Jonathan Walker

The beauty of York Minster here . It's amazing to think about how they began constructing this in the early 13th century.



Change subject.

When I was at junior school all the kids wanted to be either one of two people. 1. the captain of the football team, or 2. the hardest kid in the year.

But I didn't. In fact, the kids I looked up to were often the very ones that most people looked down on. The clowns.

Energy, happiness, fun, happiness again, and maybe a sense of freedom i longed for, being the very shy and introverted little person i was. And ultimately that freedom was to do whatever they wanted. Not bound by rules to try and keep up an image.

When I was 7 and 8, my best friend at Junior School was called Jonathan Walker. He was incredibly hyperactive and we did crazy things together (like smash in the walls of the school swimming pool lol) He used to make up songs and we used to perform them on the last day of the school term. They were always freeflow - it was so funny. Like he'd just write off the top his head, and not go back or think about the structure hahaha. And we'd have not really practiced but we'd go up and try sing them in front of the calss, even though we didn't really know the tune haha just the words!

He moved away when I was 8 - with his family - to live in Paraguay. Like you do.

One day when I was 12, we were having tea when the doorbell rang.

"Hello! It's Jonathan Walker, I'm back from Paraguay!"

We went out into the garden and found some wooden canes, and thought we could use them as measuring sticks... and so we played this game to see who could jump the furthest. He went first and did a pretty impressive jump. Then on my turn - god knows how - I landed awkward and before I knew it was rolling around in pain and then in A and E.

After that we lost touch. And it was completely my fault. It was a bit like he was too crazy, and I was embarrassed and I had other friends, and I didn't want to hang around with this embarrassing friend. How sad, given that he still had the energy and happiness that he always had.

So I never saw him again.

Last night, I was up at 3am bored on the Internet. And I googled his name. But I wasn't very hopeful at all, because let's face it there's a million Jonathan Walkers in the world. And I didn't have any info to google him on really.

We used to go round his house, and play this game where you had to run from one side of the room to the other, and his Mum would stand in the middle, and you had to try and get from one side to the other without her tickling you - and then if she caught you, she would tickle you like crazy hahaha

Anyway, I couldn't google him on that.

Putting "Jonathan Walker" into Google didn't bring up anyone who looked like him. And even after looking through lots of pages, it wasn't looking hopeful. I just kept seeing pictures of some long-haired musician busker guy in Liverpool, which wasn't like him at all.

Anyway, I kept searching for a bit with no success. Then thought I might as well look at this busker guy who'd been dominating my screen and listen to him. Slowly, I realised he was the right age, and soon picked up other details from him, such as on his Web site, it said he was raised in Paraguay.... and sure enough it's him. He is a very popular busker on the streets of Liverpool and Leeds. Kind of ironic too, because last night, I was planning a trip to Liverpool next weekend.

Those songwriting skills that weren't quite so polished back in the day have obviously improved hahahaha

"The key is not to sing, but to want to sing." - Henry Miller

He has a little Youtube account and his latest video, posted a month ago, is called "How far can you jump?" where he gets lots of adults together, and they all have to jump as far as they can.

Life is funny. I will find him, sit and listen to him busk, we will share a beer and maybe smash a swimming pool up.