Famous London characters

M

martin

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Does anyone remember the White Woman of Camberwell? Black woman who used to wear all white and paint her face white, with a baby doll strapped around her chest. She used to be terrifying if you saw her at night, though I once saw her at Carnival when she was nattering away to one of her mates about the weather. Used to be all sorts of stories connected to her, which may well be fake.

Does anyone remember that bloke who used to hang around New Cross who had EAT SHIT tattooed on his forehead? I'm convinced that wanker Dom Joly based one of his hilariously unfunny characters on him, right down to the combat jacket and woolly hat.

Has anyone ever spoken to the 'Don't be a sinner, be a winner!' guy with the megaphone on Oxford Street? I think he lives in Bethnal Green. Philip someone, can't remember his surname right now.
 
P

petergunn

plywood violin
funnily enuff, i found an old journal of mine from 2001 and i expressed fondness for te guy in the tube (prolly somewhere near Oxford Circus, maybe Tottenham Court Road) who used to yell about hell being like "the black hole of Calcutta". i remember him from 99 and 2001, yet the last time i was in london, i didn;t see him... how sad...
 
L

Lichen

Well-known member
And the old boy with the sandwich board decrying the evils of a protein based diet.

He's died, I think.

I also remember a woman in Chelsea dressed head to toe in bubble wrap.:D
 
M

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
martin said:
Does anyone remember the White Woman of Camberwell? Black woman who used to wear all white and paint her face white, with a baby doll strapped around her chest. She used to be terrifying if you saw her at night, though I once saw her at Carnival when she was nattering away to one of her mates about the weather. Used to be all sorts of stories connected to her, which may well be fake.

Does anyone remember that bloke who used to hang around New Cross who had EAT SHIT tattooed on his forehead? I'm convinced that wanker Dom Joly based one of his hilariously unfunny characters on him, right down to the combat jacket and woolly hat.
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My mate was her psychiatric nurse for a while, she was/is called Angel and thought she was an angel, hence the white. Unfortunately she was using normal whitewash paint though, and it was destroying her face. Haven't seen her in ages.

And yeah, remember the EAT SHIT guy, didn't he hang around with the guy with SPECIAL BREW tattooed on his forehead too?

The Toot-toot man, who used to stand in traffic in Brixton and toot a toy bugle at all the cars. He was deep, I liked him.
 
M

martin

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mistersloane said:
My mate was her psychiatric nurse for a while, she was/is called Angel and thought she was an angel, hence the white. Unfortunately she was using normal whitewash paint though, and it was destroying her face. Haven't seen her in ages.
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Ah, right, that explains it. Wow, you're the first person I've talked to about her for years, everyone else thinks I was making it up! I hope she's OK.
 
STN

STN

sou'wester
What about those two buskers who annoy commuters with their song 'if you can't have a shave in a toilet, where can you have a shave?'? I quite like them. Lots of other people really don't.
 
M

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
martin said:
Ah, right, that explains it. Wow, you're the first person I've talked to about her for years, everyone else thinks I was making it up! I hope she's OK.
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Isn't it?

She's still the only person I've ever seen who could literally stop traffic, and make whole buses go silent. I'm not entirely convinced that she was/isn't an angel, actually. I can certainly see how she may have come to think that.
 
E

Edward

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There used to be a bloke who stood at the traffic lights outside Tufnell Park tube waving the traffic past with a magnifying glass.

And a couple of times I've seen an Indian-looking bloke with very pale powder or makeup on his face wearing tights. I think it was on the 38 bus.
I think he is mentioned in a Zadie Smith book as well.....


That "don't be a sinner be a winner" bloke is well annoying, a very low standard of eccentric imo.
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
Stoke Newington / Stamford Hill top 5:

1) The Mayor -dapper geezer who wanders about a lot, sometimes with a mayoral chain on. Far superior to the actual mayor of Hackney who is the worst kind of blairite tosser.

2) Junkie beggar - affable enough bloke with a great name (which I won't put on here cos it isn't on really) occasionally reverts to victorian values by showing passersby his hugely swelled up legs. I really like him but he seems beyond help really.

3) Punky dog walker. Always looks happy, always rocking a ramones t-shirt or something in a non-ironic sort of way and always has at least 3 dogs with him.

4) Skinniest woman in the world. A senior black lady who mutters a lot and used to drink in the Birdcage before it was poshed up. Well I say drink, she used to wander through asking people to buy her a half of guinness. Thick glasses and erratic headgear.

5) Pith helmet man - recently seen rocking a white rubberised suit and pith helmet - nuff said!
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
Also

- Kentish Town monks.

Green robed blokes by the name of Graigian Society. Reckoned they coined the term "green" for eco stuff before anyone else.

- Guy who drives the Sun Ra Car.

I really hope someone can shed some more light on this - there is this black car which sometimes drives around central london covered with odd cosmological gubbins and I think black concsiousness stuff. I never have a camera with me when I see it and I swear the guy sometimes has a megaphone strapped to it but I don't think I have ever heard it on.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Ooh, anyone else seen the black guy who wears a very pale stonewashed denim jacket with a big Confederate flag all over the back? Sometimes seen around Old Street tube, but I think I've spotted him elsewhere too.

And for any Dissensians living in Harringay, there's Victorian Strongman, and Vietnamese Pot-Bellied Pig Woman (who is black, rather than actually Vietnamese). If you've seen them you'll know who I mean.
 
M

martin

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Mr. Tea said:
Ooh, anyone else seen the black guy who wears a very pale stonewashed denim jacket with a big Confederate flag all over the back? Sometimes seen around Old Street tube, but I think I've spotted him elsewhere too.
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Shit! Yeah, I completely forget about him, but I haven't seen him for ages, would have been around Old St when the 150 Bar was still on the go.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Before it became the 160 Bar, then the 170 Bar and eventually the Utterly Generic, Boring-Looking And Probably Quite Expenive Bar?

I was in a 'pub' on Old Street the other day with absolutely nothing intertesting about it all that was jam-packed on a Saturday night, was playing really shitty music downstairs in a sort-of-clubby bit, saw fit to charge me £3 for a pint of Grolsch and thought it was perfactly acceptable to have an open sewer for a men's toilet. Only went there because the usually pretty good Barley Mow was inexplicably closed at 11pm. What Hoxton/Shoreditch needs is a Wetherspoon's, and I'm not kidding.
 
D

daddek

Well-known member
That's deep about angel-lady.

Has any one else seen that dread in Brixton who rides around on his own horse?
 
S

simon silverdollar

Guest
daddek said:
That's deep about angel-lady.

Has any one else seen that dread in Brixton who rides around on his own horse?
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the coolest person in the world. first time i saw him it was like seeing God.
 
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