Wildlife Circus

I have met many rough sleepers on areas of open space over the years, especially on Ham Lands in the neighbouring borough of Richmond. One chap lived on the lands for more than twenty years, a similar amount of time that I spent as a volunteer ranger for the council. When my Jack Russel, Dale, was alive he would make a bee line for the hidden encampment and you wouldn't see him again until he had hoovered up all of the incumbent's discarded Kentucky Fried Chicken bones. Among the less fortunate people in residence was an  Italian man in his late fifties, who not being able to find work in his home country, decided to relocate here. He chose an area of woodland on the north side of the Lands, which floods with the rising tides. Whilst asleep one winter's night around 1997, he found himself surrounded by water. This meant that  his health was lost, along with his passport, and he ended up with a recurrent chest/lung infection, which I was concerned was TB. Whilst mos...