Rich array of Calais 'Jungle' characters remembered

The French have a saying for when day turns to night. They call it "l'heure entre le chien et le loup" - "the hour between the dog and the wolf".

It's about working out who you can and can't trust in the twilight.

And that's the time when you had to have your wits about you in the "Jungle" camp in Calais - when aid workers left for the day, in the darkening maze of tents and shacks, when the always-vigilant faces of the migrants were lit only by the flickering of campfire flame.

The night before the closure of the camp was tense, with clashes between migrants throwing stones at police who, in return, fired tear gas and smoke grenades.

I watched a reporter at the edge of camp become hysterical and race instinctually into the shadows between tents screaming, "He's got my phone"!

The security protection called her to return but she kept running after an iPhone 6, by then firmly secured in the swift hands of a hooded thief.

That was the fifth time I had seen a mobile snatched from a journalist or, often, somebody there just to help.

If they were lucky, they might see their phone again later at the camp's "night market", where people sometimes bought their own phones back after haggling with the thief who took it.

It was difficult to ignore, despite the good intentions of aid workers, the kind of raw and unpalatable facts of Jungle life.

Helen, a 15-year-old Eritrean, crossed the Sahara Desert and took a smugglers' boat from Libya. She told me she felt more vulnerable in Calais than she had anywhere else, that her friend had been raped and that she had learned to think and walk fast, brushing off grabbing hands.

I have spent two years back and forth in the Jungle, witnessing the Jekyll and Hyde personality of the place, and the subsequent struggle of migrants, aid workers and journalists to paint an accurate, humane but truthful picture.

From a few dozen tents on a dune that had been a dumping ground for chemical waste, I saw the transformation into a bizarrely functioning small town essentially, with a population of 9,000 plus. The jungle was a sight, and a scent, that you cannot forget.

Many characters stick in my mind.

Stylish Adbul, the smartest man in the Jungle, the only man I ever saw there wearing a suit. You could spot him a mile off as he queued for his bus, a proud Sudanese man, brown suit barely creased, his old shoes polished to a shine.

Charismatic Abdulla, 27, an Eritrean with five languages, would translate for charity workers by day and attempt to stow away at night. At demolition day, he was nowhere.

"He's run off, somewhere towards Germany," his friends laughed. "He'll never give up on his dream."