You talking about people like the 'be a winner not a sinner' bloke, and Lenny the tramp?

>>356822
Exactly. I've only just noticed the thread on Purple Aki, but this thread isn't about him anyway, it's about how these individuals were moulded by society, why did society allow some of these people to slip through the cracks of health care, social services, and basic human compassion? How did they start off in life, what went wrong?

Obviously feel free to share anecdotes.

>>356823
So you're essentially asking what are the causes of homelessness?

>>356821
Some are attention seeking twats, some are long-term homeless people who are probably mentally ill but that doesn't stop the "[their name/nickname] is a ledge" facebook page from getting thousands of likes. I fucking loathe the idea of "local characters".

http://www.youtube.com/v/3tfnDfbqCeY

There are alot of stories about Ozzy's past that range from being ruined by inheritance money through various addictions to going mad because of a series of tragic deaths in his family.

I've heard the real story supposedly from one of my mate's mums being a distant relative to one of his but I can't remember it. Think it was his son and wife died and he went batty; splurged all his money on heroin and booze then just went on from there.

>>356826

I think he may be a wizard driven mad by the secrets of magic.

We have "Mongo Mark" Who for the best part of the last 20 years at least, has wandered around the area collecting all sorts of shit and scarp metal in his wheelbarrow. He wears a Hi-Vis, boiler suit and a flat cap. Nobody knows what he does with the the stuff he collects.

The heresay is that he's actually loaded to fuck despite living in a run down bungalow.

There's a few in Edinburgh.
Most famous is probably Arthur AKA Rastatramp (pic related), he's been a permanent fixture in the Leith area of the city for at least 30 years. He recently vanished from his local spot outside the off-license and a rumour quickly spread via facebook that he had died of pneumonia. A memorial page created on facebook in his honour received 3500 likes in a matter of hours. Turned out he wasn't actually dead but in fact some local coppers had decided to take him to hospital to get cleaned up and spend a few nights in a warm bed.
Story goes that when he first came to Edinburgh he was a successful business owner but that his wife and two children where tragically killed when his flat in Leith caught fire. Stricken with grief he abandoned all his worldly possessions and decided to live on the streets, and that's where he's been ever since. I've no idea if that stories true, or just an urban legend.

Other notable Edinburgh tramps are Ragman who you can usually find in the graveyard at the westend of princess street, looks like dumbledore, and Beaverman, named so for his the ankle length matted hair which resembles a beavers tail. Beaverman can mostly be found somewhere on the royal mile, usually in the vicinity of hunters square. Though on occasion you'll see him raking through the bushes and bins at bristo square.

Edinburgh also has it's fair share of eccentrics, most notable of which was Cowboy Joe, who sadly passed away recently. He deserves his own post though, which I might do tomorrow if I can be arsed.

>>356829

>A memorial page created on facebook in his honour received 3500 likes

I loathe this generation. Do people honestly not realise how crass this is?

>>356828
Recycles them may be? Does that High-Visibility jacket have writing like "district council" on it by any chance?

"In some ways he is Swansea's Batman. In more ways he isn't. This is a man who, legend has it, is actually a multi millionaire that grew disillusioned with corporate life and in particular the insurance industry. Throwing off the shackles of his previous life, Teabag resolved to do something meaningful with his life and started walking the Swansea streets picking up litter and taking anything recyclable to the recycling centre. And not asking for any money for doing it."

There's a story about him finding a wallet and walking 12 miles to give it to the man without a thing taken, refusing a hundred quid as a thank you.

That story, along with numerous others have made Teabag a hero in Swansea. He's never harassed and seems happy going about his business.

You can smell him a mile off as well.

>>356831
What should these people who wanted to express their condolences have done?

>>356828

>The heresay is that he's actually loaded to fuck despite living in a run down bungalow.

There's an old bloke who used to be a fixture on the free festival circuit, who died a few years ago and left the best part of £400,000 to various lefty groups. He was always on the bones of his arse, so everyone was a bit puzzled as to where the money had come from. Apparently he had been signing on for 30-odd years but never spent a penny of it, so it just sat in the bank gathering interest. They reckon he did it out of spite - he was too proud to be dependent on the state, but by the same token he wanted to milk the bastards for all he could get.

>>356821

Are you from Sunderland, lad? Otherwise we've got a similar nutter.

>>356837
I've just done the maths, there is no way he could have accumulated that money from JSA/dole alone. Back in 2003 you'd get £44 a week, even less in the 90's and 80's (I think it was £35 back then).

Even with interest from an ISA account, he'd have no chance.

>>356839

No that guy but I spend a bit of time working in Sunderland and that does look like the guy I think you mean. I normally see him bedding down for the night in a doorway over the road from the Lambton Worm. He would usually use that big suitcase as a windbreak/privacy screen.

>>356832

We've got a drunk who lurks around the corner shop all day so he can collar people and talk their ear off and ask to borrow money he never gives back. He dresses up as a workman (stolen hi-vis jacket and sometimes a hard hat) to give him a veneer of respectability I suppose and so he can pretend he has a job. He collects scrap metal too and sells it to the recycling centre. I bet he'd be the type to go around pinching grids.

I haven't lived in Rochdale since I was 11 but there was this mentally ill guy who genuinely thought he was Bruce Springsteen and he would go up to people in the bus station and cinema queue and serenade them.

In Elgin in North East Scotland there was this woman who used to be a prostitute and had become elderly and wore Barbara Cartland make-up and nonetheless got arrested for trying to solicit (is that the right word for someone looking for punters?) I never got anywhere near her but apparently it was very obvious she was incontinent from the smell.

We have a chap known as Green Guy, The Green Man and variations of this. He seems harmless enough, although he isn't very talkative. His thing is just wearing all green, all the time. The legend is that as a yoof he got involved in some dodgy gang activities, then went away and came back green.

http://www.youtube.com/v/2Me3t48mrpE

We have no shortage of nutters around where I live, but I'll start with my favourite. The Timekeeper. Legends vary, but it usually goes that he worked on one of the big clocks here/did watch repair and the like and just went a bit mad. When people found out, they kept asking him the time, which drove him more mad.

He now goes mental on anyone who brings up anything time related, so it became a running joke to ask him the time, all the time. There's a video somewhere of someone driving by, shouting "WHAT'S THE TIME" then driving off as he hurls abuse at them.

>>356852
He's not a 'character', just a local disabled and vulnerable man whom your town has decided to scapegoat.

>>356853
I don't think you know what a scapegoat is.

>>356854
I was reading Scapegoat by Katharine Quarmby yesterday which deals with picking on disabled people and details some horrible cases, hence my rather PC sounding and 'offended' post. This 'Timekeeper' does sound crap as an example of the sort of person this thread is about.

We had a woman who barked like a dog in the supermarket. A bloke who ran into shops backwards at high speed - quite alarming to witness. There is an old guy who I've talked to whose entire conversational abilities lie around how to pickle beetroot properly. He is very obsessional about it, when he meets a new person he gives them the 'beetroot talk', after which you know him to say hello to.

>>356828>>356832
Thats the thing, there's no such place around here for 20 odd miles. And nope, just a plain old hi-vis thats getting very tatty now.

>>356821
We had a busman some years ago. He would run on the road, announcing stations and all. Allegedly, he'd even ride you on his back for the regular bus ticket price, but I've never seen it. No one knows where he's now, but I reckon he's been finally run over by a car.

The bearded lady of Guildford. You can find her carrying bags full of God knows what, walking aimlessly in the town centre while chavs make fun of her and hipsters take pictures with her. I don't know what made her that way. I miss Guildford.

>>356859
former surrey lad here, glad to see the lady is still about.

>>356859
At least the chavs are honest in their interactions, the hipsters sound like they are being are two faced with these people to exploit them for a picture they can later poke fun at & upload to Fakebook Myspace.

>>356859

I saw a documentary about a bearded woman once. She said her (female) friend naturally had a beard too and she'd spent tens of thousands on electrolysis etc. but the woman in the documentary saved that money and got a house instead. She seemed so normal you stopped noticing the beard after a while.

The one in the picture though, if she cut her hair short and wore male clothes, you wouldn't notice that wasn't a guy.

I can't actually think of any in Newcastle. There's a pretty cool busker though. Plays a mean bassline.

There was one guy, but he was really specific to my neighbourhood, called Steve, he burnt his house down and would always wear weird clothes, carried a copy of a Noddy book and claimed it was his bible. Saw him getting put in the back of a police van once, that guy was actually insane, but most of the crazy things you hear about him were bollocks.

>>356862

I don't get it though, they could just shave, or use hair removal cream.

>>356867

If buskers count, we have this guy. He's amazing.

One man and his dog, went to mower meadow (WOOF!)

>>356869 This guy is nuts, he used to punch that dog if it didn't bark

My mum used to work with one of the sons of Mr Trebus. She said he had some of his eccentricity.

>>356821 I used to work in a pub and every night this dude turned up and would drink like 10 to 12 pints and not even seem tipsy. He wore a big victorian cape all the time, even in summer.

>>356875

Really? I always sort of got the impression he had no family left.

>>356867

Oh come on! There's the Penny Man (and Penny Man 2), who both run and pick up any coins you throw on the ground. There's Crazy Bag Lady, who invariably wears a fake Adidas sports jacket, never washes and is always carrying plastic bags of god knows what. There's the man with his forehead literally caved in (which is fucking terrifying).

I know there are a few more, but I can't think of them.

There was a beggar in Nottingham who held a cup for coins but had such a severe tremor the cup was consistently swaying back and forth by about a foot. I never attempted to give him money but imagine it must have been like some kind of fairground game, Drop The Coin In The Swaying Cup.

There's a great big transvestite in my town. And he's not the fun kind, like what Sean Bean was that one time.

There's also a great big fat guy, like, American fat, all soft too. He's not really a character, but I always see him in the library or just sat around in ASDA.

Do you ever get paranoid maybe some people think you're one of these types?

>>356884

>There's a great big transvestite in my town.

I saw one in my local Sainsbury's. S/he was about 6'6.

There is this guy I always see on my way to work near my bus top. He wears an old, smelly blazer and collects trash, waits for the bus and never gets on. He then moves on.

There's this guy in Salford who tans himself truly and really bright orange, the most orange human being I've ever seen, and he bleaches his hair as white-blond as it will go. He looks like Peter Stringfellow gone wrong.

In Cambridge we have a busker who plays an acoustic guitar whilst inside a fake bin (like the one in >>356867). As in, he's sat inside the bin with his guitar, with his arms and the guitar's neck coming out the sides.

>>356879
I can do that and not seem tipsy. I'm an alcoholic m8, there are plenty of us out here.

I used to live in a student house, on a Nottingham council estate which was very confusingly laid out.

My housemates (a couple) were away for the weekend and it was 10pm and I'd fallen asleep in my bedroom already, with the light on and naked since it was boiling hot. Someone knocked on the door. I ignored it. They knocked on the window (downstairs bedroom) and said, "You're going to have to open the door. It's the police."

I didn't have my contact lenses in and had to run around for what felt like minutes locating my glasses and clothes in my tip of a room.

I opened the door and the police said someone had dialed 999 from my house but hung up without saying anything. I told them that couldn't be and I was alone. I said my housemates were away for the weekend but that their room upstairs had a phone in.

They went upstairs and knocked on the door but there was no answer. The door was locked and they kicked it in and no one was there. Then they asked me if this was number 25 of the adjacent cul-de-sac.

Anyway, some months later I was walking past THAT number 25 and this woman was sat outside it with suitcases and as I was passing she engaged me in a conversation, saying her husband had kicked her out and she was sat there with "all her bits" and she'd phoned the police and was waiting for them. Meanwhile her husband was calling from inside the house, "Come back in you silly cow." I think pretending she'd been thrown out and phoning the police must have been something she did semi-regularly.

>>356902
Wait, the police traced the number, and then turned up at the wrong address? Fucking hell.

Was this in Lenton?

>>356904

St Anns in 2003. I don't know how it is these days but it was a terrifying area.

>>356882

>There's the man with his forehead literally caved in (which is fucking terrifying).

Oh fuck me, He's the only one I've heard of. My first time seeing him was scary as fuck.

I was walking behind him, he was shouting at a kid or something, then he turned his head 90 and I just see a head like pic related.

>>356906
The place needs flattening and salting.

My dad accidentally let a fruitloop into my parents' house.

He was washing up and she knocked at the door saying that her car had broken down and she needed to go to the toilet. They have a downstairs loo so my dad obliged. He went back to washing up and next thing he knows she's in the living room, commenting on how nice it looks. When he went in she had her tits out (she was wearing a shawl) and when my dad tried to coax her out of the room she started demanding a tenner that she said she'd left on the kithen counter, even though she hadn't even been in the kitchen. He managed to get her out but when he reminded her that it was time to get back to her car she said that she didn't even have one. She then went across the street and started hammering on the door of the elderly couple who live opposite.

>>356907

Yep, that's the one. Used to hang around around Eldon Square and The Green a lot 3 or 4 years ago; no idea if he still does, but I wouldn't be surprised. Crazy Bag Lady always has her hair tied up in a bun, but I have seen her on the odd occasion actually looking clean with her hair down, so either she has an identical twin who's not mentally ill, or she just does it for the shits and giggles.

>>356909
Well, that's one side of a story.

>>356914
What's the other side?

"Man kidnaps woman off street, forces her to do his washing and steals a tenner. Eventually she escapes and is rescued by elderly couple."

>>356917
.gs lad's dodgy dad ogles a damsel in distress's knockers and tries to nick a tenner from her.

>>356909
Did she have a dodgy Irish accent by any chance?

>>356920
He didn't say it was a pikey and that is the type of thing he'd have mentioned. The image I inferred from his description was Miriam Margolyes.

>>356921
>Miriam Margolyes
Just googled her, I think I'm going to have nightmares.

Dave the Rave in Hull, I feel kinda sorry when he always threatens to lob himself under a bus. Also bumble-bee woman.

>>356924
Luckily, she's a lesbian. No man would like her tits.

>>356953
Bee Woman isn't a local nutter. She's lovely.

You also missed off Hull's most well-known nutter; Lee Langham, AKA Bagman.

>>356953
fuck you m8 bumble bee lady's a saint

Did we have this thread a few years ago? I'm not complaining, I just thought this was a four year old thread revived. Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me

Anyway, this is Snowy Farr, RIP

King Henry the Eighth in Dewsbury, he is a man who dresses as a Tudor and walks around town gamboling and singing.

Disco Pete, from Brighton. Not a vagrant or a nutter but very much a local personality.

>>356963
Ah, him.

Cheltenhams very own Dancing Ken.

We've got Simon Palmer, usually known as Old Man Bridge here in Oxford. He's out clubbing every day of the week except Sunday, and does the rounds to most of the bigger clubs (if you can call them that) most nights. His name is coined from his favourite: Bridge.

He's a bit creepy, and is often seen chatting to/dancing with considerably younger girls and the like and has been seen going home with them on the odd occasions. He's also incredibly right-wing, and whenever he turns up to the King's Arms on a Sunday evening to meet up with the Conservative Association always seems to steamroll the conversation around to the virtues of Nazi Germany.

No-one seems to really know who he is, and he always answers questions with things like "Well I prefer to define myself by what I'm not." and the like. The rumour goes that he owns most of the clubs in the city, which is why he's always out in them, but he doesn't seem particularly wealthy or anything. You never know. There's even a few student news articles about him:

http://brookes.tab.co.uk/2013/05/12/old-man-bridge-explored/

http://oxfordstudent.com/2012/11/14/old-man-bridge-and-the-club-scene/

http://oxford.tab.co.uk/2013/04/30/old-man-bridge-reveals-heroic-mayday-plans/

Altogether a strange, strange man.

In the various towns around Bradford, and the city centre itself, a monk travels around. He is an old man, probably in his late 60s/early 70s. He wears a full monk outfit and sandals, and just wanders around. I went to school in Ilkley and saw him about quite a lot. He used to dance if lots of young folk gave him attention. I think he's known as the Bradford Jesus Man. Seems like a nice fellow. There are many different accounts of his origin story. The one that sticks out most for me, even though it's likely bullshit, is that he killed his whole family in a car crash by accident and only he survived. He became a wandering monk to atone for their deaths.

Also another bloke in Bradford, a fat bald bloke in his 50s with a short white beard. He wanders in and out of coffee shops and banks, shouting about being monitored by the government and how everyone is due judgement. I like to stop and listen to him. I've never seen anyone else acknowledge him though.

Around Leeds and York I see the previously mentioned busker with the dog. Sometimes he doesn't have the dog. Sometimes he has a mannequin with him.

Also not sure if this counts, but quite often one would see ARE SIR JIMMY around Otley, often jogging in one of his tracksuits.

>>356983
Ahhh Bradford, i do miss some of it.

There's a man around Cardiff who pisses on his hands then tries to shake everyones hands.

We've got a few well known rastas that go around town as well. One of them is lanky as fuck, plays the bins, called Ninjah I think. Me and my mate were standing outside of Cardiff market once, waiting for a guy, and this old rasta came and talked to us "yoot" about keeping out of trouble, and about the history of enslavement (he was drastically wrong and got a bit aggressive when I told him otherwise). He talked about the council coming round his yard and how he's going to raise an army of machete rastas or whatever he was on about, then out of nowhere, a skinny, spectacled white guy, wearing work clothes, looking like he's a bank manager on a lunch break, joins us. He basically looks as geeky as possible. No joke he starts talking in this full on rudeboy accent, the old jamaican not even blinking at it. We had to fucking go, it was just too fucking funny. Then we was told that if we got into any trouble, tell this old dude and he'll sort it out for us. The things you get into when waiting for a 10 bag ey.

>>356983

What about Bradford Bag Man? Spends all day going into banks, withdrawing his money, and going into another bank to deposit it. Fucking stinks, and always carrying a plastic bag full of other plastic bags.

>>356989
Not seen him before.

Also I forgot two other Bradford weirdos - The Yorkshire Ripper and The Crossbow Cannibal! The greatest sons of the West Riding.

>>356990
Also Donald Neilson, The Black Panther.

>>356988

What was he saying about slavery?

>>356990
I really feel sorry for the Crossbow Cannibal's legal brief for when he stood up in court and referred to himself as the Crossbow Cannibal.

Mines are:

Iceland < Asda < Tesco < Sainsbury's < Marks & Spencer < Waitrose < Fortnum & Mason

>>356983

https://sites.google.com/site/thestoryofgeoffreybrindley/

The Bradford Monk has been going since the 60's apparently. God bless him.

>>356958
Yes. IIRC the OP was about a wizard in somewhere like Canterbury or Cornwall.

>>356849

The last time I saw Bruce Springsteen was in 1995 when he scared the bejesus out of me and my friend in the cinema queue. We went to see a different film than the one we wanted to see just to get away from him. Apparently he still entertains people in the bus station.

http://www.youtube.com/v/99e5Yp69dsQ

Any lads in Nottingham remember this guy from the last election? He was hanging around Beeston and surrounding areas buying people drinks if they'd vote for him.

Top bloke, but his campaign was a naff effort.

>>357104

I haven't lived in Notts since 2004 but I remember this busker. It's amazing no one seems to have got a video of him. Didn't they have camera phones back then? All I've found is nine seconds of crappy audio at the bottom of this page.

http://www.leftlion.co.uk/articles.cfm/title/king-bong--the-ballad-of-xylophone-man/id/2592

>>356821

Yup, the Norwich puppet man, never had the guts to go up and talk to him, probably never will, but he's kinda cool I guess

>>357104
Church of the Militant Elvis is a poor man's Monster Raving Loony.

This is Disco Pete. Any event in Brighton he is there dancing away. Also known as the old age raver. When I say dancing it is more a shuffle actually.

I'm not from Bristol, but my mate is and he says there's a guy called "Big Jeff" who goes to almost every gig there is and is fairly well known among Bristolians.

I actually traveled down to Brizzle see my favourite band (Boris) play and he wasn't there, what a let down.

>>357197
He's a fucking bellend. People think he's a legend but he's really rather annoying. He's fucking massive and has to be at the front of the gig. I hope he dies soon.

>>357108

Xylophone man is dead. he was pretty much a celebrity and he got a grave, bench with a plaque and a funeral crowd sourced by uni students.

He got replaced with some romanian gypsy big issue seller now.

>>357236

I only learned he was dead when I googled him a few days ago. I've thought about him quite a bit since. He looked like such a genial man and he obviously got such a huge kick out of playing that xylophone, it was pretty infectious.

I like to walk around in the street barefoot in the wee hours of the morning. I stroke the local cats, hide from passers by then go back inside.

>>356821

I do know of a "Terry the tramp" who lurks Birmingham City Centre. One night a friend and I got pretty wrecked and happened upon him while staggering to a bus stop. We shared some Mc Donalds with him and asked him to tell us about how he wound up on the streets drinking stale Banana flavour Yazoo out of bins and he regaled us of his life tale full of misery and regret. From what i remember his state of affairs was 60% self inflicted, not seeking any kind of help for the mess he's in, the other 40% a mixture of harsh luck and people who have screwed him over. He is the living definition of a cautionary tale.

>>357381
I started letting one cat (nicknamed Mrs Friendly, Mrs F for short) into my front room for a play and a stroke (get your minds out of the gutter, you toads). I want to steal her so badly.

>>357389
Just adopt your own puss from a shelter.
Somebody pinched my Grans cat and it broke her heart.
Definately pinched, because we found it 3 months later living with some chavs who claimed it had been theres since birth. Lol microchips are worthwhile.

(A good day to you Sir!)

>>356829

It is deeply tragic and depressing that as a society we can have someone living rough for 30 years and nothing is done to help beyond a couple of coppers getting him cleaned up an a warm bed for a night. :(

>>357391

Edinburgh has half a dozen short-stay homeless hostels that will take people straight off the streets; Most of those hostels will have beds available on any given night. There are at least a dozen second-stage hostels, providing longer term accommodation and support in moving into proper independent housing. There are several day centres, plus a number of groups providing support on the street.

If he's sleeping rough, it's either because he wants to sleep rough or because he is so dangerous that nobody will take him. I'm not saying it's his fault, I imagine he has some fairly heavy-duty mental health problems, but it's totally unfair to suggest that nobody is trying to help him. I can guarantee you that many, many people will have tried to help that guy over the years. Homelessness services in the UK are excellent; They do a truly remarkable job, working with some very difficult people.

It's wishful thinking to imagine that homelessness is a problem that would go away if we just threw money at it, or even if people just cared a bit more. The reality is that most long-term rough sleepers are just too unstable to help.

>>356867

Recently he's started jamming with that guy who plays masturbation guitar, which is kind of cool but kind of not.

>>357397

I know he's in a band, I saw a video a while back.

>>357385
I'll never understand why tramps don't tramp like they use to do. Instead of staying in some shitty city centre, why not venture out into the countryside and explore. Even if you die, at least you die in a pleasant environment.

>>357415
How do you know they don't? (If they did, I don't know.)