Every Monday (well, most of them) we feature a favourite Alex cartoon selected by our readers. This week’s choice is from March 1987.

This was one of the very earliest Alex strips (number nine actually) and it featured the first appearance of a character who became one of the most popular in our cast, even though he was only in the cartoon for its first year.

He never had a name. He was an old-fashioned Gentleman of the Road, who we referred as the Tramp, though using that word would be considered pejorative these days and we’d have to call him the Homeless Person instead. The point of the character of course was that he was the social polar opposite of Alex. Whereas Alex was young, wealthy and smartly-dressed, the Tramp was old, penniless and shabby. They had various exchanges on the pavement outside Alex’s bank. Interestingly the Tramp was one of the very few characters who was occasionally able to get the better of Alex in an encounter, such as this one where he ends up earning Alex’s grudging respect (as well as 50p). Though they had nothing in common and took pleasure in winding each other up we always felt that they secretly almost liked each other.

The phrase “get a job, you parasite” was an actual insult which a friend of Russell’s (not a friend he sees any more, Russell is quick to point out) directed at a person asking for money on the street some time in the mid 1980s. Russell still remembers his feeling of horror at the friend’s rudeness and insensitivity. It was what first made him aware of the emergence of a new social type - the arrogant, materialistic, egotistical Yuppie - the archetype on which Alex would be based. Russell told the story to Charles and Charles came up with the idea of the Tramp claiming that begging was actually his job.

This was the era of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government, which had come to power by securing the aspirational working class vote (the so-called “white van man”), so there was something funny about the fact that a homeless beggar - the sort of person who should feel most disenfranchised by society - might consider himself to have a role within the capitalist system. We gave the “parasite” line to Alex, but we worried that it was a bit brutal, even for so extreme a character as him and it might put our early City readers off him (spoiler: it didn’t).

If you want to find out what eventually became of the Homeless Person you’ll have to buy a copy of “The Last of Alex 2025”.

If you’ve got any suggestions for a favourite cartoon for future inclusion please email us. And do tell us if there’s a particular reason why it appealed to you.