WAYNE will shuffle through Albury clutching his plastic bags no more.
He died at the Albury Base Hospital on Wednesday night after police found him lying on the ground in the streets he was so much a part of.
Wayne was one of the city's best-known characters.
Yet how many people really knew him or anything about his background?
Few indeed, it seems.
By and large, this homeless, harmless man kept himself to himself.
Those who struck up a chat with him on his good days found that he had some amazing secrets, such as being able to speak Latin, and he was clearly a well-read man.
How extraordinary, then, that a Facebook webpage devoted to Wayne (Wayno!) had more than 2500 fans.
Teenagers sort of loved the "old dude" busking with his harmonica in Dean Street, or Wodonga's High Street, dropping in a few coins first "to start the ball rolling".
His full name was Wayne Markham and he was born in Melbourne 59 years ago.
About 20 years ago he appeared in Albury and became "the man with the bags", though not the first to earn that title.
In 1996 he first stopped at Quamby House, the St Vincent de Paul's shelter for men in South Albury, and had been in and out of there for years, though never for long.
Quamby's manager, Helen Young,
said yesterday Wayne liked to eat a meal there, but wasn't keen on beds and slept in the lounge if he stayed at all, mainly in winter.
"The other guys (in Quamby) did really well with him and tolerated him," Ms Young said.
"When he was well, he was caring and polite, and had lots of interesting things to say.
"Wayne was brought up in Broadmeadows and was estranged from his family.
"I spoke to a cousin today but she hadn't seen him in years.
"He was well-educated, maybe in a private school or university, and you could have amazing conversations with him."
Father Kevin Flanagan will be happy to conduct a memorial service for Wayne at Quamby on Wednesday at 2pm, after a private cremation.
"He was a free spirit and one of the city's last characters," Father Flanagan said.
"It says something for Albury that people tolerated him, in streets or in cafes or church."
Some food outlets not only tolerated him but fed him, just to keep him going.
please include last parsNo one asked why those bags never left him.
What he carried in the bags, or in his mind, was his own business.
'Free spirit' to be missed as icon passes
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