Roadman

Ernest Tipping had known the road for over 35 years and seen the roadman repairing it.

Any reader turning to the original novel would hardly recognize it in the shadow of Hitchcock’s film, so preoccupied is it with describing the glens and heathery mountains of the Scottish highlands, inhabited with an unlikely cavalcade of native eccentrics: an innkeeper with literary aspirations, a Liberal candidate with pacifist sympathies, a lower-class roadman laid up by drink, a bald archaeologist who isn’t quite what he seems.

And officers’ definition of ‘roadman’ could prove to be controversial. They described the term as a ‘teenager who involves themselves in smoking weed, no education, puffa jacket and man bag, acts hard on a bike’.

The roadman look is very working-class (although it can be made to appear high-end), and features key pieces like matching tracksuits, technical jackets (like Nike wind runners or lightweight Stone Island shells) running caps, ‘trainers’ (like any Nike Air Max or a Reebok Classic), bum/shoulder bags, and maybe even a scarf on colder days.