Philip Hensher has narrated this article for you to listen to.
It was a few months ago. I was coming back from my morning walk with Greta in Battersea Park, so it can only have been half past ten in the morning. A familiar neighbourhood figure zigzagged recklessly across the road towards us. He had something like a sense of purpose about him.
Telling a stranger that his avoirdupois could give G.K. Chesterton a run for his money counts as a hate crime
‘Have you got –’ he paused and reckoned – ‘£5? To get something to eat?’ Five pounds seemed an ambitious amount. I thought I’d answer the implied request and not the question he’d actually asked. ‘I’m not going to give you £5,’ I said briskly. He looked about as ghastly as usual – that yellow-grey, oily quality of the long-term heroin aficionado. Once he had knocked on our front door, claiming to be a neighbour from number 31 in need of cash for the electricity meter or something.
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