Regent Road Park

Beaver (the cigar smoking tramp) has had a make-over. 

I remember him from fifteen years ago when I worked in Lothian Road. I would see him with his two unbalanced rucksacks, striding down the pavement purposefully. His clothes were grubby and unkempt, his dreadlocks stuffed into a horrible woollen hat. I saw him chat with friends on street corners, I never saw him beg. 

Later I would see him on London Road, sitting bolt upright on a park bench. An odd figure because he sat in a bright orange bivvy sack, with his perennial green and grey rucksack beside him. 

A few years ago he moved to Regent Road and adopted the second bench from the gate. By this time he had acquired several more bags and cases to add to the rucksacks, when he wanted to run an errand he would move his possessions bodily in stages from Regent Road to London Road and back again. 

In the last couple of years I don't think he has left his bench, except perhaps to use the bushes beyond the hedge as a convenience. When I walked to work in the morning he would be there, on his bench, in his sleeping bag, surrounded by an ever growing mound of bags and tarps and cases and things. 

I would see him chat with friends, and people standing beside him with flasks and food. 

During the bad weather I saw that there were three hot water bottles on the ground beside him. I offered to take them to the pub on the corner and get them filled. He told me that it was OK, he had someone who would come and fill them later. 

In the last couple of weeks someone has given him a make-over. The bags and cases are gone. The bench is visible once more. Beaver has a new sleeping bag, a nice new yellow sleeping bag cover, a nice new waterproof jacket with a hood. 

But he still smokes the odd cigar, and he still has his old green and grey rucksack from the days he strode down Lothian Road. 

Such is freedom, to choose a bench and call it home.