Mary An Unusual Vagrant by Robert Bennie.
Category: Biography
Paperback: 184 pages
Language: English
ISBN: 1906459088

"Mary was well known around the newspaper offices of Fleet Street, because she was very poorly clothed and was always seen carrying two bags that contained her belongings. She was a quiet lady who never spoke to anybody, but there were occasions when she was heard speaking in an educated tone of voice. The following enquiries and researching by some newspaper workers, it was discovered that she had at one time been a qualified staff nurse, and this caused them to wonder how she could have descended into the life which she was living.

It was snowing just before Christmas Eve as Mary made herself comfortable in a doorway opposite the church of St. Clement Danes in the Strand. looking at the church and knowing that it was the church of the RAF reminded her of her husband who had been shot down and killed during World War II, then as the peals of the church rang out their rhyming tune, it also reminded her of her childhood. Every day since she was a child she had written a diary of all the events that happened to her during that day. With the street lamps giving her light, and while the bells were ringing out their tune, she found her pencil and began reading the book and as she fell asleep, she dreamt of her family, her childhood and the traumas they had been through. It was Mr. and Mrs. Swinton, friends of her family who lived in the village of Hemelsham, who had given her the financial help which had enabled her to get her nursing qualifications. She relieved the unfortunate meeting with a doctor, the lothario son of the Chairman of the General Medical Council, but it was a chance meeting with Shirley Whithers, a feature writer with the Daily Tribune, who befriended her, who eventually managed to find out the reason why Mary is a vagrant.

The story also reveals how Mary’s behaviour and character influenced many other people’s lives."