TENS of thousands of people know his signature tune.

Winchester's best-known busker Marvin B Naylor has entertained people in the city centre with the theme from The Third Man for eight years.

The tune, from the 1949 thriller starring Orson Welles, is a simple three-note tune that eases its way into your head.

Since taking up a pitch on the High Street he must have played the tune several thousands times.

Through that time busking Marvin has collated a diary of his experience on the street in all weathers.

Now for the first time part of the diary has been gathered in book form, Diary of a Busker, Volume 1: The First Hundred Days, published by Skylight Press.

Marvin, 56, of Greenhill Road, Fulflood, went onto the streets to busk after he was sacked from his rock group because of his declining hearing.

The diary celebrates the people that he has met over the years, from the local eccentrics, to the good, the bad and the ugly and the occasional person who tries to steal money from his collecting hat.

He is ambivalent over writing the diary. "I can't stop doing it and I would like to stop doing it because it takes a lot of time. I'm a musician not a writer.

"It seems the most generous people are the older people, the people who haven't got much money. Children want to give you something. Members of the clergy I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I have got anything from them; people in suits not very often either."

When he started in 2011 a good day was making around £10 an hour. Now it is £15 an hour.

His three most popular songs are The Third Man, Albatross by Fleetwood Mac and Here Comes the Sun, by The Beatles.

He originally published the diary as a blog and the Chronicle published excerpts in 2011 which were very well-received by readers.

Marvin has some 25 notebooks full of his jottings.

Marvin attempted to attract the interest of literary agents but without success until recently Rebsie Fairholm of Skylight Press spotted its potential.

The book costs £13 and is available from Amazon and potentially from local bookshops. A second volume is now in production.

See book review in 7daysd page XXX