to be squeezed out by a few cameras and microphones.” The money buskers earn is unpredictable but playing and singing off and on five or six days a week

most seem to survive. They take care to avoid

losing any of their income to the taxman.

Paddy, a typical busker with waist-length hair who refused to give his real name, estimated $35 for a

c.ouple of hours playing on a good Saturday. Others put an average few hours takings at about $lO, with girl buskers, a rare sight in London, always attracting a bit more.

But the cost of getting caught busking and being prosecuted can wipe out months of profit.

Dennis Mortlock, a guitarist and fiddler, confessed to having been in court 50 to 60 times in nine years as a busker. On one occasion he was fined $6OO. Buskers, mostly young people, sing for money, for practice and as a way of life — “just a load of frustrated musicians,” as one said.

Many have given up university or jobs in offices and shops to busk and their accents and manners belie their shabby clothes. They are a tight clique who know how to look after one another. They have their own laws about pitches and are fiercely fair about how Long each singer can busk.

No-one jumps the queue or abandons the pitch.

On their fringe are alcoholics, social drop-outs

and tramps. A wild-looking old man in a filthy coat regularly frequents their stations. After a few bars on a mouth organ he holds out his hand and prods the crowd for money.

The authorities disapprove of all buskers. As one spokesman put it “lots of members of the public find it a bit of an embarrassment to be confronted with what they see as demands for money.”