This is Ricasso. I almost certainly have more photographs of him than any other local.
I love running into him and find him such a fascinating character. If he isn’t embroiled with someone else I will have a little stop n chat. He is funny and friendly in equal measure and there is a kindness to him even though life has clearly not always been kind to him. Everyone else in the neighbourhood also seems to know him and he is an integral part of this community.
He appeared twice in my MYLDN photography book. This is what I wrote about him there:
“Ricasso is a local character who you can spot on Portobello Road most days, hanging out, always a can in hand, and often with bruises over his face. As a street drinker and one that sports a fairly flamboyant look, he invariably runs into bother with other neighbourhood drunks.
He is also a talented artist and you can often find him sketching for cash on one of the street corners. I bought a pastel drawing from him that he created on the spot. It’s of a woman staring into a mirror. I have seen him do this sketch many times before and his portfolio is filled with alternate versions along the same theme.
On the one he did for me, he wrote down the side of it “I see you baby shakin’ that ass” and proclaimed that he put this on all his illustrations. I knew this not to be the case but didn’t want to contradict him. The picture is now hanging up in my kitchen and I look at it every day.
He informed me that he was born into a very wealthy and very posh family but went off the rails due to drink and drugs and they disowned him. Even though he’s clearly had a turbulent existence he has a very warm amiable personality and nothing that he has gone through seems to have dampened his spirit at all. “
Sometimes I don’t see him for months and I worry that something has happened to him and then he just pops up as per usual. There used to be a lot more characters like Ricasso around this area but he is one of the few left and this place is all the better for having him in it and hope that remains the case for a long while to come…
