Here's a seasonal story from 1927 – from the Christmas Eve edition of the Leicester Mercury to be precise.
Treat for Tramps
Police Chief as Host at Market Harborough
The quaint and picturesque old Grammar School at Market Harborough, which is partially built on wooden piers, and stands near the parish church, will be the banqueting Hall of road tramps on Christmas Day.
Feveral years now a woman in the town has interested herself in bringing some comfort and joy each Christmas to the men who tramp the roads.
Supt. Robertson, with this financial help, will entertain the tramps to breakfast and dinner.
He expects about 40 guests, all of them men who are wayfarers whose life is spent on the road and in common lodging houses.
Breakfast will be at 9 o'clock and dinner at 1 o'clock.
I find a police superintendent doing that on Christmas Day rather impressive.
Here's the inevitable picture of the Old Grammar School. I blogged about an echo of the days of tramps and tramping last month.
That's very interesting story. I wonder if anyone has studied when "tramps" stopped moving around and became "street homeless". Clearly they were very mobile when Orwell was writing Down and Out in London and Paris (early 1930s).
ReplyDeleteI remember a couple of gentlemen of the road who were a recognised, albeit marginal, part of my neighbourhood in the early 1980s. They would appear every so often. But they were old men then.
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