The Strange People of Derby

I don’t know what it is, but strange people seem to be attracted to Derby like iron filings are attracted to a magnet. The number of strange people in Boston is quite high – we have such legends as George (“Happy Easter, it’ll soon be Christmas!”), Cedric (the bad transsexual), and the dude who walks around wearing ear phones that aren’t connected to anything. But it is nothing compared to the weird and wonderful people who walk the streets of Derby.
They are so weird they even deserve a post entirely about them.

The first strange person I saw was when I was on the train, a few moments outside of Derby. He was in the back garden of his house and he appeared to be shifting a metal wheelbarrow onto the roof of his garden shed. Why would anyone do that? To use it as an ornament, perhaps? A simple ‘I can do it’ to the people passing on trains? Wayne came up with this idea: the man had seen himself doing it in a dream, and when his wife asked why he would do such a stupid thing, he had done it as a big two fingers up at her. I have no idea, all I know is that it’s a very strange thing to do.

I didn’t encounter this next guy, but Wayne did and I trust his telling of the story enough to retell it as part of my evidence for Derby being Strange Person Central. He was walking back from work Friday morning, and a random bloke stopped him and asked him if he had 38p. Not 40 or 35p, oh no - 38p. After Wayne told him no, he didn’t have 38p as he was just on the way back from work, Random Man proceeded to introduce himself and start chatting to him. This might be considered friendly, but I think it’s actually scary. Why didn’t he talk to Wayne before asking for the 38p? Here’s why: he wanted to know as much as possible about him so he could take revenge for the denial of 38p.
Watch out, Wayne – this guy’s after you!

Person number 3 was a bloke I encountered while with Wayne. He’s not a potential murderer like the last person – he’s an architectural nutcase, desperate to pass on his knowledge to the rest of the world.
We were walking across the Bridge of Lights (not as amazing as it sounds, I assure you) and I was taking the piss out of St Mary’s Church, which was right in front of us. Suddenly, a man appeared from behind us: “The interior was designed by the same man who designed the interior of Westminster, you know!” he told us, obviously taking my pisstaking as a sign of extreme interest. We thanked him for imparting this interesting information to us, and quickly moved on – he might be a benevolent teacher, simply passing on his knowledge to the uneducated, but he also might be a crazed professor determined to make us pass on all of his knowledge about architecture. While that could be interesting, we had much more interesting plans for the afternoon: Super Smash Brothers and Mario Kart Wii with a load of Wayne’s friends.

The final person was an elderly lady I met while sitting on the train waiting to leave Derby. She may have sang at me for no apparent reason. I found this to be both disturbing and amusing.

So yeah, you find some real characters in Derby, and I love it. How can you ever run out of inspiration for wacky characters when you are always surrounded by them?!