7: in which the permanent fixtures of Leighton Buzzard are described.
Leighton Buzzard’s high street might have changed for the worse, but there are certain aspects of small town life that remain reassuringly constant. The burnt-out pub near the station is an indefatigable eyesore, determined to welcome visitors throughout the ages by instilling in them just the right combination of disappointment and apprehension; the local paper is guaranteed to use the headline “all the fun of the fayre!” after each year’s optimistically-named Town Carnival, which is neither fun nor fair, if rumours of carnival float competition fixing are to be believed; and the ancient, emaciated, fedora-sporting street sweeper, sitting in the sun by the bus stop, perennial fag dangling precariously from his lower lip, is as old as Time itself.
My favourite, though, is Yohan the Guitar Man. He appeared out of nowhere a decade or so ago, and nobody really knows who he is or where he’s from, other than that he sometimes sings in Sinhala. It hardly matters. Won over by his roguishly unkempt beard, his dapper selection of smoking jackets, his three-and-a-half chords and his sunny enthusiasm for life and everything worth living, the town has happily taken him in as a local landmark.
Yohan is neither a busker nor a proselytiser. He walks around town, strumming away erratically on his acoustic guitar, singing something which might or might not resemble a tune, but never asks for money. He sings about God and Jesus (a quick trip to his delightfully colourful website will give you a good idea of it) and covers his guitar in stickers proclaiming Christ’s eternal love for mankind, but never asks you to go to church or to convert to any particular branch of Christianity. In the hands of anybody else, this mishmash of arrhythmic evangelism would be unbearable; with Yohan, it’s endearing. He wished me a happy Easter when I bumped into him on Good Friday, he chatted to me about what it means to him, and gave me a small, misspelt sticker which assured me that “He hath rissen”. I still have it somewhere. Usually, I have a cruel streak with the Maranatha Merchants – I make the effort talk to Jehovah’s Witnesses until they decide I’m a lost cause in order to waste as much of their time as possible – but Yohan is different.
What I like most about Yohan is this air of naïve innocence, which has a disarming effect on all around him. Such a man would normally be expected to attract trouble, but has a genuinely childlike way of interacting with the world indiscriminately and equally; he will wish you a good day with a cheery smile and a semi-musical flourish, regardless of who you are. There’s something quite wonderful about watching him bequeath one of his stickers onto Leighton Buzzard’s finest crackheads, who treat him with bemused affection rather than the resentful hostility which they reserve for everybody else. Nobody touches Yohan; this is Care in the Community at its most effective and most organic.
Yohan can come and go as he pleases, bestowing on all his endless goodwill and received by all with care and warmth. In some ways, he is strikingly similar to the very man he sings about. Hopefully, our wandering suburban prophet will continue to serenade everybody and nobody in particular for all eternity.
Today I decided to go through the tags for Leighton Buzzard, my beloved hometown. (Seriously. I love it. It’s home. I should talk about it more, really.)
And I too wish to pledge my appreciation for Yohan the Guitar Man. He is friggin’ awesome. As is Fedora Guy, who looks like he fell out of another era altogether.