Steve, Street Cleaner, Newcastle upon Tyne

 

In between gigs in Newcastle and Glasgow, I stayed in a bloody freezing youth hostel in Newcastle. In a situation like that, you don't stay in your room and freeze: you get out and find any sort of warmth you can.  Before Blake's even opened for breakfast, I was walking down a frosty side street and I came across Steve, who was resplendent in his turquoise uniform, cheeks rosy from the cold. We had a good chat; he has been in the army, and done all sort of other jobs. I asked if I could take a photo so I could draw his portrait, and he was very happy to do so.

In 60 minutes, I couldn't really do justice to the colours in his uniform and I knew I'd not have time to draw his trolley. I wanted detail, after yesterday's drawing which was hard to do because of the lack of detail in the original photo. I'm still a little bit under the weather, but concentrating on Steve's face was therapeutic, as were the memories of our conversation. I hope he is well and still cleaning our streets. The people who do these jobs are the most important people in the world, much more so than bankers who puff about as though they own the world. The latter would not have the patience and drive to do a job like this. Anyone can be a greedy-guts, but not many people have the resilience to be out on the streets at the crack of dawn making everything beautiful for us all.