TRAMPS

Was thinking last night that I had never seen a PROPER Tramp for must be 40+ years. I think the last one I saw was when I was when I was working on the Night Turn at Plessey Wallgate early 1970's, and we came across one sleeping under a bush at the back of the building. We provided him with cups of tea and chip suppers for a few nights and then he moved on. You would see them ( and they were always men as far as I can recollect) walking along the main roads heading towards or away from the town. Maybe they were people who had been in the services and either had no homes or just couldn't adapt to civilian life.

Just found this article
TRAMP

Don't they just call them homeless people these days or were tramps a specific type of person who made a conscious decision to "tramp" the streets rather than live in a house?

The one I remember was "Skippy" who used to hang about round the town centre and the Ribble bus station in particular.

The one I remember when I was in my teens was a very distinguished
looking man, the last time I saw him was in Mesnes St,the story was that
he had been a business man and just got fed up of the rat race..he was
always very tanned and had snow white hair and beard,.a very handsome
chap but in ragged clothes.

Tramps were seasonal. When I was a youngster they would pass through the streets, sometimes knocking on doors asking for packets of tea and the like. They would do this in the summer months.

Most of them carried a bag that was full small of pots and pans, and usually a tattered sleeping bag.

I always remember that they were never aggressive or caused any trouble.

Most of them were gents who had dropped out for one reason or another, and most seemed very articulate having held down decent jobs in their former lives.

'Tommy the tramp' that could well have been admin, well known round the Wallgate area in the 70's

"Tramps" then weren't the homeless people you see today begging around towns. They were itinerant people who moved around the country and as has been mentioned, generally kept themselves to themselves. There were no 'Homeless Charities' then, probably only the Salvation Army. and Lodging Houses like the Royal George.

They were the gentlemen of the road.

When first I went to work for the NHS, the hospital was a former workhouse. Back then, it still had the so called casual ward. This was a small brick building: a cell. There was no heating or bed, or indeed furniture of any kind. This was the tramps ward: a place were itinerants might spend the night.

Built into the wall was a lattice of perforations in the brickwork, having an aperture of about an inch. As 'payment' for their night's accommodation, the luckless itinerant was only allowed out of their cell when they had broken up sufficient stone, and fed it through the perforations.

I seem to recall George Orwell describing the experience of them (The Spike) in 'Down and Out in Paris and London'.

Apols, admin. Just found your extract from Orwell.

Think it is a book everyone should read.

Will disabuse some widely held delusions.

Fantastic book and very funny too.

I remember a tramp who used to roam around Scholes in the 1960s, he was known as Jack Kwaz, or Kwazie.

Johnny Welly!

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