ESSAY
Connections beyond the borders of park life
In April 2020 at the beginning of the first lockdown I met two very unusual men, Nick and Pascal, who for five years had been living and sleeping rough without a tent under some hornbeam trees in a quiet corner of Regent’s Park. They had lived alongside each other without shelter in London’s streets and parks for over 16 years. Nick, in his sixties, and Pascal, in his forties, make an unusual pair – not least because they do not regard themselves as homeless and express positive views about being outside. They appreciate the beauty of a dawn sky and moonlit night. They endure rain, frost and snow with equanimity.
They talk of how the world is their home rather than associating the which documents the year in which we became friends.