|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
| Home | Business: Features | Pictures | See & Do | Community | RAs | History | Bulletin Boards | Site Index | ||||
|
||||
|
Gypsies in Epsom and Ewell
The story of the Romany people begins in Northern India, the home of many semi-nomadic peoples. From early times these have specialised in metalwork, music and dance, and other craft activities which might appeal to the settled community. One of these groups was successful enough to move into Persia, arriving in the Middle East by the 6th century AD. By the 1300s, Eastern Europe had developed an economy which could support migrants such as these, and during the next 200 years they travelled across Europe. By 1500 they had come to Britain. The Gypsies are the oldest ethnic minority in England. They have survived partly through exploiting natural resources, such as wild food or unoccupied land, but mostly through serving the needs of the settled community. There have been many changes over the years. The first families to arrive, with their dark looks, passed themselves off as Dukes of Little Egypt. They dressed in fantastic finery, travelling in some style, and they accepted gifts and money from citizens in return for bringing some entertainment to their humdrum lives. It was from their identification as Egyptians that the name Gypsies came. The first record of Gypsies in Britain comes from Scotland, in 1505, when the King ordered the payment of 10 French crowns to Egyptians. It may be that he was fond of music and dancers, or it could have been a payment for their prayers, since they had been travelling as pilgrims. The earliest mention of Gypsies in England comes from London in 1515, an account of 'an Egypcyan woman' who could tell marvellous things simply by looking into a person's hand. By 1520, Gypsies could be found throughout the country. The romance of their mysterious looks had begun to wear off, and the Reformation put an end to their status as pilgrims. Ten years later the first anti-Gypsy legislation had been passed. They were ordered to leave the country within 15 days, failing which they were imprisoned and their belongings were confiscated. The rulers of Tudor England were hostile, not just to Gypsies, but to any kind of travelling or vagrancy. People had been taking to the roads for years: some of them because their homes and jobs were destroyed as a result of enclosure and the break-up of the old system of farming, others because their way of life was ended with Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries. Settled people, if they were poor and unemployed, could be set to work under a master. Wanderers could not be controlled in this way, so they seemed to be a threat to the authorities. Gypsies were still welcome among ordinary people. This was a time when dancing and fortune-telling were prohibited by the Church: because the Gypsies were free from these taboos, they were able to provide entertainment as well as a useful pool of migrant labour. But the authorities saw things differently, especially after the Civil War had shown how fragile law and order were in the settled community. New legislation introduced the death penalty. The extent to which these laws were applied varied from one part of the country to the other, but certainly men and women were executed in Aylesbury, Durham and York, simply for being Gypsies. It was not until after 1780 that anti-Gypsy legislation was gradually repealed. During World War II the Gypsies became a useful source of labour for the war effort. Men were called up to the army and women recruited for land work and the munitions factories. Unable to read and travelling from place to place, many young men never received their call-up papers. Police rounded them up instead. Once in uniform, many Gypsies fought heroically, winning several medals. They were particularly valued as snipers and scouts, both in Europe and the Far East. But there was a shameful side too. A soldier might come home on leave to find his campsite broken up by the police and have to return to barracks not knowing where his family was, whether they were still alive or had been killed in a bombing raid. Not until after the War did Gypsies discover that they had been fighting, not just for their country, but for their lives. It is often forgotten that, in addition to the Jews, Nazi Germany tried to wipe out Gypsies - as well as homosexuals, socialists, trade unionists and Jehovah's Witnesses. In 1942, preparatory to a planned invasion of Britain, the Central Security Office in Berlin had begun to collect the information which would have sent English Gypsies to the gas chambers. Every year, Gypsy families meet at the Derby. The painted vans may have been replaced by stunning chrome-covered trailers, but for many families the get-together is as important as it was two hundred years ago. A certain amount of horse trading still goes on, but dealing now centres on cars, vans and other commodities. The Gypsy community and the Derby have developed together. Until the 1820s, the race was of little interest to the general public. Epsom Downs was a sheep pasture, and Gypsies stopped here as they would on any other open land. Seven families were camping out on census night, 1861: they were making a living by making mats and baskets, sharpening knives and selling from door to door. Ten years later there were eleven Gypsy households. Many of the men had exotic names, including Spicer, Belcha, Hezekiah, Orsery and Punch - and Geranium, Timminta, Countsalife and Venus were among the ladies. Beautiful names are a Gypsy tradition, but then so is pulling the leg of government officials, and sometimes it is hard to tell which is which. By 1891 there were forty Gypsy households, but the names are much more prosaic. This was a time when Gypsies were arriving from all over southern England for the race meeting. The waggons arrived about a week before Derby Day and community groups were established: goats and ponies would be tethered and the chickens turned out to scratch. Red carpets and churns embellished the state of the vans which inside were laid out with scrupulous cleanliness, while ornate china and cut-glass were proudly displayed at the windows outside. Boys were sent down to the springs at Ewell, or the horse-trough in Epsom High Street, to load up a barrel of precious water. Iron cauldrons were set to heat over wood fires, washing was pegged out and the business of the week began. Derby Day mania reached its height in Victorian times. People went more perhaps for the entertainment on the Hill than to watch the race. Some folk came to see and be seen and everyone else came to make a living, honest or otherwise. Along with the crowds came the travelling people - Gypsy fiddlers, flowersellers and palmists, of whom the 1829 Times said they were 'capable of telling everybody's fortune but their own'. Spielers shouting the attractions of the booths or sideshows were there, as were the wandering pedlars, entertainers, acrobats, stiltwalkers, and the men with their three-card or thimble-rigging tricks. The showmen, a quite distinct group, gather around the area near Tattenham Corner fairground. Up to 1971 the Dip Fair was the focal point of the Downs with its swing boat, merry-go-rounds and switchbacks fighting for space with the circus and sideshow attractions. Every year there was a new wonder to see - Barnum freaks and elephant headed boys, or Globe of Death rides - one named Cyclone Tim went so far as to ride the wall accompanied by a lion. And in 1933 the crowds could see Sir Malcolm Campbell's Blue Bird, part of which may have been built in Ewell. Epsom's response to this influx of outsiders was mixed. Some local people campaigned in their support, like Thomas Hersey the bicycle dealer of South Street. Others suspected that they were bringing in trouble. In 1895 there was a scare that they were bringing infectious disease with them - something unlikely, as Gypsies rarely stay in one place long enough to pick up an infectious disease. In fact they were more likely to contract one from the settled people, as there had been an outbreak of diphtheria on Epsom Common. Nevertheless, the Local Surveyor was authorised to inspect the vans and at his discretion disinfect them. One humorous councillor even suggested that if the occasion arose, he should make the disinfectants exceedingly strong. There are no records of disinfectant being actually used. Many other stories surround the Gypsies at the Derby, like the one which was abroad in 1932 - that they had been given orders that the fronts of their vans were not to face the road. The front part of the van is used for all purposes - for cooking, washing and dressing. The vast majority of vans do not face the road anyway, as the owners do not like people gaping into their living and dressing room. The principal factor determining how the van faces is the way the wind is blowing. Derby Day, with its colour and excitement, has long been a magnet for artists - and the Gypsies are part of its attraction. After the drab years of World War I, the race seemed to be a celebration of everything that was alive. Sir Alfred Munnings wrote: 'Never have I quite felt the alluring, infectious joy of the races, the tradition of Epsom, as I did in that first year after the war, 1919'. Munnings was a professional painter of horses and their jockeys, but he had an eye for the Gypsies, too - they struck him as a picturesque, swarthy crowd, especially the women, with black ringlets and heavy ear-rings visible under their large black ostrich-plumed hats. With a certain irony, they called him 'Mr Money', but were happy for him to admire the artwork of their carved and gilded waggons, and to follow the camps until he had finished his portrait work. It was Munnings who introduced his fellow-artist Laura Knight to Epsom Races. She had no interest in the glossy thoroughbreds, but preferred other scenes which reminded her of her earlier days, painting show and circus people. Knight, who liked to do everything in style when she could, went to Epsom in unforgettable style. A friend who was in the wedding business had a Rolls-Royce, which usually stood unused during the week. This was her transport to Epsom Downs, and on arrival she would set up her easel inside the car and begin work, while the chauffeur fended off curious onlookers. Knight's attention was soon caught by the Gypsies, and they played up to this: women would stroll in front of the Rolls and stop, taking up attitudes. Immediately she would seize another drawing-pad and make small lightning sketches, smiling her thanks at these peripatetic models. Girls came to pose in their bright satin gala dresses, their hair elaborately arranged with curls soaped to the cheeks. Kathleen Towle remembers featuring in the picture which became 'At the Car Door'. 'I was fifteen, and travelling with show people who took care of me after my mother died. Dame Laura must have been attracted by the bright colours of the clothes I was wearing along with the other girls in the picture, Rosie Price and Melanie Lee. Dame Laura had us stand at the open door of her Rolls-Royce while she painted us from inside the car. In my right hand was a crystal ball. Rosie had an egg-shaped crystal ball. She took a whole day over the painting. She gave each of us £5 - quite a lot of money in those days.' Like Munnings, Laura Knight made a good impression on the Gypsy models that she met at the Derby, and was allowed to follow them around the country to complete her paintings. Later on she wrote: 'I became friendly with an adorable, but frail, old gypsy woman, called Mrs Smith. She it was, who, while posing for me at a race meeting, said: "You like painting Romanies - why not come to our camp?" I never had a better model than Granny Smith, a true Romany. Although an old woman, her hair was still a jetty black, plaited close to her small head; her form was dainty and she was proud of her well-shaped hands and feet. The beauty of her features was not badly marred, even by a broken nose. "How did it happen?" I asked. "Me 'usband - twice", she replied. In one of the largish canvases I painted of her on her wagon step, she sits wearing her best hat, trimmed with ostrich plumes. Long gold ear-rings dangle from her ears; rows of coloured beads encircle her neck and hang over her gaily patterned shawl.' It was not only painters who were inspired by the Gypsies at the Derby: they also appear in the sought-after figurines of the potter Charles Vyse. Working with his wife Nell from the Chelsea Studios in Cheyne Walk, Vyse produced beautifully sculpted statuettes of people he had met on the Downs. Each year they travelled down to Epsom to study the Gypsies who formed the base for their figures. These were produced in short runs, only a hundred of each design, and were popular in the USA in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1930s, when Gypsies were faced with attempts to remove them from the Downs, they found an unexpected champion in Lady Sybil Grant. She was the daughter of the fifth Earl of Rosebery, who had had been Prime Minister in Queen Victoria's days, and she continued to live at his country home, the Durdans, in Chalk Lane. Lady Sybil was a tall woman, with flaming red hair and blue eyes, a remarkable personality and considerable talent. She was herself fond of caravanning and also held a hawker's licence so that she could sell from door to door for charity. She would pick snowdrops from the grounds at the Durdans every spring and sell them to raise money for disabled soldiers who had been wounded in World War I - a tradition which is still carried on to this day. She took a perverse pleasure in being the first licensed hawker to enter the Royal Enclosure. There was conflict between the Gypsies and the Downs administrators at this time, and Lady Sybil hoped to defuse it by letting them camp on her land at The Bushes. In 1932 she issued a public statement, saying 'I am hoping to organise the van dwellers into a humble little guild which will have the advantage of protecting the working gypsies and getting rid of those undesirable members who are to be found in every community'. A certificate would be offered to those who left their site neat and clean: it was named the Carolus Certificate, after the nickname of her husband, Major General Charles Grant, and at the bottom it read 'Let us show them what we can do'. Walter Smith and his wife won a certificate; so did Samuel Pidgeley, Ben Eastwood, Harry Copper, and John Wilson and his wife. Along with these certificates came boxes of food, containing tea, sugar, coffee, beef cubes, ham, chops, biscuits, tin salmon, milk, sausages, cocoa, and cigarettes. The prizes were judged and given by the Revd E. Dorling, who was Manager of the Grand Stand Association - not always known for their friendly policy towards Gypsies. He gallantly stated that 'the humbler van-dwellers had excelled themselves in tidiness'. In 1936, an Act of Parliament created the Epsom and Walton Downs Conservators, and gave them authority to run the Downs for the benefit of the public. One of their first decisions was to ban Gypsies. Lady Sybil considered this was against the Gypsies' rightful heritage, not to be able to camp where they had done for hundreds of years. She immediately gave them the use of a field, called The Sanctuary, in Downs Road. It was near the Downs, and ideal for horses as it was thick with grass. After the race meeting it was possible for a local newspaper to write: 'There has been practically no disturbance this Derby and the public and Gypsies owe a debt of gratitude to Lady Sybil Grant. When I visited their site this week the caravans had been arranged in orderly lines along two borders of the field, the children were playing happily in the hot sunshine and the horses completed the peaceful picture as they grazed further down the field.' The ban on camping carried on through the 1930s. Gypsies offered to pay to stop on the Downs at a £1 a waggon. It was decided to refuse them, in the belief that it would cost far more to remove rubbish after they left. Relations between the two groups had turned into a running battle, which came to a head in 1967, when summonses for illegal camping were served on 40 families. In 1969 the Downs Conservators handed the job over to a security company which provided 24 hour patrols to warn off campers. The Gypsies said that if they were prevented from parking they would stop the race. At the beginning of Derby week, two hundred trailers arrived and parked up as usual and the next day another hundred settled down on Derby Day. 160 summonses were issued but the race was not stopped, since as the Gypsies' leader said, 'we are on the Downs so we have won'. Only 29 summonses had been served, each carrying a fine of £3 for trespass and three guineas costs. Disputes like this continued until 1984, when a new Act was passed for the regulation of the Downs. Under this Act, Gypsies have a right to stay on the approved site on the Downs. Today, the horse-drawn caravan seems the most evocative symbol of a bygone Gypsy way of life. But the caravan, or living-waggon, was not originally a Gypsy tradition. It was adopted, elaborated, and then fell into disuse over the comparatively short period of a hundred years. Before then, Gypsies had sheltered in bender tents - a kind of shelter which goes back to prehistory. These were made from blankets, felts or weatherproof sheets, which were draped over bent rods of ash, hazel or willow. A donkey could carry the sheets, and fresh rods could be cut at each stopping-place. The floor might be covered with carpets or mats, and beds were made from bracken or straw. Bender tents come in all shapes, and can be joined up to build homes of whatever size is needed. It was the travelling showmen, rather than the Gypsies, who first developed the living-waggon in the 1860s. At this time the carriage-maker's art was at its height, but even so it was demanding to build a van light enough to be pulled by one horse, but strong enough to endure on the roads. They had to have tall wheels, a narrowed high-slung body, and a low centre of gravity so that they would keep stable over rough terrain. Vans are made of softwood, which seldom lasts more than fifty years with a hard working life in the British weather. Many tales of a van being a 'hundred years old or more' are just that - a tale. By about 1900 there were five types of horse-drawn waggon. Circus people preferred the Showman or Bourton and the Brush Waggon; Gypsies liked the Reading, the Hedge, and the Bow-top. During the 1930s another type appeared, the Open-lot. Many families who could not afford a trade vehicle customised their own home-made vans, built on an existing underwork. These were called 'peg-knife waggons'. Waggons changed hands for large sums of money. The Gypsies were very demanding customers, and vehicles were built to order, each one brighter and more elaborate than the last. For centuries, Gypsy style had been based on costume and jewellery - the only fine things that travelling people could carry. Now they wanted waggons which followed the same principles of intricate carving and decoration, with as much use of engraved glass and polished metal as possible. Flowers and horses were popular themes in the paintwork. It was easier for a Gypsy woman to keep house in a living-waggon than in the old bender tents. Cooking was still done outside, although several designs incorporated stoves for wet weather and for heating. There was sleeping space for husband and wife, and for the children at a pinch, although they often found themselves camping out underneath. Dogs were kept out, and the inside of the waggon would be kept spotless, with cups and ornaments arranged around the shelves. These would be of the best bone china, not of ordinary earthenware; the Gypsy took her style from the lady of the manor rather than the ordinary housewife. When the time came to move on, every item would have to be packed to withstand the jolting of the road. The change over from waggons to trailers did not come suddenly. Already in 1919, well-to-do Gypsies were having traditional van-bodies built onto motor chassis. As the old waggons broke up with use, it became easier to replace them with motor vehicles. These had the added advantage of seeming more respectable to landowners and police. For a while the old traditions of decoration were applied to the new vehicles, but this was discontinued, largely because it showed the authorities that these were Gypsy trailers, and so led to trouble. Instead, Gypsies bought the brightest and most striking of commercial trailers. Soon firms such as Westmorland Star of Penrith, Astral of Hull, and Vickers of Morecambe had responded to the demand, bringing out ever more resplendent travelling homes. By the 1970s Travellers' Specials had reached a peak of splendour and opulence, with every kind of modern comfort inside and the last available space on the outside panelled and embossed in stainless steel, coloured plastic, chrome and glitter. Chunky and elaborate chrome fender bars and overriders are mounted fore and aft, and the bevel glass windows are brilliant-cut by hand with garlands, grapevines, stars and sunbursts. The inside of a first-class trailer will be decorated as elaborately as any of the old waggons. Privacy is important: there should be draped bobble-fringed curtains and pelmets of Belgian lace, with tasselled roller blinds as well. Serpentine glass-fronted cabinets, tables, work-tops and upholstered button-back seats look best when they are faced with simulated marble or mother-of-pearl. All remaining wall-space can be lined with hand-cut mirrors, part-coloured, studded and decorated with designs like those on the window. From the 1930s onward, Gypsies found that open heaths and commons, often used by their families for hundreds of years, were being barred to them. In Epsom, travelling people had always stopped on Fair Green at the bottom of West Hill, bordering on to the wall of the Hookfield Estate. The Council stopped the fair being held there, largely out of concern for local residents, but many fair people and showmen suspected it was for houses to be built on the green. One of the old Gypsy women was so cross at losing her traditional pitch that she placed the site under a curse - any building on the land would fall down. Fair Green has been open space ever since, so we can't tell if the Gypsy curse will come true or not. There was a short period after 1945 when Gypsies led a less troubled life alongside the settled community. So many families had been bombed out, and were living in prefabricated houses or mobile homes, that the Gypsy lifestyle did not look so far from normal. There was plenty of casual work building post-war Britain, and no shortage of stopping places - old airfields were particularly popular. But these sites were soon developed. People began to move back into the cities and towns and as Gypsies followed, looking for work, they came up against unsympathetic treatment from the authorities. By the 1950s all the traditional sites had been enclosed with fences, banks and ditches. The Gypsies moved onto any space available - usually car parks, disused factories and other public land, which led to further conflict with police and local people. Under pressure from local authorities, Parliament passed a Caravan Act in 1968. The Act was intended to create a network of sites where Gypsies had a right to stop, giving them an alternative to illegal occupation of land. By making stopping places available, it would support the nomadic way of life - but in practice the trailer sites became more residential. Many Gypsies who had moved onto them found that they would have to stay put. Because there were only a few sites, with a limited number of pitches, there was nowhere else for them to move on to. Local authorities were often reluctant to provide sites at all. It was during 1977 that Epsom & Ewell Council had to reach a decision on legal stopping places. After Christmas, Gypsies moved into the area in large numbers, with up to 81 vans parked in the area. With a flair for publicity, twenty families occupied a vacant building site off Epsom's High Street, now Sainsburys. Others could be found in Church Street, while a further fifty vans were on the Nonsuch Industrial Estate. Twelve more parked at Cox Lane were 'slowly sinking into the mud', according to a local GP who expressed concern about the health of the families living there. Surrey County Council paid some, but not all, the money for laying out trailer sites. The difference, £3000, came from Epsom & Ewell Council. Since 1971 the Gypsy gathering for the Derby has been recognised by the allocation of an official trailer site with its own police station. In 1980 the number of trailers had dropped to around 75 and the scene on the Downs was described by the Chief Downskeeper as 'idyllic'. But for the 1981 Derby, over 100 trailers arrived early before the official camp site was open. There had been heavy rain: the turf was badly churned up. The problem was made worse because vans were being moved on more quickly in other places, while many of the Gypsies' traditional stopping places had recently been barred to them, forcing them to arrive earlier at Epsom. Unauthorised encampment continues to affect the relations between Gypsies and settled people. Attempts are now being made to find common ground: there is a Surrey Traveller Community Relations Forum, in which both the County Council and the Borough of Epsom & Ewell play a part. The social life of Gypsies has been changed by the official character of the new sites. Instead of a field or roadside, there are neat pitches marked out by white lines, and it is for the Council to decide who goes where: Gypsies can no longer choose who their neighbours will be. When family or grandparents visit, they have to share sleeping facilities, whereas in the past they just parked besides their family. As children grow up and need to sleep apart, a second pitch is needed, and this may not be next to the rest of their family. Gypsies have the ability to make some kind of living wherever they are. Each day requires a different skill. Settled people tend to plan their lives around careers and regular wages, but for Gypsies, work has traditionally been a means of staying independent and mobile. Members of a family will work together, or group up with others, as opportunity arises. Until well into this century, Gypsies were able to find a market for crafts manufactured from natural sources. Clothespegs, brooms, baskets and artificial flowers could be made in the intervals between domestic work, and then sold from door to door. Shopping baskets were woven from willow, or from paper-thin strips of split hazel. Large baskets could be built up from coils of rush, where this was available, or from strands of grass bound with bramble stems. For making pegs, rods of hazel or willow were cleft and tied with banding strips cut from old tin cans - a good peg maker could turn out a gross of pegs in an hour and a half. Artificial flowers were also popular; chrysanthemum heads were whittled from elder sticks, and pink and white roses fashioned from crepe paper. Real flowers, too, could be gathered from the hedges. Little bouquets of daffodils, primroses, cowslips, violets or snowdrops, according to season, were collected and sold. In this way, a few Gypsies might become known by name to people in the settled community. Dark Liza, who never missed the Derby, also sold pegs and lace and each spring she went round with the small daffodils known as Lent Lilies, followed soon after by baskets of primroses. Men would find work selling on other kinds of goods which might appeal to householders, such as carpets, wicker and cane articles, and cheap pottery seconds. Rag and bone men, going round with a horse and cart, took the opportunity to pick up and retail anything discarded by settled people. They would buy bottles as well as rags; in the 1920s, children would run after them to hand over glass jars, and to receive a windmill in exchange. To a child's eyes, 'the knife grinder was most exciting. He had a machine on wheels. He sat on a little stool and worked the machine with his feet on the treadles; a metal wheel whirred round and the knives and scissors that he was given to sharpen were held against this wheel and sparks flew in all directions. 'Chairs to mend, chairs to mend' was another cry, and if you had any broken cane chairs the mender would sit outside your house on the pavement and spend many hours patiently threading the cane in and out, fascinating for a small child to watch.' Dealing in horses, vehicles and almost any commodity is an essential part of the Traveller's life and dealing is learnt at an early age. Gypsies take pride in their ownership of beautiful things, but they know that everything is saleable at the right price. Making a good deal is itself a source of pride, because it has won money through talent, rather than having to earn it through drudgery. Casual labour is tied in very closely to the yearly cycle. After wintering in one place, Gypsies will set off shortly after Easter for early farm work, such daffodils in the West Country. During this touring around, it is easy to see when soft fruit is likely to be ready. One way and another, apples, plums, damsons, gooseberries, strawberries, cherries, black currant, hops, and peas all provide work for seasonal cropping between June to October. A farm is one place where Gypsies will actually find a welcome from settled people, and this type of work was the nearest that families get to wage labour. In any case, June brings the Derby, and some families may then go to Appleby or Cambridge Midsummer Fair. By August, there may be work to be found at the seaside. Women can tell fortunes, while men will bring a lorry and get paid for moving deck chairs. Otherwise a dry summer is ideal for repairing roofs, landscape gardening, gate making and so on. Autumn brings a chance for potato picking, and then back to the edge of a town to find a suitable site for the winter. A dog is a vitally important part of the Gypsy household. Not only can a good one be relied upon to stock the pot with hares and rabbits, but it is also essential for guarding the home while everyone is out working. A smart dog will be trained to catch or retrieve game and carry it straight to the trailer: some are able to locate hedgehogs, which can be uncovered and cooked. Dogs come in all shapes and sizes, but the lurcher is probably the favourite Gypsy breed. A typical lurcher is a cross between a greyhound and a collie, with a hint of deerhound, wolfhound, Alsatian, Doberman or poodle. It is bred to combine the speed of the greyhound with the character and intelligence shown by a cross-breed. They are called lurchers from their behaviour when coursing a hare, which dodges and doubles back: a good lurcher will anticipate this behaviour and turn with it, whereas a greyhound just overshoots the mark. Gypsy dogs are bred for fierceness, and will not hesitate to bite any intruder. Among the family, though, they are gentle, friendly and reliable. Although dogs are greatly admired, contact with them is subject to very strict standards of cleanliness. These would apply to any other flesh-eating creature, such as a cat - though Gypsies have never seen the point in keeping an animal that doesn't work for its living. Dogs are kept outside the trailer, and should not be stroked or touched before entering it. In the same way, dog bowls never come into contact with the plates off which people eat. The horse is almost an emblem of Gypsy culture. Horses are painted or carved on waggons, carts and lorries alike, and inside a trailer there will be paintings to take up the theme. Horse-dealing has long been either a sideline or a major occupation for many travelling people in Britain. In the old days a regular trade could be looked for from farmers and other private individuals, coaching and freighting businesses, the coal pits and the Army. There was a steady run-down of demand for horses in the twenties and thirties but, since the War, trade has picked up considerably. Although there may no longer be a demand for working horses, the recreational market for hunts and riding schools has increased to replace them. A fair living can still be made by a Gypsy with generations of experience behind him, especially if he can carry out simple veterinary treatment, and do his own shoeing - both potentially costly items. Even though Gypsies have gone over to motor transport, they keep a special relationship with horses. Children are taught to ride, and a pony may be taken on the road alongside the trailer. There is a strong traditional preference for skewbald or piebald horses, which over the years has led to an increase in them among the national bloodstock. The van-horses which pulled the old living-waggons had to be strong, quiet and experienced, since the safety of the women and children in the waggon depended on them. There are many hazards on the road. A horse not used to Gypsy vans can be panicked by the unaccustomed high overhang of the waggon-porch, and many a disastrous runaway has resulted from this alone. Reliable horses were not to be sold under any normal circumstances and became solid and respected members of the family. Horse-fairs have always figured large in the Gypsies' year. A hundred years ago, there were over a dozen up and down the country, many of them mediaeval trading fairs which had become incorporated into Gypsy culture. Today Stow-on-the-Wold and Appleby keep up the tradition. Families congregate from all parts of the country during the weeks leading up to the fair, and camp within easy distance to be ready for the day. At Appleby today the Gypsies arrive a week before the fair and eventually form a city of their own crowning the hill behind the town. Hundreds of horses change hands at prices that can range from fifty to several thousand pounds. There is other trading, in trailers, waggons, flat-carts, harness, clothing, footwear, bedding, cushions, china, glass and jewellery - all the trappings of Gypsy culture. Marriage has always been looked on as a personal affair among Gypsies. There are various ceremonies which the young couple can go through, depending on family tradition, but all that is really needed is for them to join hands and agree to live with each other before a gathering of other Gypsies. Nowadays this has to be followed by a church or registry office wedding, to make everything regular. Formerly, when a couple agreed to wed, they used to run away together, reappearing a week or so later for the marriage rites. Although this has a casual sound to it, marriage is taken extremely seriously. A Gypsy girl places a very high value on her honour, and so does her family. Courtship is restrained and any physical intimacy before the decision to marry will lead to trouble. Husband and wife tend to stay faithful to each other: there may be spectacular domestic rows, but desertion, separation and divorce are much rarer than among the settled community. Gypsy women would help bring in money by selling primrose baskets, artificial flowers and clothespegs from door to door: they could take the opportunity to do a little fortune-telling as well, and begging if times were hard. They would usually have to carry a child as well as the basket while they walked. On returning to the waggon there would still be the usual chores to do, since travelling is a very labour-intensive lifestyle. The very essentials of living - wooding, water fetching, harness maintenance, waggon-repairs, and looking after horses - demanded a lot of time. It has been traditional to keep a firm distinction between the separate worlds of men and women. This applies even at the most basic level - women's clothing ought to be washed separately from that of men, and hung up to dry on a separate line. A Gypsy wife will be careful to avoid letting her clothing come into contact with food. It is difficult to get basic amenities, including clear water, while travelling and this has led to rigidly codified laws of cleanliness. The interior and exterior of the trailer will be kept spotless - this is one reason for having so many shiny surfaces. Things used for washing the body have to be kept separate from things used in preparing and washing food - these means separate bowls and, in a trailer, separate sinks. Washing the hands should be done well away from ordinary washing-up. Like most cultures, Gypsies feel that cleanliness has a value that goes beyond the merely practical demands of hygiene. A proper sense of the rules marks out the Gypsy from people in the settled community, who have less demanding standards. Living among the fields and hedges, Gypsy women easily acquired a knowledge of edible and medicinal plants. Little bunches of herbs would be hung to dry inside the van or under the waggon-porch. At a time when medical assistance was not easily available, and could probably not have been afforded when it was, traditional infusions and salves served a very real need. Like much other Gypsy knowledge, herbalism has been surrounded by a mystical aura, as if it consisted of a body of ancient secrets known to Romanies alone. In fact it is a survival from a body of knowledge common to all rural people before the establishment of the National Health Service. Practices such as smoking coltsfoot tobacco, to alleviate dry coughs and asthma, go back for thousands of years. Aches and pains, such as colic, teething pains or arthritis, can be treated with herbs. Several plants are used as antiseptics, and so are moulds. It is known for a family to let a pot of jam grow mouldy, for the treatment of open wounds. This is, in effect, a penicillin culture. Feverfew tea is often taken for feminine ailments. Elder has been very widely prescribed - for epilepsy, hysteria, anaemia, coughs, colds, and pulmonary ailments, burns, scalds, and as an insect repellent. Like most country people, Gypsies are very cautious about elder, which is an odd sort of tree. It is best not to burn the wood, and the flowers should certainly never be brought inside a trailer. The sense of family loyalty, always very strong among Gypsies, is most obvious when someone is about to die. Family members and friends from miles around will visit the sick person, more of them arriving as the condition gets worse. It would be a disgrace for someone to die alone, and Gypsies feel that, at the end, it is better to lie under the open sky than shut up in a trailer or a room. Even in the sterile surroundings of a modern hospital, staff will be asked to wheel the dying person out onto a balcony. The body should be laid out in a trailer for the night before the funeral. Often this is a special one for the occasion; the walls are hung with clean white sheets, and decorated with fresh wild flowers. The dead are dressed in their finest satin clothes, with a candle lit beside them and the relatives will sit up around the fire all night. Bereaved Gypsies usually fast until after the funeral, taking only bread and water and this can continue for days afterwards. After one death, an old Gypsy lady was heard to say, incredulously, "They ate meat two days after the funeral! There's no shame with some people!". Funerals are elaborate, often costing thousands of pounds, and all the family will contribute financially. Special undertakers, with experience of the Gypsy community, are often used. They know that the funeral bill will be paid, although other bills may run into arrears. The display of funeral ceremonies - all the flowers and tributes, as well as an elaborate, gold-painted gravestone - are a way of bringing life to a spectacular end. Money and valuables will already have been given away before death, and there is a strong feeling that personal property should not survive for long after. Certainly clothes ought to be destroyed; most Gypsy people are repelled by the idea of wearing something which had belonged to a dead person. There is a suspicion that if a clean break is not made, the dead will come back and cause trouble. For this reason, old graveyards - even those where no Gypsies are buried - are never used as stopping places. Some Gypsies once pulled on to the neglected Hook Road Cemetery, but left instantly on finding out what the site was. The same desire for a clean break lies behind the spectacular ceremony of burning the dead person's waggon. This was standard practice in the days of wooden living-waggons, but had to be discontinued when motor trailers came in. Instead, these are now sold on to members of the settled community, who cannot be expected to live up to Gypsy standards. The last local Gypsy to be commemorated in the old way was old Mrs Marney of Epsom Common. When she died her waggon was burnt on the site where she lived at the bottom of Woodcote Road. The land was wanted by developers for a small group of houses, but the family would only sell if the council agreed to name the new road after her, so it is now Marneys Close. In the past, Gypsies used to be buried amongst the fields where they had lived. Often the grave would be dug beside a thorn tree, or near the shelter of a hedge, and even in a modern cemetery there is still a preference for sites like this. The gravemound was protected from grazing animals by a mesh of spiky branches. Often these took root, and the Gypsy's last resting place would be marked by a fresh growth of brambles or thorns. Gypsies have traditionally been more interested in this life than the next one. They usually chose to conform to the religion which was current among the settled people around them - Catholicism for those in Ireland, and the Church of England for those in this country. From the 19th century onwards, many Gypsies took part in a religious revival. Many became eloquent preachers in the Evangelical movement, and today, up to a one in four Gypsies is a born-again Christian. Gypsy support for evangelical movements may explain St. Michael's Mission Hall was built at the bottom of Woodlands Road. This was a little corrugated iron church, opened in the early 1870s as a mission church of Christ Church, at a time when there were few regular occupants of this part of the Common apart from Gypsies. It is very much in the style of other small churches which were built away from main roads for the use of Gypsy families.
|
|
|
||
| Top
of page | Sponsors
| About Epsom and Ewell on the Internet is operated by Internetworks Ltd of Epsom as a service to our community. It is supported by local businesses appearing on our feature pages which is a cost-effective way of promoting your services to our community. We appreciate your feedback. Kindly notify any problems to the webmaster. Last updated |
||
|
|
|
