Glenys has a heart for music
Busking grandmother gets around on her e-trike
Palmerston North busker Glenys Gowan doesn’t get to her possie on skateboard, but an e-trike. On board is not a guitar or music stand, but a ukulele.
The 81-year-old gets tired easily; she’s had fibromyalgia for nearly 30 years and is now battling skin cancer.
But this isn’t a tale of woe, but of having a go.
Songs Gowan played during the Friday lunchtime the Manawatu¯ Guardian spent with her included Heartaches by the Number, My Bonnie, He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands,
and Ten Guitars.
She got a lot of smiles, but not much money.
“That was absolutely brilliant love,” a man said.
It is nearly eight years since she started busking with a man named Bruce in Broadway Ave on Saturdays. She would leave her husband at home to do the ironing.
Gowan then decided to go out on her own and has been busking around The Square or in Broadway Ave for nearly six years.
“I can’t believe how the time’s gone by. I just come out a couple of times a week and stand there and sing for an hour, then go home.”
She started busking as a way to promote her 14-song CD of covers. Heart Thoughts was produced and engineered by Ian Farmer in 2015. It includes Stand By Your Man, You Raise Me Up, Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Walkin’ After Midnight.
She met Farmer when playing at a rest home where he was visiting his mother-in-law.
The mother of three and grandmother of 11 enjoys busking and the improv opportunities it provides. “Here I am singing a song to you today,” she sings to a passerby.
She knows some passersby from their dress and walk.
Once a woman thought she was homeless. “People are funny aren’t they, they are different. Other people don’t know I’m there half the time.”
Being courteous to other buskers is important to her, so she keeps a reasonable distance between herself and them.
Gowan also uses her e-trike for collecting and returning jigsaw puzzles she checks for the Red Cross. Her philosophy is if one has legs that work, keep using them.
The former Dannevirke resident feels in control when looking around down The Square.
“It’s great being in Palmy because it’s a big place. It’s wonderful,” she said.