ANALYSIS

Socks. They’re the least donated but most needed item of clothing at homeless shelters.

I contemplated this nugget of information as my feet grew numb after hours standing around at the Dundee sleep out. You can’t be in a sleeping bag all evening and unless you walk around constantly your extremities get cold.

Around 11pm we all unfurled our groundmats, got into our sleeping bags and cosied down. With all my layers on, a down sleeping bag, Thermarest ground mat and a plastic survival bag to keep moisture off, I was finally toasty and soon drifted off to sleep.

I woke up chilled and needing the toilet at 3am. Somehow I’d rolled off the sleeping mat and could feel the cold ground leaching away my heat. The survival bag had slipped down and the top half of my sleeping bag was damp with dew.

One wee and five minutes of rearranging gear later and I was a bit warmer but I never managed to replicate the snug burrow I’d started with.

We had good quality equipment, plentiful hot drinks, toilets and – most importantly – the companionship of hundreds of people around us.

I can only imagine how cold and lonely it must be in a second rate sleeping bag, down an alley or huddled in a doorway, and all alone.

It is barely imaginable that that is the lot of people in modern Britain.