“You look so picturesque fishing under the bridge there – would you mind if I take a photo or two?” I asked the old fisherman.

“No, you go for it,” said the kindly fisherman, “I’ve never had more than two photographs taken of me at any one time… but Mum always insisted on a family photograph at Christmas – I had to be in that one or she’d have killed me.”

“Photography was so expensive years ago,” I offered.

“No, it wasn’t that, I just hated having my photo taken,” he put me right.

“Actually, I must confess that I took a few sneaky shots of you as I neared the bridge,” I admitted.

“I know,” he laughed, “I heard you but didn’t think you’d talk to me – most people don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Well they see the tattoos, the bald head and the beard and they think ‘Biker’,” he smiled, raising his baseball cap to reveal his bald pate, “then they leave me alone.”

“Oh, that’s not very nice. Are you a biker then?”  I didn’t have my glasses on but I noted several tattoos and a rather long beard (of course beards are the fashion nowadays).

“Yes, the police have my details – they know my license number, they have my photo…”

“It’s so unfair how the police treat bikers in Australia! You aren’t allowed to congregate in numbers – I have read about it,” I commiserated.

“That’s right. You can say that again… although I wasn’t a good person years ago,” he added.

“But now you’re reformed – right?” I remained bright and positive.

“Well, a policeman tried three times to shoot me,” he went on.

“He wasn’t a very good shot for a policeman,” I suggested.

“No, my sister put him up to it. I haven’t spoken to her for thirty-five years because she ripped off twenty-thousand dollars from my Mum,” he was visibly upset to think of his poor mother.

“How shameful!” I agreed.

“What do you do for a living?” he asked.

“I’m and artist and writer, ” I responded. “Mind if I put your photos on my blog?”

“No, you go for it. I don’t do computers myself but I don’t mind what you do. My father was an artist – wildlife, that sort of thing. How much would you charge to do an oil painting of me?”

“It depends on the size,” I wondered if he was a poor old pensioner, “but around £400 for an A3.”

He was silent for a long moment.

“Does that sound too much?” I asked.

“Not at all, I’ve got plenty of money,” he laughed. “Well, if you find that any of the photographs you’ve taken inspire you to paint a picture I will buy it from you. My name is Scott and here is my phone number – just text me and let me know.”

 

After that I took about fifty thousand more shots of the reformed fisherman biker, and we reminisced about the good old days in Australia when lots of people were poor and brought up in the bush. Incidentally, poor old Scott is five years younger than me!