A young busker with a piano on a three-wheeled bike has visited multiple Oxfordshire locations in an attempt to perform in every single town in the UK.
Chloe Marie Aston, a 20-year-old full-time busker from Ilfracombe, North Devon, has been travelling from place to place with her piano on wheels for five years now.
This month, Miss Aston embarked on an October tour of the south east, visiting Bicester, Oxford, Abingdon, Banbury and Witney on her way.
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She said: “I’ve found it really lovely to tour Oxfordshire. It’s such a pretty and such a friendly place. I’ve had a lot of fun.
“And I’ve had a lot of people message me since saying how much they enjoyed it, and people want to book me for weddings and things. I’ve met some really nice people."
Now in the final days of the tour, the singer said one of the highlights was in this county.
Miss Aston said: “Everywhere I visited in Oxfordshire was amazing, but I especially like Bicester because everyone there was extra-friendly, and I got taken into the White Hart and sang in the pub there.
“It’s such a friendly atmosphere in that town and I loved it."
Music has always been a part of Miss Aston’s life, having attended musical theatre groups since she was young and studying for a college course diploma in musical performance, which she finished two years ago.
After drifting into busking, she described how she wanted to play guitar but found it too hard on her fingers, so her Dad came up with a solution.
“My dad was thinking of how he could possibly bring a piano out and make it mobile, and he started thinking of ideas and the piano bike just came to mind,” she said.
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Reactions were mixed at first however.
“When people found about what my Dad was doing they thought he’d lost it, that he’d gone mad," the musician said.
"But once they saw it happening and me getting out there and doing all these crazy things, they’re very supportive. Now they like what I do, which is good."
Another striking element of Miss Aston’s set-up is her outfits, which she came up with after being invited to perform at a steampunk festival in Somerset.
“When I first started busking with the piano bike, I would just wear jeans and a t-shirt, but I remember that day at the festival, the piano got a lot of notice but so did I, because I was dressed up,” she said.
“Since then, I haven’t looked back, now I dress a bit eccentric."
Although she has more than 10,000 followers on TikTok, her page has taken off on Facebook, which is where she posts pictures and receives messages from people hoping for a visit.
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