Wheelchair Elvis

Driving home to Bristol with Jane, returning from a visit to Huntingdon, we decided to take a short detour to Bracknell, just to take a look at it. I'd lived there when I was eleven years old.

The morning streets were deserted as we wandered in the rain toward the town centre. I was telling Jane mundane reminiscences. Somewhere an Elvis record could be heard playing, as if through a PA. The closer to the centre that we arrived, the louder the music grew. It became clear that it was not the original Elvis but someone playing his tunes on an organ, over a loudspeaker.

Bracknell town centre, a concrete new town, is built in such a way so as its single office block facing the town square (where my mother once worked,) and an arcade of shops leading toward it, form a wind tunnel. And down this wind tunnel we walked, hand in hand, and the rain beat harder and 'Are You Lonesome Tonight' grew louder.

There he was, sitting in a wheelchair in the rain in the empty town square. Elvis. He had had large speakers welded to the sides of the chair and a synthesizer and an organ lay on its arms. He wore a microphone resting in a harness about his chest. I recall him wearing a dirty, ragged jacket and having dirt under his fingernails but I can't say that my memory might not have invented those details. Although I am no big fan of the king I do remember that this man was a very accomplished Elvis impersonator.