Jamie

I heard the music from Great Marlborough Street.

Jamie sat at the top of Carnaby street playing tunefully on a traffic cone.

I told him what an ingenious idea it was.

Unlike other homeless people he didn't give me his life story or talk with a voice modulated by booze or drugs. Instead he told me what had happened to him over the last two days.The highlight was a woman wanting to make a film about him, low point being pissed on by two guys from the pub.

I gave him some change and in an undramatic way he said "that's great, I can buy a sandwich now, I'm hungry".

I might have thought he was new to the street but looking at his hands that wasn't so.

On the way back I paused in Cambridge Circus and gave some money to a man called Iain collecting for Shelter. It seemed the right thing to do.