Four

Snowdrop Woods

Soon it was time to leave our friends from off the common. Christmas had hardly been a Christmas for us, but me mam promised to make up for it next year. It was time to travel to the wild snowdrops, and get back to earning a few shillings, so with May and Jim we set off for the copses where we knew we could pick them in peace. It wasn’t against the law in that day and age to pick wild flowers, so we knew it would cause no trouble for us.

“It’s a different journey from the last one we made,” said Jim to me dad, thinking of the escape from the farm at Melksham.

“I shan’t forget the last one in a hurry,” me dad agreed. “Get yourself off, Jim. Today I will follow your tracks, eh?”

We said our thanks and farewells to the lovely families that had taken such good care of us that dreadful night and set out for new pastures. As me dad always liked to be one of the first to get to the copses, we had left early, hoping to pull up and pick what we needed and then be off to sell them before anyone else. It didn’t always work out this way, but he gave it a good try each year.

It was good to be back on the road, travelling through village after village, stopping here and there. Sometimes we met other wagons going the opposite way, or caught up to wagons ahead on the road and spent a few hours with them before setting off again. We knew every Traveller on these roads or thought we did, at least.

February was a cold old month with lots of hard frost and sometimes the snow would come down, but that year there were only the early morning frosts, which we could put up with. A good, big fire would put the frost in its place wherever we pulled in. We’d not earned any money for weeks, so things were getting tight in our pockets. Our Patchie and Ticker ate the new young grass-shoots as they had not had their feeds of hay so much as other years. It was a bad time all round.

We depended on the horses for our very lives and livelihoods – we could not get our living without them – and so Traveller horses were put before all else. They were often looked after better than us, specially bred to pull our wagons, carts and trolleys. Their colour is special, too: we love our piebalds – jet black and white – and skewbalds – red or dark brown and white. There are also red roans, blue roans, shiny dark bays, greys and the all-black. It’s the piebalds and skewbalds that are the favourites, but all are loved and cared for.

♦

At last we reached the Snowdrop Woods, me dad and Jim with smiles on their faces. Yes, we were the first Travellers to get there, and so the copse was all ours. We could pick in peace to our hearts’ delight.

As the evening was drawing in, me dad said we could pick our first basketful while he and Jim set up a tidy fire for when we got back, and the old kettle would be singing on the kettle iron. Dressed warm in jackets and wellies, I set off with our Alfie and Robert while Little Jess stayed with me dad. Our baby sister Emily was left snug in the wagon. May also went into the woods with Jimmy and Lilea to help us collect more. No matter who picked what, all the flowers would be bunched and shared between the two families at the end of the day. It was custom, I supposed: we always shared anything that might earn us a living – be it flowers, pegs or whatever – with the folk we travelled with.

It was cold in the copse and the white clumps of snowdrops stood out waiting to be picked. Their white heads, tinged with green near the stem, were beautiful to behold. They grouped together, it seemed, to protect each other from the sight of humans. Maybe it was fancy, but that’s how I saw them as the light faded – like blobs of snow left over from winter. They would end up in some house’dweller’s warm kitchen, on a table or window ledge, hanging their heads down shyly as though not to be seen.

“Maggie, get picking,” said me mam. “You’re here to pick, not to admire. That won’t fill your belly.”

“She ain’t got no sense, she ain’t no good at picking,” said our Alfie, that little mush.

“Shut your gab! I can pick better and faster than you.”

Our Robert perked up at that. “You can’t out-pick me!”

“Who woke you up?” I asked him.

“Maggie, I shan’t warn you no more. Now pick on, there’s a good gal,” called me mam.

So I started to pick, and me mind wandered. “Mam, ain’t it a shame to pick these little flowers? They’ll only die in they houses.”

“I’ll ‘die’ you if you don’t get on with it,” she hollered at me. “Now shut up and pick.”

I did as told, moving closer to our Alfie as I picked at each clump.

“Go and pick your own flowers, these is mine round here.”

“I’m trying to keep out of the brambles, ain’t I?” It seemed the best of the flowers grew in the brambles.

“Go away, our Maggie, or I’ll hit you one.”

“You go away, afore I hits you,” I told him.

With that, our Alfie pushed me straight into the bramble bush! I never saw it coming and screamed like a loony as I was scratched to pieces by the thorns in me legs and bum.

“I’ll kill you now!” I hollered at him, cold and crying and mad as hell, and off he ran! Alfie knew better than to stand his ground when me temper was up.

“Right, you two, that’s a hiding for you,” shouted me mam.

Lilea was laughing at me, so I snoped* her, as our Alfie was out of me reach.

≡ Hit.

“Hark, hark,” said May suddenly, stopping our fights immediately. “Somebody’s a-coming.”

“It could be one of they old tramps,” me mam replied.

“Better get ourselves a good stick each,” said May. “You never knows what they old men will do.”

Soon we could all hear someone treading heavily through the trees. That shut me up quick! I was frit to death of old tramps and picked up a stick to beat this one with, in case he got cheeky to me mam.

May began to laugh as a man came out of the dense woods, and soon we could recognise me dad’s older brother, Joe – Cock-eye Joe, as he was known – coming towards us.

“It’s only you, Joe!” exclaimed May.

“What’s you laughing at?” he asked her.

“She thought you was one of they old tramps coming at us,” answered me mam.

“Well, I ain’t no tramp,” he cried.

“We knows that now,” soothed May, “but put yourself in our place! Here we is, deep in the copse nearly on dark, and we hears some man a-coming – what would you have thought, eh?”

“We just pulled in with your lot,” Joe explained, “an’ I thought as how I’d start picking a few flowers for my Allie. Give her a start for tomorrow.”

We all apologised to him, and explained how he’d put the frits on us all. The fear and relief had taken me mind off me own problems for a minute or two, but now I could see the blood from the bramble thorns running all down me legs. I turned to me mam with a grimace.

“That’s it, Mam. I shan’t pick no more the day. I’m off back to me dad.”

“If you don’t pick a few more, you won’t come out a-calling with me,” she threatened.

“Well, I will tell me dad on the lot of you when I do get back,” I said, but carried on picking under her direction. Soon our Robert began to cry out that he was too cold to pick, and Alfie too was trembling with the cold.

“That’s it,” said me mam, seeing how chilled we were and frit that we should catch our deaths. “Let’s pick our way back. We ain’t done too bad, as a start.”

Oh, it was good to get back to the fire, where we were soon treated to a fry-up: eggs, bacon and fried bread. Me mam would buy half a side of home-cured bacon whenever she could get it, and so our slices were thick and tasty.

After we had eaten, we gathered round the fire and began to bunch up our pickings in the light it gave off. We had stopped at an old cottage on our way to the woods, begging an armful of box – a small-leafed evergreen with a good, strong smell to it – to use as a backing to the snowdrops and little wild daffies that we would bunch together. We broke the box down to fit the size of the snowdrops, using it as backing as we made up our bunches, tying them off with strings of wool unravelled from an old gansey*.

≡ A thick knitted jumper, originally designed for fishermen.

We placed our finished bunches in a small tin bath of water to keep them fresh for the two or three days we would spend picking. As long as they were kept cold, the flowers would last for ages, long after we’d set out on the road, seeking villages in which to sell them.

The following morning, me dad gave our Alfie a dire warning to leave me alone while we were in the copses. “You leave my Maggie be,” I heard him say to my brother. “She’s a good girl!” Of course, that was a load of old flannel – I knew he’d only said it so that I’d go out and pick with the rest of them. Me dad thought I didn’t know what he was up to, but I did. I weren’t daft!

That morning, Allie came out with us, as well as her Joe, but their girl Cathy had to stay round the fire for she was nearly blind. But oh, she was a case! She was twelve years old and could sing ‘The Laughing Policeman’ like no one else. Allie had a big old high pram that they would tie on to the back of the wagon when they shifted and travelled – it was really for taking out with them when they went calling, but when they travelled Cathy would climb into the pram and sing ‘The Laughing Policeman’ at the top of her voice.

There was no doing any good with Cathy. As we passed through towns and villages – where all Traveller children knew to behave and keep quiet – we would have to walk at the side of the pram with her, trying to keep her hushed. She was a big old gal, for she could do little work and would sit about for most of the day, but Allie and Joe spoilt her to bits.

After breakfast we all went out into the copses picking. Besides from the few scraps between me and our Alfie, we picked really well. We felt safe with Joe alongside us – we knew there were a lot of men living rough in the woods and copses, and we were always wary of them, for we never knew what frame of mind they might be in if we met them in the middle of the woods. People called them tramps, but me dad had talked to a few of them and was told sad stories about returning from the war to find that all they had owned was gone – including their wives and families – so they’d had no choice but to take to the roads.

It’s always a cold time when we pick the flowers in early spring, and February can be a cruel month. It was having a good time with us on that morning, for we shivered as we bent down in the brambles to reach and pick the shy little flowers there. Each year we went through the same routine, for not only did it bring in a few shillings, but brightened up the lives of the house-dwellers that bought them.

“I hope my Lenard catches me a couple of shushies by the time we gets back,” I heard me mam say to Allie, “make me a warm broth!”

“And I hope he thinks of me and Joe while he’s at it,” smiled Allie.

“He will, my Allie! He’ll ketch enough to feed the village, if I know him.”

She was right. Me dad and our two Jack Russells – Bizzie and Spider – often caught more than we needed just for ourselves. He’d have the butcher’s shop in mind while he was out hunting, for the butcher, coalman and baker mush were often willing to buy the wild shushies that he caught. Sometimes they would follow our wagon as we travelled through a village, waiting for us to pull in to give the men orders for rabbits and other game they might catch, and our men were only too happy to oblige – so long as they could take the skins back after they had been prepared. There was money to be made in the skins as well as the meat, and so our men always took the opportunity to sell them twice.

We must have been in the copse a good couple of hours when we were called to stop. By then, we’d picked enough for the day to get out of the cold. Me poor little skinny legs felt like lumps of wood as I picked me way between the blackberry brambles to get out of the copse. I was stiff with cold, and our fire was a welcome sight – Jim had the kettle on the old kettle iron, already boiling, so tea was not long in coming.

We children bunched up together by the fire as our mams were busy getting the black pots ready for making broth. Jim said he would ride his horse back to the village and fetch new bread for the women.

“Well, you take this clean sack-bag to carry it all in,” ordered me mam. “Otherwise the bread will end up all over the road – I know how you rides, Jim!”

“Yeah, better drunk than sober,” Jim laughed before he rode off to the village. His horse was so well broke in that he rode it bareback, using just a halter, and we did the same with our own. None of us owned any fancy riding gear like saddles or bridles.

Me dad came back with his shushies and called to Alfie to tie up the dogs before they ran off on their own. Bizzie and Spider liked to play with the badgers, not realising that they weren’t big enough to play or fight with them. We knew that badgers would fight to the death to protect their young, or if the dogs got into their sett.

Living our kind of life, we were always close to wild animals and grew to know the habits of them. You could say we lived with them, stopping as we did in the countryside, and many times me dad took us across a field or down a lane to watch the badger young at play, or a family of fox-cubs.

“You must creep quiet as mice, or they’ll hear you and hide away,” he would tell us. All young Traveller children got taught about nature, not just my family. We all knew how to look for and find hedgehogs, wild ducks, pheasants and par-tridges. We knew how to pick out the clean johnsnails* and work out if they were fit to eat.

≡ Romani name for snails found on walls.

We knew that animals expecting young were not fit to eat, such as rabbits when in milk. By our customs, they are considered dirty, and so we knew which animals were fit for the pot depending on the time of year.

The smell of the shushi stew was grand as we children carried on bunching the snowdrops. An old fellow soon came past on a pushbike, stopping to tell us that he could smell the cooking way on up the road.

“Made me feel hungry,” he said.

“You’d be welcome to a bit,” me dad offered.

“Thank you all the same,” he replied, “but my wife will have my dinner on the kitchen table, I hope!”

We smiled as he cycled on. Some people did stop to have a word with us, and we enjoyed it when they took the time to speak. Others would pass us by, keeping their eyes on the road or in the hedge, not even glancing at the side of the road where we were stopped. Me dad always said that it took all sorts to make the world. It wouldn’t do for us all to be the same, would it?

As we ate our broth, it was decided that we could pick a few more snowdrops for Allie, to even up the bunches we would share, and then pull out come the morning. Joe raised his head.

“Did you just say we’ll pull out in the morrow, Lenard?”

“I did, Joe,” he replied. “Is you hard of hearing?”

“No, I ain’t – but I bet you a shilling that we pulls out today!”

“Why’s that then?” asked Allie.

Joe nodded to something in the distance. “Well, just look who’s coming up the road.” We looked to see a policeman approaching us on his pushbike.

“I was thinking to myself it was too good to be true,” said Jim. “Nobody had been near us. It’s your fault, May – that policeman’s been and tracked the smell of your stew!”

“It’s nothing to laugh at!” Joe scolded him. “I was enjoying the rest and the fire.”

We waited until the policeman came to us, getting off his pushbike. “It’s time you lot moved on,” he said.

“We only just got here!” said Joe.

“Don’t you tell me lies! You’ve been here two days now. It’s time you were gone.”

“We’s gonna shift come morning, governor,” me dad told him.

“You are all to be gone in an hour,” the policeman ordered.

“Look,” said Jim. “We come a long ways yesterday, and our horses needs the rest. We’ll be gone a daylight tomorrow morning.”

“Right then,” the policeman said. “I’ll be back at nine o’clock and if you’re not gone I’ll summon you to court. It’s up to you.”

We swore we’d be gone before then, and the policeman left feeling happy with himself for getting rid of the Gypsies.

♦

The next morning we began to prepare for pulling back on to the road. We had to put out the fire and cover it with grass and pick up any rubbish to drop off on the next tip. We would head towards Gillingham, to Stourhead Wood where we would pick the little wild daffies, but we knew they were a while away from being fit to pick. A couple of weeks would do the trick, and meanwhile we could take our time selling our snowdrop bunches.

When we reached the next village, Lilea and I went out with our mams and Aunt May to call on the doors. It was the first time that year we had gone calling, and so me dad pulled me aside to give me a strict warning.

“Maggie, my gal, when you go out today you will see money on the doorsteps. That money is not yours, Maggie. It belongs to the baker or the milkman or butcher, but not you. Now have you got that?”

“Yes, Dad, I knows it,” I replied. “Well remember it, or you will get locked up!” It was a familiar warning; he always gave us the same talk whenever we had to knock on doors, fearing that we would get ourselves into bother. We knew better than to pick anything up, but would accept a penny or two if some kind lady offered it. There were also the ladies who would set their dogs on you, or throw water at you just for opening the gate.

You would meet all kinds while out calling, I can tell you: the good, the bad and the indifferent.

We were dressed up warm for the long walk ahead of us, me mam carrying the hawking basket full of flowers, and Lilea and I with our handfuls to sell. We worked well like this and I knew how to talk to the housewives at the doors.

“Can I sell you a bunch of lovely fresh flowers, mam?”

We would repeat it again and again through the day, and although many people refused us, the snowdrops would sell. Snowdrops were such a popular wildflower, and though it took time to walk around the villages we were the first Travellers to have done so, as me dad had surmised. Pick first, sell first – that was his motto.

During the day Lilea and I had been given a few sweets and biscuits, but it didn’t help the cold. We were dreading the long walk back to the wagons until May called out that she had sold her last bunch.

“Well, let’s head back now so I can cook for my lot,” said me mam. “I could eat me a grunt*, I’m that hungry!”

≡ Pig.

We all agreed and happily began to make tracks back along the road.

But all was not well when we arrived where we had stopped. Instead of seeing the welcome site of a roaring fire and our own wagons there was an empty space where they should have been! The police had been and moved them on, and all we found were lumps of grass left for us to follow, like breadcrumbs to show us the roads our family had took.

We walked on till we reached a crossroads, counting the lumps of grass to choose the right road. Eventually we heard a horse coming towards us, and to our relief it was our own Patchie, being ridden hard by me dad. He put both me and Lilea up on the horse’s warm back while he walked with our mams, explaining how they came to shift.

“He was a bloody swine, that policeman,” we heard me dad say. “We told him that we was waiting for you, but he wouldn’t listen – just made us go. Our Joe was going to knock him down.”

“That would have helped matters with you three put inside for the next six months!” cried me mam. “Ain’t you got no sense?”

“My Vie, I never said one word to that policeman,” he soothed.

“Oh, I believes you, my Len. You probably said about a hundred words instead.”

“She knows you, my Len!” laughed Allie, and me dad quickly changed the subject.

“Still,” he said, “we got a good fire on for you, and the pots are simmering…”

“That’s right, just think on your belly,” said May. “All you brothers is the same! Your bellies comes first – don’t worry about we three and the little ‘uns walking the last ten miles!”

We must have walked a fair ways at that, I thought bitterly. We must have walked hundreds of miles a year – but it was a happy sight to see the wagons ahead of us, the smoke from the fire going straight up in the air.

As we waited for tea, me mam asked if anyone had thought where we were headed in the morrow, for we had enough flowers for another day’s calling.

“Tell you what,” said Jim, “you take it easy tonight. We’ll shift in the morning and drop you off in the first big village we comes to.”

All agreed that this was the thing to do, and me and Lilea shared the sweets we had gathered during the day amongst we children, keeping us all mates for the night.

We pulled out early and we five got dropped off for another day’s work in a village near Shaftesbury. The wagons continued on, aiming for an out-of-the-way spot outside the village.

“Don’t you go too far afield today, my Len,” warned me mam as they left us to it.

We had a really good time calling, and one lady asked me mam to call back round on her way out of the village, promising that she had a few bits to give her for us children. When we returned to her, the woman gave her a lovely pram full of clean clothes and shoes for us, and treated us to cooked pigs’ trotters. May and Allie had done well too, for they had munged* clothes for their lot and their basket was full of good togs and shoes for us.

≡ Begged.

When we got back to the stopping place, our boys’ eyes lit up at the sight of the trotters.

In a way, I was a bit sad to see the last of that year’s snowdrops, as I was so fond of those little flowers. We looked forward instead to picking the wild daffies.