Ten

Dad’s Magic Flowers

The next morning we said farewell once again and pulled out of the Prince Lane towards Ledbury and the hop gardens, with Jim and May following on behind. We were heading towards Bristol so that we could follow the old Gloucester Road to Ledbury. They were roads and lanes that our family knew well, having made this very same journey each year for generations. We knew each fast-running brook and farmer’s trough where we could find safe, clean water – we had to know these things, for most folks in houses wouldn’t let us mung any of their tap water. Looking back, it seems a sad life in which you couldn’t beg a kettle of water, but that was the way of things then, I suppose.

It was the time of year when the family made and sold wooden flowers. Me dad used to make delicate chrysanthemums from elder bush – big, beautiful blooms that shone snow-white when they were first made. I used to think of them as me dad’s magic flowers.

We were all involved in the making of them. We young ones would go out with Dad and Jim into the woods to pick out the sticks of elder bush that would be used to make the flower heads. We had to make sure they were the same thickness so that the flowers were all the same size. They were more beautiful that way.

When we got back to the fire we helped to strip all the skin off the elder sticks, making sure not to let any of the wood get into the fire. There’s an old Romani belief that burning elder wood or ivy would bring bad luck upon the family, and we considered it wicked to do so. Once the sticks were all stripped me dad began to shave them, shaping them into the petals, with an old, sharp peg-knife* – and it was sharp!

≡ A small, wooden-handled knife used for shaping wood to make pegs, baskets, etc.

Like all the men, me dad kept a whetstone which he was forever using to sharpen that old knife.

Gripping the stick, he would start to shave the end into a narrow point, to better marry the flower head to the evergreen privet. Then he shaved slivers from the end of the stick, creating curly petals out of the wood. The dozens of flower heads piled up and we put them by the fire to dry and harden. The smell that came from them was grand!

When they were dry, the women would dye them using different colour crêpe paper. We would use red, yellow, pink and leave some of the little heads white. We would soak the paper in a bowl or bucket of warm water, and then dip in the wooden flower heads and shake them before leaving them out to dry again. Finally, we would shove the ends of the privet up into the head to make the stems.

The large, brightly coloured heads showed up handsomely in the hawking baskets, and so they always sold well. They were a beautiful sight when married together and arranged in their little wooden bunches, and if their water was changed regularly the evergreen privet would take root in the water and stay fresh for months.

I enjoyed this time of year, for most days we stopped in a different field or lane, sometimes veering off to new villages where new sights could be seen. We were never allowed to wander far from our parents, though, but always warned to stay where we could be seen and heard.

With our flowers made up, we went out calling every day. We were moved on a few times by the village policemen, but each day took us closer to the hop gardens and the weeks of peace we knew awaited us, where all the old family and friends would be together once more. I knew our Alfie would soon be bending me ear, telling me how to behave meself and to leave him be.

“I’m playing with the boys,” he’d soon be saying, little mush thinking he was a man already, “so don’t follow me, my Maggie!”

As if I would.

Apart from picking the hops, during the day we would have such fun, especially in the evenings when everyone would let themselves go, singing and dancing on the boards. So roll on the miles, we would say each day. Let’s get to it!

I knew me dad and Jim could taste the brown ale and beer already, for each Saturday night – just as in the pea-picking season – they would be off up the pub with all those other men.

As we neared the fields, we children would sit by the fire at night and listen to the tales of hop-picking when our parents were young. Who ran away with whom; who had a good clean fist-fight; who bought the prettiest bit of ware. It seemed like nothing was forgotten.

Me dad and Jim had many stories of the boxing matches and fighting games that went on during the hop-picking seasons. Though a peaceful people for the most part, there were many Traveller men who would travel miles to watch a good fist-fight. Whoever could fight the longest and best and stay fair and inside the rules was considered the winner.

The men often witnessed these fights and told the story to the whole family later around the fire. Some fights lasted so long and been that bloody that they have gone down in our history. One such fight was between a young unknown named Freddie Mills, who was beaten by Young John Small at Tipton St John, near Exeter.

It was me mam that brought the tale up to the Travellers in Wiltshire, for Freddie Mills became the world light heavyweight boxing champion in 1948-50, and so for John Small – a close relative of me mam – to have beaten him so squarely was like having an important bit of history for ourselves.