You Can Call Me Al

Following on from Sunday's portrait of Andy, this picture continues my loose series on the people I know and tend to spend time with. This is Alan.

We met in March 2008, when Alan came to work at my old pub; standing behind the bar with Paul Simon's Graceland playing on the music system, I was suddenly greeted by the sight of an immense South African with ginger dreadlocks approaching. He stuck his hand out, grinned, and with a quick nod to the stereo speakers, said "you can call me Al." You couldn't get a better introduction than that if you scripted it.

Al grew up in Durban in the 1980s, and as you'd expect, has a fair few stories to tell about what he fervently considers "the bad old days" of apartheid. Prior to being conscripted into the army of the Afrikaner regime, Al had frequently attended - and sometimes worked as a sound engineer at - ANC rallies in the area. Being considered an ANC sympathiser, or "kaffir-lover", led to a slightly nightmarish military experience, although given that the alternative was to go to prison, he probably chose the lesser of two evils.

Al's always good for a few pints on a sunny day, not least so you can hear his cracking Afrikaner pronunciation of the word "ice". (This is best achieved by getting him to say full sentences such as "I'm going to buy some arse-cream", or "Could I have some arse in my drink?"). And as you can tell from the portrait, he's not shy of striking a ridiculous pose when a camera's pointed at him.