excerpt: (yes its about tea).... The prayers lasted half an hour, and then, after a handshake at the door, we made off.
‘Well,’ said somebody as soon as we were out of hearing, ‘the trouble’s over. I thought them—prayers was never goin’ to end.’
‘You ‘ad your bun,’ said another; ‘you got to pay for it.’
‘Pray for it, you mean. Ah, you don’t get much for nothing.
They can’t even give you a twopenny cup of tea without you go down on you—knees for it.’There were murmurs of agreement.
Evidently the tramps were not grateful for their tea. And yet it was excellent tea, as different from coffee-shop tea as good Bordeaux is from the muck called colonial claret, and we were all glad of it.
I am sure too that it was given in a good spirit, without any intention of humiliating us; so in fairness we ought to have been grateful—still, we were not .....
My own copy is a moderately priced edition from Penguin Books .. a great read, I'm comforted in that we share the experiences through the protection of a turned page ....
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