Some time ago.
From a friend who died this month.
Ian Jack’s amusing remark that before the 1970s Britain’s drugs and beggars were “only in quantities small enough to look exotic” reminded me – somewhat tangentially – of a category of homelessness which now seems to have vanished entirely. I spend a lot of time in the countryside, often on foot, but cannot remember when I last encountered a real tramp; one of those much-bearded, many-coated gentlemen of the road who used to be as quintessentially part of the British landscape as oak trees and thatch. In fact I think the last one I saw was probably in a mirror.
Jeremy Muldowney
York
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