Magwitch

Twenty years ago or so, there was a man who lived in Faversham who presented a terrifying appearance. Six feet tall, broad and heavy, with coarsely cropped silver and black hair, his skin was pockmarked and often smeared and dirty. He lurched rather than walked, and his clothing was a choice assortment of old cast-offs, tied around with a stretch of rope as a belt. His shoes were home-made, cut from old car-tyre treads he later told me. He looked like a tramp yet was settled here, one of the marginalised people, and I was frightened of him. He was astonishingly well-cast for the character of Abel Magwitch, the escaped convict who so scared young Pip in the churchyard at the beginning of Dickens' 'Great Expectations'.

It was impossible to dissociate his appearance and my instincts - especially as I had small children and so lived partly in their world, of magic, dark woods, demons, giants and monsters.

Sometimes this man would come into the Marketplace with a filthy bandage wrapped round his head. Injury, and rough medication. Had he had to deal with his cut head alone? The bandaging did not look very professional It happened once, twice. What was going on? One day I plucked up courage to ask him. He said kids would set about him sometimes as he slept. I had no idea where that might be but it conjured up a vision of somewhere unsafe, open to attack and vandalism.

We started a tentative acquaintance. I would no longer move out of the way to avoid going near him but greet him and ask after him. One day he asked me this: 'Do you know what Oi eats?' I said I did not. He said 'Well, Oi don't eat bread, and Oi don't eat meat and Oi don't eat carrots and Oi don't eat pertaters and Oi don't eat apples and Oi don't eat fish and Oi don't eat biscuits and Oi don't eat cabbage and Oi don't eat beans and Oi don't eat termaters and Oi don't eat oranges and Oi don't eat onions and Oi don't eat sweets and Oi don't eat cheese.......' As you can imagine I was starting to wonder what on earth the man did live on. His list went on, almost voluptuously. '....and Oi don't eat bananas.....so do you know what Oi does eat?' We looked at each other in silence and I nodded. He said, triumphantly, 'Well yer know, Oi eats cake!'

He told me that each week he'd take whatever he could get, anything from his long list of ingredients and with all this he would create and cook a great cake, enough for him to live on for a period. He would eat his cake every day and he liked it. When it came to an end he'd start collecting ingredients again. At this time he also told me about how he tried to make all his own clothes, including his shoes with their sturdy treads. He was proud of his self-sufficiency.

But it was not enough. He disappeared, and someone said he'd been set alight by his old enemies the local lads, and then died of his burns. Nothing appeared in the papers about it so I think and hope that was not his ending. More likely he expired of cold or a passing virus. I miss him. He was my own personal Magwitch and I am sorry now that I did not do more for him.