One

My Family

I am a Romani Gypsy gal. I was born on the edge of a pea field at Thurloxton, near Bridgwater in Somerset, on the 15^th of July 1941. I was given the name Margaret which changed, over the years, to Maggie. I also had a nickname – as many Travellers do – which was ‘Two Foot’, though I have never found out why.

My family are descended from a group of people who first came to this country many centuries ago. We live by the old customs of our traditional way of life. We travel up and down the countryside, earning our living from the hedgerows, catching rabbits, pheasants and wild duck. We use elder and hazel from the hedges to make clothes pegs and beautiful wooden flowers, which we sell round the house-dwellers’ doors. We also do all manner of fieldwork for farmers: picking peas, beans and hops, cutting and topping swedes, picking up tatters, and many other kinds of work. Our men are masters at stone-walling and hedge-laying. Our kind of work has been handed down through the generations, from father to son, mother to daughter, and will continue so.

Me dad was a wonderful, wise man. He was called Lenard Smith and was born and bred in the lanes of Somerset. He really was a wise old bird, and could always find ways to earn his living, or at least make ends meet. He was one of twelve children, nine boys and three gals. The boys’ names were Tom, Jessie, Joe, John, Lenard, Jim, Dan, Alfie and Little Ikie. The gals were Jane (known as ‘Touwie’), Emily and Little Alice. Me granny was Emma Smith-Orchard from Hampshire, and Granddad was Dannal Butler from Somerset and Wiltshire.

When Little Alice was about fourteen years old, her frock caught aflame from the outside fires that we use daily and she died from her burns. Ikie never did stand much of a chance: as a very small infant me granny took him into her bed, and one night in her sleep she rolled over on top of him and squashed poor little Ikie stone dead. They say he was as flat as a pancake the next morning.

Me mam was Defiance Small, better known as ‘Little Fiancé’ or ‘Vie’. Her family came from Devonshire and she was born in Plymouth but lived most of her young life in and around Newton Abbot. Me granddad’s name was Old Jim Small. All his family was Devonshire born and bred for many generations. Me real granny was Minnie Black, who came from Hampshire, though sadly we never knew her for she died aged twenty-six, when her children were very young, leaving me granddad Jim with six little children to bring up. Again, two of them children – Leonard and Vashtie – died as infants. That left Bobby, Ellen, Jeannie and me mam, Defiance.

Granddad took another wife, Annie, who came from the old family of Ayres from Bristol, and went on to have a second family of children. In all, they reckon me granddad Jim fathered twenty-one children.

It was hard going, back in those early days. The death rate in young children was very high indeed and we needlessly lost many of our people because of lack of medical help. But me mam was to know tragic times all through her life, as you shall see from my story.

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Me mam and dad met in the pea fields at Bridgwater in Somerset. At this time we knew each other as Travellers, so I will refer to ourselves this way. There were many Travelling families out working in the hot, sunny pea fields, families from all parts of the country: Wiltshire, Oxford, Devon, Cornwall, Gloucester – they would all meet and work for the Coles, the Wigleys and other various pea-growers. Our family usually picked for Old Jim Cole or Mr Williams.

Me mam was only sixteen when she ran away with me dad in the year of 1935 (or thereabouts). He was a few years older than she, but they stayed together till their eighties when death parted them. They had eight children and I was the second eldest. Alfie was born at Torbay in Devonshire; Robert was born on the Novers, Bedminster, Bristol; Little Jessie and Emily were born at Devizes, Wiltshire; Holly was born at Drumbridges in Devonshire, and Richard and Maralyn were both born in Bath.

Our family was small compared to most families of that time – many families had ten, twelve or even more children – but me dad said we elder four were his little army of workers. My family was and is a close, loving one. We had a good mam and dad who never were shy at putting their shoulder to the wheel when it came to work.

Working was the mainstay of our life. We had to work or starve. In the summer we would be out on the pea and broad-bean fields from four a.m. until tea time, come rain or wind or shine. In winter the men would be out at peep of daylight, frozen stiff, topping swedes, sometimes cutting off fingers with the sharp knives without even knowing it. That’s how cold them winters were back then. There was also the back-breaking work of following the farmer on his tractor, picking up tatters. Come autumn it would be picking apples and plums, and then on to the hop gardens. Not forgetting the hay-making season. It was work, and the Travellers were glad of it.