Who is the man in mauve?
Who is Purpleman? That question has many possible answers. He is a man whose “mother is red and father is blue,” one of Britain’s most photographed cyclists, and possibly the high-five king of York.
More than anything, though, Purpleman is a bloke on a mission to spread happiness and love. He began on Stonegate, and from there, took his message to a country ravaged by war.
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Address City centre, York (keep your eyes peeled for a sighting!), www.purpleman.com | Tip Street entertainers regularly perform in York. As well as Stonegate, you will catch them at the York Minster piazza; St Helen’s Square; outside All Saint’s Church, on Pavement; and on Spurriergate, Parliament Street, and King’s Square.
For many years Purpleman was among York’s most colourful street entertainers. He would sit motionless for hours on his purple bike, purple tie frozen in flight, purple bowler hat positioned jauntily on his purple head. The only movement came when someone dropped a coin into his bucket, resulting in a nod or a smile. He became an icon in York, appearing in promotional campaigns and even on a TV advert for a supermarket.
Gradually, though, the man whose friends call him PM began to branch out. At the 2015 elections, for one day only, he turned green – in support of the Green Party. “Beneath the purple I’ve always had a green heart because it makes total sense to care for our home, the Earth,” he explained.
But he found his real purple passion in delivering happiness to some of the world’s forgotten children. His first trip to the Syrian border came in 2014. He travelled to the war zone, dressed entirely in purple, and managed to make his way to meet refugee children who had lost everything – often including most of their families – in the conflict. There he distributed 1,000 soft toys donated by the people of York. A later mission saw him preparing to drive a purple bus around the region, giving out more toys. And he hopes to open the first Purple School out there, teaching positivity.
Purpleman says he is unlikely to return to his Stonegate pitch. But he has an ambitious new plan for York, the details of which he is keeping under his purple hat.
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