A true story from a “Daily Mirror” reader

Following on from my last blog (Something in the City) and I found this charming little story, by a pavement artist who had written into the Daily Mirror newspaper in 1935.  

I Am a Pavement Artist

Six water-colours mounted on wooden frames constitute my stock-in-trade.

I do not follow this profession from choice, but prefer it to the dole. Sometimes I do well, but the more lucrative the “pitch,” the more quickly I am moved on, owing, of course, to the traffic. I put my drawings outside a museum building one day, and within half an hour had received 30s.—then the police took a hand!

I lodge right at the other end of the town and leave my drawings in a little restaurant every evening. At this restaurant I get my meals, which vary according to the day’s takings. Sometimes it’s a twopenny plate of faggot and peas, at others a good blow-out of sausage and mashed and pudding.

One day last summer I decided to try the seaside as a paying concern, so went to Clacton-on-Sea on a bus and displayed my exhibition just behind the sea-front. After seven hours I had collected 6d., and just as I was packing up a well-dressed lady opened her bag and presented me with — a three-halfpenny stamp!

Wet days are blank days, as my drawings are not waterproof; but, wet or fine, I religiously leave my digs at 8.30a.m. to reappear in the late evening. To my landlady I am “Something in the City,” and my great dread is that someday she may see me on my pitch, I have been at the job for some time, but shall never get over the feeling of utter humiliation which possesses me when I lean my drawings against a wall or railing and put down my hat.

Perhaps this will be better understood when I mention that I left the Army with warrant rank, and have been in turn office superintendent, commercial traveller and draughtsman. Average takings? About 6s. daily.

Published in the Daily Mirror (Saturday 16^th Feb, 1935)

Researched by Philip Battle

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