PHOTOS OF SOME UNRECONSTRUCTED RURAL MEN I HAVE KNOWN AND A FEW RECOLLECTIONS OF MY TIME WITH THEM

JOHN

I first met John on a brutally crowded train from Birmingham to Devon. It turned out our reserved seats had been commandeered by two members of the same shrill family from Tamworth and that got us to talking. He could not have looked more out of place, standing there in the corridor, a lopsided toothy look on his face, somewhere in the no-man’s land…