No Fixed Abode

Book excerpt: Traveling on foot across the UK, with no money or reason to rush, Charlie finds the hidden side of the population—the homeless, the addicted, the disabled—who few outsiders ever get to knowIn the summer of 2011, Charlie found the school he taught at could not afford to renew his teaching contract. With no job and no money, but suddenly all the time in the world, he decided to travel from Cornwall to London in a peculiarly old-fashioned, quintessentially English, and remarkably cheap way—as a tramp, on foot, sleeping rough. The journey was filled with color, surprise, and danger, and a range of memorable encounters—from Stan, who once saved a boy from being raped but whose homelessness stemmed from a paralysing addiction, to Ian, the one-handed Rastafarian who lived in a tent. With a striking mix of travel and current affairs writing, No Fixed Abode sheds light on a side of the UK few ever see from within.