IT was the hottest day of the year. Yet Miss W*** – I don’t know her first name and wouldn’t dare to use it if I did – wore her usual calf-length tweed skirt while her matching jacket had given way to a light cardigan. Her appearance still befitted that of a retired school ma’am of a certain vintage.

She dismounted her front basket-bearing bicycle (North Oxford style), using the machine to block my path should I try to escape down New Inn Hall Street. “Can’t you get the Oxford Mail to do something about it?” she asked. “About what?” “All this ‘first ever’ nonsense. The BBC is guilty with countless stories about Bradley Wiggins’ success in the Tour de France,” she said, giving the last three words the full Gallic treatment.

“If he’s the first ever British winner he is the first. The word ‘ever’ is unnecessary.

“My first year pupils would never have sunk to such tautology.”

I had registered this faux pas (north country pronunciation) days before and it had rankled, but now I made the mistake of admitting this to Miss W***.

“All the more reason why you should do something,” she said firmly.

I WAS delighted to see her in such fine form and was no less overjoyed if somewhat surprised to see Tony for the first time in almost two years when our paths crossed outside Tesco in Cowley Road.

Tony is a Big Issue salesman. For years he stood with his spotty dog Roxy outside Marks & Spencer’s in Queen Street – smiles and cheerful words guaranteed.

At our last meeting he said he was moving on to try something new. I believed this had happened.

But within days he had been taken seriously ill and was in hospital for months, his life in the balance.

However, survive he did, the honest, welcoming smile still in tact. He greeted me with a warm hug and over the next 15 minutes updated his story.

Meanwhile something truly inspiring happened. First a man pressed a scratch card into his hand, wishing him luck. (He won two quid!) Next a young woman left a carrier bag of groceries, while a second gave him a pack of chews for Roxy. Finally a third handed him another bag of food. What amazing and spontaneous generosity that says as much for the receiver as for the givers.

Tony lives in a tent in an area of the city that often floods.

He has twice lost his home and meagre belongings to the elements, and a third to vandals.

Yet he refuses to look on the dark side – something clearly appreciated by warm-hearted Cowley Road folk.