No that's not the ghost of a small victorian child in the Cavern kitchen - its Ben Goddard turning up for work! He hassled Pippa for a job for ages - then on his first day turned up in fancy dress...rationalising that it was 'Halloween Week'. Ben is a punk-folk guitarist, a self styled Travelling Troubadour who's songs are reminiscent of Green from Scritti Politti.
Actually most of the photos I have of him are in some kind of weird costume. On one bizarre occassion, after we had closed, he popped out to go to the cashpoint and was away for quite a while. About an hour later a bloke casually walked in off the street and said "A friend of mine is being held up outside". Thinking some kind of mugging was taking place, we rushed out to find Ben literally holding a guy up by the waist - the man had tried to hang himself off the railings by the natural health centre with his belt, and Ben had caught him just in time. The scene was actually pretty funny because when the bemused paramedics turned up Ben was cradling the guy's head saying "Stay with me mate, stay with me." .... dressed as Captain Spaulding from House Of A Thousand Corpses! (See pic above.) "Who's had the accident?" the ambulance guy asked.
When we reviewed security camera footage it became apparent that the 'suicide' had been waiting around for a while for someone to go past and it just happened to be Ben. It had all been for attention - he even croaked to the paramedics "can I have my belt back".
The funny thing was how the other guy had seen Ben holding his mate up, not bothered to help, but slowly walked down the stairs in the bar to tell us about it. He even addded "I don't suppose there's any chance of a late one?"
Someone saw Ben the other day in Paddington Station - on crutches. Apparently he'd been walking across hot coals in some kind of a ritual, when a pissed up crusty pushed him back into the fire.
Just another day in the the life of the Troubled Troubadour! www.myspace.com/bengoddard
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