I just watched this short video (Farming Explained) about the history of countryside tramps, which focuses a lot of their gentle nature.
The video is okay, but the comments under it are really wonderful of people sharing their interactions with tramps in their youth:
One from RichardSlaiter3030:
My life was shaped by an Old Tramp called Devon, he had a shack on St Catherines Hill in Dorset, I had run away from home aged about 8yrs, he found me shivering under a bush crying my eyes out, took me to his den put me by his fire, wrapped me in an old blanket, then took me home on his old bike sat on his cross bar. I visited him again he showed me how to collect wood for the fire how to make a camp fire how to survive when things got tough, I'm 81 now and still have vivid memoroies
One from JohnCheetam5896:
As a child in the fifties (born 1949) I would often see tramps. One settled on a bombsite near my home and beckoned me to him - I was six - and told me to ask my Mum for food. Mum gave me two rashers of bacon for him, which he cooked on a piece of tin. He ate one and handed me the other. I did not feel threatened - indeed, my Mum was happy to let me go alone and unobserved. I'm moved by this memory.
One from audiobooks447:
I got depressed with work and tramped for a year in 2017/18. Travelled largely on foot with a tent between farms and places that accepted volunteers from Yorkshire to the edge of the Sahara. Probably will do it again some day. The no money part is scary but how it felt can't really be conveyed to people. Every moment I was present and dealing the elements or in conversation, not in my own thoughts. Every meal was a feast, every person I met was a life story I had the time to listen to.
Came back home to my street, looked at the residents walking head down in silence to their homes and thought 'these people are dead'. Now I'm among them again, walking passed with a dull "hey", slamming my apartment door and staring into comforting glow of screens.
One from AlexanderNixon169
I am 60 years old and remember a tramp coming to my grandmother's house every year. She let him have a bath in a downstairs bathroom, and made sure her cook gave him three or four good meals every day. Granny bought him a great coat from the army stores, new boots, and had his sweaters washed, although it was easier to give him new ones. He was a lovely man and as a child I would listen to him talk about his life as a gentleman of the road. He was called John and was a very educated man, could speak fluent French and Italian, as well as Latin and Greek. He enjoyed coming to us, as he spoke French to my grandmother. He said for a week, or perhaps two and helped with hay making on the nearby farms. He came back to us each night, and would sleep in the barn. He would not sleep in a house, he was not as he said, "a house person." He wasn't an addict or a criminal.He was a lovely man who I was very fond of. Then one year, the year I turned 10, he didn't come back. I've always wondered what happened to him. I expect he died, but I hope it wasn't alone and he had a proper funeral.
