True mavericks who make the world a more interesting place

I LOVE a maverick.

The people who, by their very nature, could not give a damn what anyone else thinks.

This does not mean they are rude or inconsiderate of others – it just means that they follow their own path through life without worrying how they are perceived.

I come across these people a lot in my job.

But I don’t think that is because they are very common – but instead because they are fundamentally interesting and make things happen.

I am going to tell you about a few of the mavericks I have met recently but I need to make one thing absolutely clear before I do – the differences between the true mavericks and the wannabes.

There are a lot of imposter mavericks out there.

It is a very cool persona for people to craft around themselves.

They put out this image of not caring how they are perceived and in their head are literally Tom Cruise playing Maverick in Top Gun.

Let me make one thing really clear – these people are not mavericks.

You don’t try to be a maverick, you are one.

These charlatans are the sort of blokes who put their tie around their heads at the work Christmas party or subscribe to GQ. They are the anti-maverick. The maverick I come into contact with most is my friend Fraser who lives in Splott.

Fraser is a mining engineer in his mid-20s. Fairly mundane right? Wrong.

In the past six months Fraser has explained to me in great detail the following things: how his beekeeping course went (well); why he decided to go out and buy two chickens (likes eggs); and why he has bought an old ambulance and turned it into a camper van (holidays innit).

However perhaps my favourite thing was actually covered in the Echo.

Fraser lives in Splott Road and has for the past year put flowers in his window box which opens out onto the street.

Unfortunately every month or so some prat comes along, rips the flowers up, and throws them into the road. Attentive owner that he is Fraser would re-pot his geranium – but after the fifth time it was looking rather worse for wear.

We ran a story in the Echo where he appealed to the council and police to find the phantom plant assassin.

In it Fraser said: “I appreciate that having flower boxes is ambitious and being the only house with them makes it stand out.

“Despite this I think we should try and improve the area and I am determined to keep them.”

Following this, in true maverick style, he suddenly found a groundswell of support from the Splott community.

Other houses started putting out window boxes and Fraser found a bag of seeds posted through his door with a note saying “keep it up”.

This is what mavericks do – they blaze trails.

Only today I covered another one in Pembrokeshire. James Hedley Phillips is a prolific diver.

Over the course of 3,000 ocean scuba dives he has discovered more than 30 previously unknown wrecks off the Welsh coast.

Not only that but he is a pensioner who turns 70 this month. Will he wind down in his later years? Oh no – that is not the maverick way.

Instead he has been trawling through old naval charts to try and plot the coastline of Wales 8,000 years ago.

From this he is going to try to discover ancient burial tombs that have been claimed by the sea.

He believes some of these tombs remain unplundered and he could find the underwater equivalent of Stonehenge.

I think my ultimate fascination with these people comes from envy. I have always wanted to not give two hoots about what anyone else thinks.

However the very fact I want to not care what people think means that on some level I do care.

Ignoring that piece of esoteric armchair philosophy I can actually pinpoint the time my love of the maverick manifested itself.

When I was a teenager I had a friend called Ryan. Ryan was a very skinny, spotty boy.

He also had the habit of asking anyone who was smoking in his presence, very politely, to stop.

Now bear in mind this was before the smoking ban came in.

Ryan applied this rule in restaurants (with smoking areas), beer gardens, and even people’s own homes.

Ryan, you might not be surprised to hear, got punched a lot. But Ryan didn’t care.

As far as he was concerned it was his oxygen and they had no right to pollute it.

At the time he seemed really contrary and argumentative.

But looking back, if you think of how socially unacceptable smoking inside has become in just the last 10 years, he really was ahead of his time.