Dog man

I first encountered dog man ( or Dennis Noble to use his real name) in around 1980.  We were sent out from college with our sketchbooks and I found myself sitting on a damp bench in St Giles’s churchyard  drawing lichen covered tombstones. 

I realised somebody was watching me and when I looked I up I saw a squat sturdy man with fierce curly hair, unruly beard, filthy shorts, socks and sandals. In his hands was a tangle of baler twine and leads, at the end of which danced and snarled a motley crew of dogs of different sizes, twisting in and out around his legs like an out of control maypole dance.

He sidled up to me and asked ” Do you want to know how I keep warm in winter?”and before I had time to answer  he announced that he rubbed lard all over his legs which kept the cold out ( and presumably the dirt, in). He continued to inform me that he currently only had twelve dogs although he used to have thirteen, but that one had been naughty so he punished it. Thankfully I never  got to the bottom of this. And so began my acquaintance with one of the most eccentric and  colourful inhabitants of South London.

Dogman became a familiar part of the scenery, muttering to himself as he hauled his unruly troupe of mongrels over to the green, or marched down our street, hunting through rubbish on the way, waiting outside for the supermarket to open so he could avail himself of treats from  the discounted trolley. Day in and and day out he always wore a pair of shorts. Bizarrely the only time I ever saw him in long trousers was when there was a heatwave and the rest of Camberwell sweltered and sweated.

There were various stories going around  as to how he came to be living in a four storey Georgian house just round the corner from the Grove with its Range rovers  and spacious gardens. The most credible was that he had inherited the house from his parents. He was also rumoured to have been a succesful photographer and lecturer in his day and there were certainly adverts and hand painted signs advertising  tripods and photographic equipment  ( and “clean air”) for sale posted all over the front of the house, along with piles of newspapers, cans, bottles and boarded up windows. For as long as we knew him he seemed to have no electricity, running water or gas and we used to wonder how he survived the long wet winters as we huddled in our badly heated and draughty house.

From time to time he would knock on our door trying to sell us things that he had found in skips and would usually bring his breakfast to eat with him. This would often be a slab of Anchor butter that he ate like a chocolate ice, alternating this delicacy with a sinewy black pudding, all washed down  with a pint of milk, the drips forming a crust on his grubby jumper. It was impossible to tell how old he was , as he must have been pretty fit, walking miles each day. He was also extremely articulate though in a rather insular way, unable to engage in a two way conversation, preferring to launch into a breathless monologue on any subject from Catholicism to how to peel an orange.

One day he invited us into his house for tea. We went, though I’m ashamed to say we did not last more than about five  minutes when it became apparant that tea was to be offered in empty dog food cans,  a thought so repulsive that we  made  our excuses and fled, hysterical with relief at having escaped botchelism or worse. 

We left Camberwell and went travelling for two years. At one  point we were snowed in high up in the Himalayas waiting for a break in the weather,  so that we could fly back to Kathmandu. With very little to do in the evenings apart from play cards and chat we learnt all about the lives of our fellow travellers, and they in turn heard tales of ours back in Camberwell. Lo and behold, a year later back at home, a campervan turned up in the street and out jumped a Canadian couple, last seen on a rickshaw in Nepal. They begged to be taken to visit dogman. We headed up towards the churchyard at the back of the house and suddenly there he was, respelendant in shocking pink vest carrying a pile of old bones. I can only hope that they were for the dogs dinner, not his.

Over the years he came and went, sometimes disappearing for weeks or months on end. Then out of nowhere a mass of hysterical yapping dogs would appear, followed by muttering and cursing and we knew he was back in town

And then one day he disappeared and never came back. Months went by , and then a year and then workmen came and boarded the house up. The front and back gardens were cleared of old mattresses and corrugated iron, the signs removed, brickwork cleaned, windows mended. The house was turned into a hostel with queues of men with pinched faces waiting outside for opening time.

I saw him once more, years later at a zebra crossing by Brockwell park. This time he only had two dogs at his feet, but was still wearing his shorts. I called out to him but he looked at me without a flicker of recognition in his eyes

And in the busy faceless whirl of this city where I still live, where faces come and go without comment, I wonder whether he even knew that we noticed he had gone.