The Tramp and the Dog, by Christine Williams, 1975 — Book Review

Knowing I have a literary interest in both tramps and dogs, my son Max bought me this book for Father’s Day—not aware that Puffin Books are the Children’s imprint of Penguin. I approached the book with a certain degree of resistance, believing that a kids book from this period was likely full of clichés and sentimentality of the Enid Blyton variety.

Some of this certainly is present, with the inevitable happy ending, but there was much more beside and I found the book a delightful and informative read. Not least, because of a 108 word glossary of Romany and slang at the back of the book to support the use of these terms throughout the text. The tramp, Bill, had been born a Roma—he distinguishes between Roma gypsies and “diddies” (didicoy) or non Roma gypsies— but lost his home when, on his mother’s death, her caravan (vardo) and possessions had been set alight and burned in the Romany tradition. The story is of Bill, now in his latter years, and having confined most of his tramping to the South East England, setting off in search of his long lost brother who had headed off for North Wales following the death of their mother.

It is the dog, an abandoned border collie, that chooses to take up with Bill. The tramp is initially anxious to be rid of the burden of his unwelcome companion, particularly when upon trying to hand the dog in as a stray at a local police station, he is threatened that unless he purchases a license for the dog (which the officer is convinced he is trying to ditch) he will be summonsed. Needless to say, the two become inseparable and many adventures follow.

The book includes many of the prejudices and discrimination visited on tramps and gypsies by gorgios (non-gypsies) but paradoxically, even where Bill is the object of mirth from others, he manages to turn the tables on his tormentors. Such an example is Chapter 11, ‘The Trial’. Bill was persuaded, against his better judgement, to act as the witness to a burglary of a stately home, the grounds of which he had chosen to sleep in for the night. Here Bill’s ignorance of court procedure is used to highlight the even greater stupidity of the legal process and those who administer it. A great example of what happens when two different universes of discourse and views of the world collide:

     ‘Place your right hand on the Bible—’ began the man; Bill put his hands behind his back. He had heard that there were all sorts of ways to trick a person into leaving his fingerprints, and he didn’t want to involve himself anymore than he had to.

     ‘Place your right hand here,’ insisted the man, ‘and repeat after me; “I swear”—’

     ‘Cert’ny not!’ said Bill, ‘I ain’t going to swear in front of all they grand folk, I ain’t that much of a fool! Have me up for usin’ foul language next, they will—then where be I? He began to feel extremely annoyed.

     A laugh ran round the court. ‘My lord,’ began a man below the judge’s desk, rising to speak to him, ‘this witness is an illiterate vagrant—”

     ‘Oh no I’m not!’ snapped Bill. He didn’t know what ‘illiterate’ meant, but he knew very well what the police thought about vagrants.

     ‘I be a self-supportin’ traveller, sir. I be no more of a vagrant than what you are! Begging your parding.’ He bowed in the direction of this gentleman, who also wore a wig. ‘And I ain’t no litterer, neither,’ he added. ‘Allus clears up after meself, clean as a whistle.’

     The court laughed again, louder this time, and the judge leaned over his desk to look at Bill over the top of his spectacles.

     ‘No one is suggesting that there is any question of vagrancy,’ he said, ‘and I’m sure Counsel did not wish to cause any offence by his remark about you being illiterate. He was merely pointing out that you cannot read.’

     ‘I already said so, didn’t I?’ asked Bill, amazed at the stupidity of these people. Perhaps their long wigs made them all deaf.

     The judge sighed. ‘We quite understand that you are not familiar with court procedure. On this occasion we will waive the taking of the oath, and you may affirm.’

     Bill looked round, but could see no one waiving. The man with the Bible put it down, and fixing Bill with a warning look, said “Repeat after me: I solemnly and sincerely declare—” ’

     Bill waited, but the man did not go on. ‘Well?’ asked Bill irritably. ‘Declare what? I ain’t goin’ to declare nothin’ till I knows what it is!’

     This time the court rocked with laughter, which gradually subsided under the judge’s stern eye. He nodded to the man before the witness-stand who, who continued ‘ “To tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” ’He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief.

     ‘All right,’ said Bill, after thinking this over, ‘I’ll tell the truth.’

     ‘Then will you please repeat it?’ asked the man angrily. ‘ “I solemnly and sincerely—” ’

     ‘I jest said I’d tell the truth, didn’t I?’ cried Bill. ‘Ain’t that good enough?’ He was beginning to wish he had never agreed to all this. The sooner he could leave the happier he would be.

     The court was in uproar. ‘Silence!’ shouted an usher, and the laughter slowly died down.

     ‘You are holding up the entire proceedings,’ hissed the man in front of Bill. ‘For goodness’ sake get on with it, and repeat the proper words!’

     Bill sighed. ‘I sullenly since I’m ‘ere declare to tell the ‘ole truth,’ he said. ‘There. Now are you ‘appy?’

     It took some time for the court to settle down after this, and when Bill had reluctantly said the right words, Counsel for the prosecution stood up to cross-examine him.

     ‘You are William Wiggins?’ he began.

     ‘Course I am!’ answered Bill. ‘You ‘eard the bloke what called me in. Wouldn’t ‘a come, otherwise.’

     ‘Silence!’ called the usher again, as laughter threatened to break out.

     ‘And you are of no fixed abode? continued Counsel, giving him an icy look.

     ‘I ain’t fixed nowheres at the moment,’ admitted Bill. ‘but me abodes allus been about these parts.’ He was taking into account the whole of Surry, Sussex, and Kent. …

And so continues Bill’s court examination for a further three pages.

There is nothing predictable about rest of Bill’s story. He was simply making a direct a route as possible for North Wales to find his brother. And so how does Bill end up trying, unsuccessfully, to feed a 3 month old baby girl from a tin of condensed milk in a wrecked car in the middle of a Birmingham scrap yard? 

I had (wrongly) assumed that the author of the book, 'Chris Williams', was a man and that the artist of the wonderful and generous illustrations, also named Williams, might be related. On being contacted via the blog by someone who knows the author's son, I'm now aware that I was wrong on the first count but correct on the second. The author is Christine Williams and the illustrator was her husband, Patrick Williams. Sadly both are now deceased but I'm hoping that their son will write to me as I'm fascinated to know more of the couple and from where they got their detailed knowledge of tramping and the Roma people.

As it is not difficult for the reader to obtain a used copy of this book cheaply from the internet, those whose curiosity has been aroused should do just that.

On Dogs, Feral and Domesticated

As a newly retired person, one of my main recreational persuits will be taking regular walks either side of the river through my local park, from my house in the City centre all the way out to open countryside to the North. To the South lies the sea but the coast is urbanized. One of the things that interupts my tramping, apart from being mown down by sanctimonious cyclists and their earnest ringing, are that every other person I encounter on my travels seems to be accompanied by a dog, or several dogs, leashed and unleashed. 

There are few images more absurd in Western society than well dressed, well healed dog owners bending over scooping up the shit left behind by their pets. Even worse, you’re minding your own business taking a stroll in the park and, even if you’re lucky enough not to step in the stuff, someone’s pet will come bounding up to you and leave their frothy saliva all over your crotch. You are reassured that the beast is friendly, but what dog lovers just don’t get is that you do not share their obsession–one that often exceeds the adoration humans have for their own children.

But here, particularly on a blog concerning Cynicism, I need to distinguish between the domesticated pooch and the stray vagabonds who so inspired the ancient Cynics. As Yiannis Gabriel wrote, “Stray dogs (unlike well-groomed poodles) recognize no masters and no boundaries.” And a modern description by H. Peter Steeves of street dogs in Venezuela well describes the homeland of the ancient Cynics:

Along the city streets I see the dogs travelling. They stay on the sidewalks, in general, and cross at intersections. They trot with their heads tilted down, seldom looking around, giving the impression that they are headed somewhere important, that they know precisely where they are going and why. No mindless wandering; no stopping to beg. [. . .] There are lost dogs. There are wandering dogs. And anyone who has seen both knows there is a difference. [. . .] We think him homeless because he has no leash. His home is the neighborhood. It is not to say that all dogs belong outside, then, but it is to recognize that a neighborhood can be home, a place to belong. 

As already discussed elsewhere on this blog, the term Cynic is derived from the Greek kynicos, adjectival form of the noun for dog and literal reference to the dog-like appearance and behaviour of the followers of this sect: fornicating and defecating in public, scavenging for scraps of food, etc. Where others used it to deride the Cynics, they themselves embraced the term as a positive choice of lifestyle. But this self-characterisation as dogs should be viewed as an ironic strategy: a rhetorical device employed to expose the huge credibility gap in human behaviour between, on the one hand people’s appetite for instant gratification and hedonism, and on the other, their sham sophistication and moralizing idealism.  

     And so the wandering dog Cynics, in spite of their ideology about living close to nature, claimed the streets of the larger Mediterranean cities as there natural habitat, scavenging out an existence on the margins of mainstream society–a society who they see as imprisoned by their own possessions. So Cynics, like the stray dogs they are, unencumbered by such trifles, are left free to claim their own sovereignty of the city’s streets. The detritus of other people’s lives are their inheritance, their kingdom.

And so we are left with two distinct images: 

civilised humans with their civilised (faithful) dogs – both domesticated and interdependent, the one upon the other

and vagabond humans who live independently alongside vagabond dogs in mutual respect

But of course these are generalisations and there are always humans and animals who defy any categorisation or are just confused about which camp they belong in. So to conclude this canine digression I must include a dog that my sons befriended in Spain this Christmas who minded the chickens in a yard opposite the house we occupied for a couple of weeks:

confused dog