Paul Kirtley: The Local Legend with the Red Bucket

With a guitar, a songbook and an ever-present collection bucket, Paul Kirtley has raised more than £40,000 for charity. Daisy Steel caught up with one of Frome’s most familiar faces to discover why he keeps playing, and why Fair Frome has become a cause so close to his heart.

Every town has its characters. The people you recognise before you necessarily know their names. In Frome, there is a good chance you will have spotted Paul Kirtley with a guitar in his hands and a red collection bucket nearby.

Paul is the latest person to be crowned our Local Legend, a regular feature on the When in Frome podcast and Fabulous Frome, celebrating the people who add something special to the life of our town.

Where it all began

I caught up with him at the Cheese & Grain, where, naturally, he was playing a gig. At 74, Paul has no intention of putting his guitar down. In fact, he has now helped raise more than £40,000 for charity, much of it through performances in and around Frome.

It all began rather unspectacularly in 2019. Paul’s daughter Laura told him that a friend with bone cancer was raising money for Bone Cancer Research and asked whether he would come along and sing at a nearly-new clothes sale at the Catholic church in Frome.

Paul arrived with a list of 80 songs and a simple proposition: choose one and, for a pound, he would, in his words, “murder it”.

After three and a half hours, the bucket contained the distinctly un-rock-and-roll sum of £13.20.

His granddaughter Molly, then eight, was given the job of counting it.

“She started to giggle,” Paul remembers.

It wasn’t perhaps the most auspicious beginning to a fundraising career, but something had started.

From £13.20 to £40,000

Before long, Paul was playing more gigs and raising increasingly serious amounts of money.

A chance appearance at a skiffle night in Bath led to an invitation to perform as part of the Bath Fringe at the Old Theatre Royal. On that occasion, one supporter approached him with a brown envelope containing a cheque for £2,000 for Fair Frome.

Paul was stunned.

Today, the total raised through his various performances has passed £40,000.

Keeping it local

Although Paul has supported several causes over the years, it is Fair Frome that particularly captured his imagination.

For him, the appeal is its simplicity and its direct impact on people living within the community.

“You can’t do anything more basic in life in helping people in need than put food on the table,” he says.

Fair Frome provides practical support to local people experiencing financial hardship, including food and furniture. Paul was living in Frome when he became involved with the charity and decided it was somewhere his fundraising could make a tangible difference.

“I got quite entranced with the idea that, hey, I can team up with Fair Frome here and we can make a big local difference.”

And he has.

Pound by pound

Much of the money has been raised pound by pound on the streets of Frome, as well as in pubs, clubs and at community events.

Spend that much time busking and you inevitably become something of a people watcher.

Paul has even written a song called Cracks in the Pavement, inspired by those who walk past staring determinedly at the ground rather than making eye contact with the man holding the collection bucket.

But then there are the moments which keep him coming back.

Earlier on the day we met, a woman had approached him while he was playing near Frome Library and handed him £20.

“We don’t know each other,” she told him. “But there’s 20 quid.”

It clearly still moves him.

And perhaps that is the secret of Paul’s extraordinary total. There has been no single enormous fundraising stunt. Instead, thousands of small acts of generosity have accumulated over the years. A pound here. A fiver there. Occasionally £20 from a stranger.

I happened to have some cash on me when we met and added my own contribution to the red bucket. Because once you’ve heard how much those pounds have added up to, it’s rather difficult to walk past.

A town that looks after its own

Frome likes to think of itself as a town that looks after its own, although Paul, who has spent countless hours observing it from behind a guitar, has a characteristically unsentimental view.

“Frome is, to use a football analogy, a game of two halves,” he says.

He sees prosperity, but he also sees people struggling. He notices loneliness, particularly among older residents, and the people who appear weighed down by problems of their own.

Perhaps that is precisely why Fair Frome matters to him.

Always another target

Paul originally set himself a fundraising target of £5,000 for this year. He reached it early, so promptly moved the goalposts to £6,000. When we spoke, he was already approaching £5,300.

And if he reaches £6,000?

“The next target will be £7,000.”

There is always another target.

For a fundraising journey that began with £13.20 in a bucket and has grown into more than £40,000 for good causes, Paul shows little sign of stopping.

Not bad for a man who describes himself, with typical self-deprecation, as a “74-year-old geriatric”.

We prefer Local Legend.

A true local hero.

---

Written by Daisy Steel

Journalist, columnist and podcaster

---