Adrian and Friends - Bird Man & Big Issue Seller
Adrian has been selling the Big Issue outside Westminster Cathedral for over 20 years, he's also the 'bird man' his family are the pigeons. He's named over 100 of them and calls them all by name individually. Sadly he reflected "the council think they and me are vermin - but we're not." What a sad reflection on an amazing and gifted man!!
OLD FRIENDS
These are two very old friends from my time as a vicar in Penge. Bookends the lyrics by Simon and Garfunkel (below) reminded me of just how vulnerable, valuable and precious we all are as human beings. Meeting them again has encouraged me to continue to work for those on the margins. In the words of Paul Strand Photographer 1890 - 1976 "I've always wanted to be aware of what's going on around me, and I've wanted to use photography as an instrument of research into and reporting on the life of my own time."
"Old Friends, old friends. Sat on their park bench like bookends. A newspaper blown through the grass. Falls on the round toes of the high shoes of the old friends.
"Old friends, winter companions, the old men. Lost in their overcoats, waiting for the sunset. The sounds of the city sifting through the trees. Settle like dust on the shoulders of the old friends."
"Can you imagine us years from today. Sharing a park bench quietly? How terribly strange to be seventy. Old friends, memory brushes the same years. Silently sharing the same fears."
Simon & Garfunkel
