The much-missed Stockwell Flute Man. ‘Flute Man’ was the name given to him by the kids from the local Platanos Academy/school (why is everything an Academy these days?) and it just stuck.
He just appeared by the War Memorial one day in the summer of 2022 and you just knew that one day, the maniacally playing flutist (I sometimes thought it was a recorder) would disappear just as suddenly as he appeared, and he did. He hasn’t been seen since November last year. I hope it’s just a relocation rather than anything more serious.
Often seen with a range of different flags draped over his shoulders, usually the Israeli and Mexican were the predominant ones, it was a shock to me to discover Flute was a fellow Spaniard. I’d never seen one on his uppers before. As a writer living the clichéd struggling artist lifestyle, I may be the closest thing in London to a Spaniard on their uppers. I can’t discount that possibility.
As curious as I was about Flute, I never engaged him in conversation because I’d seen others do it and it always finished off with a hug. I don’t think, despite my warm disposition to his presence, I would’ve survived a hug with him, not with all my OCDs.
The thing that struck me about this guy from early on was he always happy. My favourite Flute Man moment is how happy he seemed to be one day, about a year ago now, playing his instrument in a torrential downpour, a second flag wrapped around his skull his only protection against the rain, poking his tongue out at the gentrifiers dragging out their overpriced Pret coffees for about six hours while charging everything in their possession on the facilities in the chain outlet that had taken over the old Natwest Bank premises opposite the Memorial. The gentrifiers were very unsettled by both the music and the tongue poking.
As covered in my old Daniel Ruiz Tizon is Available #podcast and @resonancefm radio show which altogether ran for over 500 episodes, #SW8 and #SW9 have always attracted these characters. There were of course the Urinating Dwarf of SW8, not to be confused with the Urinating Man of SW9 (my aunt’s old neighbour) whose bladder trails were Stockwell’s signature look for much of the last couple of decades. The Dwarf went AWOL and was never seen again after 2013, while ill health has forced SW9’s prolific street urinator to return to Spain for good, thankfully. I always made sure I never gave him my hand.
These characters (to be fair I’m not sure they added anything to the area beyond urine) became scarcer once the cranes came and the gentrifiers predictably followed, but Flute Man gave us something different. Despite falling well short on the hygiene front, he was obsessive about litter and would often tidy up the street bins by the memorial. His flute, for some 16 months, between the summer of 2022 and the autumn of 2023, was the soundtrack to Stockwell, a miserable, still-rundown stretch of southwest London that, much to the frustration of developers, continues to resist full-gentrification.
I knew one day Flute Man, like all the other ‘characters’ before him, would disappear, and I knew too that it would be sudden. But I knew too that I would never forget this guy. And I won’t.
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