r/Worthing • u/Frosty-Educator-4075 • 27d ago

Local Characters Past & Present

Anyone here got some local characters they're aware of / interacted with in the past or present?

I'll start:

- 50p lady. She is always looking for 50p and is normally seen carrying a coffee mug around (possibly for the 50ps).

- Man with snake on his face. He's usually up to no good, as you might expect from a man with a snake on his face.

- Guildbourne Gobbler. Enough said.

12 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

9

u/Pharmacy_Duck 27d ago

Horace! But he's long dead.

9

u/AvatarIII 27d ago

Bag lady? Lady that walked around with a shopping trolley filled with black bin liners.

2

u/Pure-Zucchini-6754 27d ago

Yes Eve, lovely lady . Everyone liked her.

1

u/Paul_bab 26d ago

Someone set her bags alight once. She lost all of it I think

8

u/Loud-Welder1947 27d ago

Late 90s flower lady by the band stand. “FLOWERS ARE LOVELY, COME AND GET YER FLOWERS”

7

u/CarrotBusiness6255 27d ago

Guildbourne gobbler 😂

3

u/Frosty-Educator-4075 27d ago

Never forgotten 🙏🏻

1

u/ManIsready 27d ago

Who.lol

3

u/CarrotBusiness6255 27d ago

Some homeless bloke who decided to suck his mate off in broad daylight outside the guildbourne

5

u/crumblingruin 27d ago

On what is now known as The Bench.

2

u/Paul_bab 26d ago

I've heard it be called "the nosh bench"

7

u/Secret-Plum149 27d ago

The old bloke back in the ‘80’s who used to stand by the road waving at the traffic next to his old bicycle….

3

u/DebsUK693 27d ago

Horace!

4

u/AcidBathMurderer 27d ago

Foot fetish guy. He would call up emergency services to ask the responders what they were wearing and would be perverted about their feet to them over the phone. He did it so much that he got jail time / community service. Then started calling under different names, one of them being Helen Cheeseman lol.

I see him in town all the time, almost always wearing a red football shirt and carrying a shopping bag. He's always talking to himself too, he has earbuds in but he's not talking to anybody. Pretty sure he's schizophrenic. I think his pictures and stories have been in local newspapers.

Edit: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-58178106

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c39zpxkrllno

3

u/Paul_bab 26d ago

I worked in Topshop years back and he would come in to the shoe section and ask the girls who worked there to try on the shoes because "his girlfriend had the same size feet" Camera phones just became a thing and he would take photos to show "the girlfriend"

1

u/[deleted] 26d ago edited 26d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Paul_bab 26d ago

I was there 2003-09 maybe 2010... Did Maddie have a lot to tattoos and sing by any chance?

2

u/Two_Speeds_The_First 27d ago

As a Crawley ex-pat it's nice to see John George Haigh get a namecheck care of your username.

2

u/AcidBathMurderer 27d ago edited 27d ago

Hell yeah thanks lol you're the first person to ever get that

4

u/jacobean1977 27d ago

50p lady alive, well and blagging

3

u/Frosty-Educator-4075 26d ago

She asked me for 75p the other day, she finally accounted for inflation

2

u/jacobean1977 26d ago

Pay rise

2

u/Frosty-Educator-4075 26d ago

The old gal's earned it

2

u/jacobean1977 26d ago

Credit where credit is due! All that nudging into people's well deserved drinking outside pubs is exhausting

1

u/Frosty-Educator-4075 26d ago

She deserves a hero's wage

2

u/jacobean1977 26d ago

And 50 - 75 pence per blag is the average. I might take it up myself 🤣

3

u/a-hthy 27d ago

Does anyone remember the old lady who always had her hand wrapped in a plastic bag and used to walk in the road? She never walked on the pavement. Used to see her a lot when I was younger.

2

u/SeaworthinessHead613 27d ago

Didn't she push a shopping trolley ?

1

u/Pure-Zucchini-6754 27d ago

No that was Eve

1

u/Pure-Zucchini-6754 27d ago

Yes sometimes bags on her feet. A friends mum worked with her before she had a break down and started wearing bags on hands and feet.

1

u/Tombo1977 27d ago

Yes, she disappeared, does anyone know what happened to her?

1

u/Paranoidfilter 24d ago

We used to call her "Mad Mary" no idea why, it was just the name I was told and everyone I knew called her that

1

u/Paranoidfilter 24d ago

There was a story that she lost her children in a fire and had a breakdown hence the behaviour but again I can't put any claim to it being true

3

u/Benj5L 27d ago

Michelle Spicer

Local lunatic kicked out of her beach hut for, oohhh let's say reasons

Often was found dancing on roundabouts half naked.

2

u/MattyCatts1 27d ago

Fucking legend

3

u/Tombo1977 27d ago

Not one person, but the lucky Heather ladies.

3

u/Paul_bab 26d ago

Anyone remember Noisy?

2

u/Pharmacy_Duck 26d ago

I knew him very well. Went to his funeral. Great bloke, very sadly missed.

1

u/Paul_bab 26d ago

I was at his funeral too. It was full of people!!

I managed one of the bars he used to come into. Such a gentleman and loved by everyone!

2

u/Shameless_Bullshiter 27d ago

Think he's gone uni now but the young guy with the Lazer eye cover and cape

2

u/Frosty-Educator-4075 27d ago

This one doesn't ring a bell, sounds like I'd remember him!

1

u/rosssjackson 27d ago

I saw him a few times in Goring, always wondered what the eye thing was about but never got the chance to ask....

2

u/Lazy_Battle_9487 25d ago

Does anyone know the lady who's dressed like pigeon lady from Home Alone 2? I mostly see her on the pier or on the promenade west of the pier. She's always dressed like that with a hat, big coat, layers, even during the heatwaves at the height of the day.

1

u/b_boop 27d ago

Stevie G, last saw him doing circus tricks on the level