Two

A Fearful Winter

My early thoughts take me back to that memorable journey as we returned from the hop gardens of Ledbury, back down to Wiltshire. It would be a long, hard travel; we were heading for a little common at Melksham, where me dad knew he and his brother Jim would have winter work on a farm known to them. They would be hedge-laying and cutting up logs on an old saw bench. We had arranged to spend winter together with Jim, May and their three children, but they had not come hop-picking this year so we had to meet them on the road on our way back.

“I can smell snow in the air,” said me dad.

“Lenard, that nose of yours will get you in trouble one of these days,” me mam replied. “If me mind serves me right, there’s a nice bake-house in the next village. It must be getting near dinner time, so pull over when we reaches it, and I’ll do a bit of shopping.”

“Right, Vie, and I’ll give me horses a rest.”

Although it was cold outside, our wagon was as warm as toast, for in all wagons was a little Queenie stove made of ornate iron, standing on its own three pretty legs. They would burn coal or wood, and we could boil a kettle or keep a stew hot as we travelled along. Alfie, Robert and I felt a bit sad as we left the hop gardens, for we had made many good friends, as had me mam and dad. We had to say farewell to old family and friends that we met each year; like us they would be travelling dozens of different roads back to their part of the country, probably thinking the same thoughts as we did. Autumn was a kushtie* season and full of good company.

≡ Good; fine.

As the village came into sight, me dad dropped me and me mam off to do the shopping and went to pull in just outside the village and light a fire. It was near the end of November and would soon be Christmas, and we’d been promised a good one this year for sticking by the hop crib and picking alongside me mam and dad. Me dad used to say it was one man’s work to keep we three at it, as we loved to wander off fetching wood or playing with the other Traveller children. If I was threatened once to stand and pick, it must have been a thousand times: “Maggie my gal, stand and pick a few hops for your old dad, or I’ll give you a hiding!” But he’d never beat us – it was me mam who’d put one across us if we didn’t watch out.

The village shop was on the verge of closing for dinner, so we just made it. Two loaves, a sticky lardy cake and a few pounds of tatters saw us walking out the village and back towards the wagon, and the welcome sight of a big red-hot fire. As we drew near I saw our six banty hens, which we kept for eggs, stretching their legs by the wagon. They were kept boxed on the tail rack at night and while we travelled. We also kept two horses – Patchie, who was a piebald, black and white, and Ticker, who was a skewbald, brown and white – and two Jack Russell dogs for rabbiting.

The hop-picking had lasted a bit longer that year and so we were late meeting up with Jim.

“I’ll travel a few more miles each day to make the time up,” Dad told me mam. “At least our horses are fresh from weeks of doing next to nothing.”

“Well you should have said afore I went to the shop. We ain’t got many candles, and the wagon lamps take up two at a time.”

“Never mind,” answered me dad. “There’s another village further on, we’ll get a few there; it won’t get dark till around four o’clock.”

As we sat round the fire eating fried bacon and tatters, dipping our new bread in the fat and enjoying a rest, who did we see coming at us in the distance but the village policeman.

“Now Lenard, afore he gets here, don’t back-chat him,” warned me mam. “You knows he’ll lock you up.”

“My Vie, I gets sick to me teeth with they men. We ain’t been here an hour and they’s on us already.”

“Just mind what happened afore, when they took you for cheeking them back. Me and my children was stuck in the road for days on our own.”

“All right, Vie, I’ll keep me gab shut.”

We three knew better than to speak in front of the policeman, but me mam always had to warn me dad. It was very rare that we’d get a civil one coming up to us, and this one was no different. Up he came with his pushbike, right up to the fire.

“You can’t stop here,” said the policeman. “Put that fire out and get moving.”

“We have only just stopped to feed our children, sir,” me mam explained.

“I don’t care what made you stop, now get moving.”

“Hang on,” said me dad. “My woman told you why we stopped. Ain’t we allowed to eat like everyone else then?”

“Not on my patch,” he snarled at my dad. “Now get on your way.”

“Let me tell you something, mister. This patch – your patch – will be here long after you’re dead and gone,” said me dad.

“I don’t want any threats from you,” answered the policeman, “or I’ll run you in.”

“Len, Len,” whispered my mam. “Hush for gawd’s sake, my Len.”

“Well, who do he think he is?” my dad replied.

The policeman stayed right there until we’d harnessed the horses and put out the fire. He was still watching us as we travelled on down the road.

“One of these days, my Vie, I’m going to stretch one of they policemen out like a mackerel. They just don’t give up!”

“And that day, Len, you’ll get yourself six months’ hard labour.”

“I know, Vie, but they makes me blood boil, they do. It don’t cost nothing to be civil, now do it?”

“In a few more days we’ll be tucked up on the farm,” she told him.

“Any road,” said me dad, “I’m going to pull over. We need some short bits of wood for the stove; I never got time back there to fetch any.”

We pulled in on the grass verge and gathered an armful of wood each to keep the wagon warm as we still had a long way to go afore me dad would pull up for the night. It wasn’t good to travel the roads in the dark, but needs must. At least we had lights to let other road users know we were travelling.

We lived a slow way of life, at the pace of our horses. In the winter we three children found the travelling hard. When the spring and summer came we could run in front or behind the wagon, but winter was too cold for that. I never liked being penned in, and it set me and our Alfie fighting. We were always fighting, or so me mam said.

“When we pulls in for the night and I’ve washed you two, it’s bed for you both. No supper for you two,” threatened me mam.

“We ain’t dirty,” said our Robert.

“We’ll see who’s dirty when we stops,” said me mam.

How I hated me mam washing me! That carbolic soap got up your nose and into your eyes, and didn’t it smart! We always ended up crying after a wash. I thought she took delight in it, for she washed us several times a day.

We kept going for a few more days, until we finally met up with Jim and May and their two sons, Jimmy and baby Checkers, and daughter Lilea. It was good to have company again as we made our way to Melksham Common. We would stop there a few days afore we went on to the farm.

There were a lot of wagons pulled up on the common, and we knew all of the families in them. It was fun running with the other children, dressed up against the cold to fetch wood and water. All the families that were pulled up on the common were still hoping to find winter work, so me dad thought how lucky he was to have a work place already lined up to go on to. Had he known what it would lead to he would not have been so pleased with himself. Fear itself was waiting for my family on that farm.

♦

Over the years I have thought long and hard about what happened after we pulled up on the farm. How uneducated we were; how unworldly my people. We must have been in a world of our own. A question put to our parents by the farmer sent them mad for weeks, and it broke our hearts to see our family so full of fright.

We had worked on the farm before and pulled up as usual. It was important to find work with a farmer in the winter months, for that was the only way we could get a supply of hay for the horses in the long, cold months ahead. We knew this farmer quite well, but not so his woman. She always kept to herself but he knew our names and would often have a joke with us.

Me dad and Uncle Jim had been working laying the hedges for a week. It had snowed heavily, which we children thought was grand, and were having a fine old time, getting excited because it was nearly Christmas. A few more days and we could hang our socks up! Not that we looked for dolly prams or bikes; we knew we would not get anything big, simply because we had nowhere to carry it. Our wagon was packed to the hilt as it was, but it was so exciting anyway.

One afternoon, the farmer’s wife came to the little paddock that we had pulled up on, bringing eggs for us children. The next morning she came again, bringing mince pies and telling me mam how good and well behaved we children were. When she left, me mam turned to May. “What’s up with her, then? She don’t bother with the likes of we lot.”

“I was thinking the same, my Vie,” answered May, growing suspicious.

“May, that woman is up to no good, but we can’t say noth’ ing to her. Our men needs the work.”

They agreed to keep quiet and tried to think little of it. The woman usually kept to herself, but back she came that same afternoon. I could see me mam was not happy.

“What can I do for you, lady?” Me mam had a gleam in her eyes. “We don’t normally see you when we stops here.”

“Oh, I just like to see your children, and I shall have a little something for them on Christmas morning.”

“Don’t put yourself out for my lot,” said me mam, though we were more than a little interested at the thought of extra presents. “They got plenty already. Thank you all the same,” she added, and the woman left. “Alfie, an’ you, Maggie, take this hot bottle of tea an’ bread an’ cheese over the fields to your dad.”

This we loved to do, for we could play snowballs without getting told off. Jimmy and Lilea came too with bottles for their dad. We were full of ourselves, imagining what sweet gifts the farmer’s wife might give to us on Christmas day.

Me dad was pleased to get a hot drink, even though they had a big roaring fire going to burn up the bracken. We stopped and had a warm-up before making our way back to the paddock.

“You lot!” shouted me dad after us. “Pick up an armful of wood each and take it back to the wagon.”

“We knows that,” we hollered, loading ourselves up like packhorses for the long struggle back across the two fields. We always needed firewood for the stove and fire.

We met the farmer halfway, who laughed kindly when he saw us crossing the field. “What a big load of wood you all got.” That too was strange, for the farmer rarely went over to me dad and Jim. He didn’t have to, for he always knew that they worked well.

“He’s checking on me dad,” said our Affie.

“Well, he won’t catch they two playing snowballs,” I said, and thought no more of it. We got back to the wagons and threw down the wood near the fire that we shared with Jim and May.

“Now go and fetch a can of water, so I can cook a nice hot meal for when your dad gets back,” we were told. That meant going into the farmyard to the tap, which we had done many times before, but this time we noticed the farmer’s wife watching us from her doorway. She never spoke, but kept her eyes on us as we went. As we got back with the can, up came Jim and me dad, though they weren’t due back for hours yet. Me dad looked white and shaky.

Me mam approached him. “What’s up, my Len, have the man sacked you?”

“No, my Vie, it’s much worse than that. Start packing the things up, we gotta shift out of here.”

“But we can’t shift! We got snow up to our eyeballs and the night’s coming in. Is you mad? What have you done, eh?”

“I ain’t done nothing, it’s that man. He wants to take my Alfie off us.”

“What?” Mam was strangely quiet. “What did you just say?”

“It’s true,” said Jim. “He come out to us and asked if he could have your Alfie to keep. To bring him up.”

“What?” said me mam. “Pack up quick! And you, Alfie, get up in that wagon and stay there!”

The men were running to fetch the horses. Everything had turned upside down. We were running around like headless chickens, throwing things up in the wagon and on to the tail rack. Our world had suddenly gone mad.

Me dad and Jim were cutting up sack-bags to tie on the horses’ hoofs, to stop them slipping in the hard-packed snow out on the road. When they pulled the wagons they would tend to slip on the glassy road and not be able to get a grip. Just as we were about to pull out, the farmer and his woman came to the gate, both pleading for us to think about what we were about to do.

“I will look after him,” the woman was trying to tell me mam.

“Go and get your own children! You ain’t having mine!” Me mam bore down on the farmer’s wife until me dad grabbed hold of her and shoved her up into the wagon.

“Stay there, Vie! Stay put!”

“I’ll swing for that woman, Lenard!”

Full of fear that they would take our Alfie, we pulled out on to the dangerous road, leaving the washing still hung on the hedge, the six little banties, and a lot of other things we could not afford to lose.

But we had each other. We were still a complete family.

♦

It was a night that would haunt us for months to come. Any minute we expected the police to pull us up and take our Alfie from us. Although travelling in the snow, especially in the dark, was unheard of for Travellers, we knew we had to get away from that area.

The world was white, so it wasn’t too dark that night, but it was very dangerous for the horses to travel in the snow. One slip and they could break a leg; if the wagon began to slide it could drag the horses with it and roll on top of the men. They had made thick horseshoes out of the old sack-bags to help the horses grip, but this would not save them in a fall.

It was a nightmare. We had never been in such a predicament before. We had not gone far when me dad pulled up to talk to his brother Jim. They had not said where we could make for before we had pulled out.

“The best place to head for,” said Jim, “is on Chapel Plaister. There’ll be lots of other Travellers pulled up and we can get lost amongst them.”

“Which is the best road to take, then?” asked me dad, for we could not afford to take a hilly road, it would be far too dangerous.

I don’t know the exact mileage from Melksham to Chapel Plaister Common, but it could be five miles by the back roads. We were travelling so slow it took hours. Thank god we had packed wood for the stove so at least we could keep warm. Not so for the grown-ups, for the two men were walking and sliding at their horses’ heads, trying to coax them on and hold them up as they went. Me mam was standing on the foreboard, ready to jump off and help me dad if it came to it. The heavy wagons could cause problems. It wouldn’t take much for them to slide all over the road, so it was sheer guts and determination that kept them going.

All this time our poor Alfie was frit* to death.

≡ Frightened.

He and we others never understood what was really going on but we knew that whatever it took, me mam and dad would protect us from any danger. We had a deep trust in them.

We travelled at not even a horse’s regular pace, creeping along. I remember the moon coming out to guide us, and our world had a blue tinge to it. As we crept past country cottages we could see and smell the coal-smoke from their fires, and they never knew we were passing them by. Once an old fox pelted across our path, but neither our Patchie nor Ticker blinked an eyelid.

The hours felt like days to us, and even though me mam told us to get to sleep we could not, for we felt their worries and heard them muttering to each other. In and out, me dad and Jim would call to each other, asking if all was well. I believe it was only because of the surefootedness of our horses that we finally pulled on to Chapel Plaister, tired and worried but finally safe.

♦

The Travellers on the common had all bedded down for the night and got a fright when the dogs started to bark at us. Heads poked out of their wagons as we pulled up.

“What’s up?” they called. “Who is it out there?”

“It’s me, Lenard,” answered me dad. “We got trouble on our hands.”

At that statement, men and women climbed down out of their warm wagons and into the cold, snowy air.

“What’s wrong, Lenard? Hang on, I’ll make the fire up, you lot looks scrammed*!”

≡ Frozen.

“They tried to take me boy off me.” It was all me dad could get out, so very cold was he.

“Who did?” someone asked.

“The farmer mush*,” cried me mam.

≡ Man.

Some of the men took over our wagons, unhitching the horses and pulling the wagons right close to theirs.

“Fetch a bundle of that hay off me tail rack,” called one man. “Come on, you boys, jump to it!”

Everyone was jittery by now: a child was under threat, that’s all they knew for sure.

After hot cups of sweet tea were made and we were warming by the big fire, me dad told all what had happened. At last, we had our people to protect us, no one would get anywhere near our Alfie now, and oh, that felt kushtie!

“Well,” said one big-bodied young man. “Let them come here and try and take any child. They’ll go faster than they come, I can tell you.”

♦

It was months after we ran away from that farm that me mam found out, from the house-dwellers we sold wild flowers to, that a farmer had no right to just take our children.

When asked if they could, one housewife was astounded and said, “That’s not true, my dear. No one can just take a child from its family.”

Not satisfied, me mam and May asked the same question to many of the house-dwellers, who all told them the same thing.

“So it must be true then, May,” me mam said.

“It must be, my Vie, and just look what they put us through that night. We could have all been killed stone dead, an’ our horses with us.”

♦

Thinking back on all this, it must have been hell for my people back in them years. To think that if any gorgie* wanted one of our children they could just take them.

≡ A non-Romani, a house dweller; usually pronounced ‘gor-ja’ in Anglo-Romani dialects. Also written ‘gadje’.

How they must have lived in fear! I know me mam and dad did, for we always gave that farm a wide berth after that. We knew only that laws counted against us, that we were always in the wrong. It must have been a living nightmare.

There is an old saying that ignorance is bliss. In this case it wasn’t bliss at all. The Travellers of those days were very wise and skilled in many ways but never knew a thing about education or the law. They must have been like children to the police, who bullied and harassed them on a daily basis. The police would put them in jail for answering back. What a fearful life they must have led, and not just in them days, but for hundreds of generations before that.

Many kings and queens have created laws to restrict the movement and rights of British Gypsies, some ordering imprisonment, emigration, or even execution for our lifestyle. King Edward VI passed a law that ordered Gypsies to be branded and enslaved. What a nice man he must’ve been! The last known execution for the crime of ‘being a Gypsy’ in England was under Oliver Cromwell, but even now our nomadic lifestyle is still considered a criminal one.