I live in Hebden Bridge. I'm used to seeing what might euphemistically be referred to as eccentric individuals. There are quite a lot of them round here. I think it must be something in the water.
But, this morning, I spotted someone who looked incongruous even in Hebden Bridge: A RED INJUN!
He was sitting at a pavement café enjoying a cream tea. He looked very smart in his designer sunglasses and posh suit. I would never have taken him for a RED INJUN! at all, if it hadn't been for his two waist-length, plaited ponytails and his moccasins.
"Eh-up! Me Johnny Two-Wippets," I imagined him saying when he'd ordered his cream tea. "Me here for heap big quantity surveyor pow-wow in Mankinholes. Me trade-um five ferret pelts for strawberry cream scone with cappuccino. Thanks to draconian smoking ban, me sittum outside to smoke peace-pipe."
Yes, I know we're supposed to call them Native Americans these days. And yes, I'm sure he was perfectly harmless. But I was brought up on a diet of John Wayne films, so I thought I'd better play it safe. I decided to photograph him from a very long way away.
And then I started thinking. But for his ponytails and moccasins, I wouldn't have had a clue that this man was a RED INJUN! How many other RED INJUNS! are there round here, dressed as white-men? There might be whole tribes of them, and we would never know it!
Perhaps that explains why it's so hard being a cowboy in Rochdale.
Have you noticed that there is nobody sat behind him?
Maybethey don't want to sit with their back to the injun!