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H.O. Ward
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From the Author
The Story
The story originated from my meeting with a tramp and he is the one exception to the fictitious characters in the book. I met Joe, whom you encounter in the first chapter and again later in the book, many years ago in a London pub and had the privilege of buying him a drink in order to prevent him from being evicted by an unpleasant landlord. Though how the landlord justified his decision to throw Joe out of an establishment that boasted a reputation for not being cleaned for scores of years baffled me then and still does.
I learned that Joe had the sad misfortune to suddenly lose all his family in a traffic accident, after which he lost his direction in life and gravitated to the London streets. His background was in banking and his cricket boots, wrapped in newspaper and his most prized possession, were magnificent. He unwrapped the newspaper and showed me them. He also, apologetically, for having no money and in appreciation for his drink, gave me a black, grimy walnut from his pocket. I remember Joe, not only for the unfortunate, lost and unsavoury character that he had become, but because he is the only person to have given me almost everything he owned.
Why Dog Dirt Doris
The reason for the title was to put a woman in a position such as Joe's, not something you often associate with women and to call her Doris, not often thought a glamorous name, despite Doris Day. So now you have a woman tramp, dirty and smelly. How would people react when they met this person on the street? What might they instinctively do? Possibly, walk round her as they would dog dirt in the middle of the pavement; hence the title “Dog Dirt Doris”.
People rarely consider the person at the point of meeting them, their reaction is preconditioned to treat them as low life without a thought about the person’s background, their life or feelings. The story demonstrates this reaction by confronting you with the dog dirt,
Doris, at the beginning of the book and by telling you Dorothy's (as you come to know her) story you begin to love her until in the end you . . . need to read the book!
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