Ritual for a gentleman of the road

REPARATIONS for a long coach trip out of Devon often used to end up with the phrase “... and one for Smokey Joe”, so well-known was the gentleman who lived at the side of the road near the top of Telegraph Hill.

- Guy Henderson on Friday

Your mum would cut up your sandwiches and make a great show of adding an extra one to be presented at the roadside.

Smokey Joe was a Gentleman of the Road, one who chose for whatever reasons not to live a conventional lifestyle but instead to dwell outdoors and live on their wits and the kindness of strangers.

He lived among the trees around about the spot where the Newton Abbot-bound side of the dual carriageway starts to bend to the right a little way before the brow.

He had lived in a cave in Cornwall before moving east to Devon, and had a makeshift shelter among the trees with a fire which was going almost constantly.

His name came from the woodsmoke that crept out from under the trees and from the colour of his weather-beaten features, which showed the effects of a lifetime in the open air.