Romany gypsies

[bilko]

Bit of an open topic realy.
I was reading one of the broadsheet magazines yesterday and came across a small article. It was about a man who came from Romany gypsies and lived in a caravan till the 70's, did all his cooking outside and generally used bushcraft in every day life. He said he smiled when he saw Ray mears on the tv as Romanys did this stuff every day " they lived it ".
it got me thinking that although i was adopted at a very young age with my brother, our nan said ( original one ) said she was part romany.
Well, I put the magazine down and suddenly realised if this is why i am so interested in the outdoors and bushcraft . Nothing more than a romantic thought realy and not a question that i expect you to answer

So just an open topic realy with any of your thoughts good or bad. Have you met any ?, do they live bushcraft?
Painted caravans
curses
tarrot cards
Beautiful gypsy roses twirling their long skirts in a strange dance round an open fire at night whilst violins play
Etc etc...

 

[-Switch-]

Kent has a long history of Romany Gypsies but I've not really associated much with them. Every now and then you'll see a Romany funeral - it's a massive, beautiful affair with horses and carriages.

A chap I used to know was from a Romany family and he used to talk quite a bit about their way of life, it's a shame I can't remember most of it I do remember him explaining how to cook hedgehogs though. Roll it up in a bit of clay and bake it in a fire. When it's done you peel off the clay and all the spines come out They called them 'odgie-pigs'.

 

[bothyman]

This book may be of interest.
A good read .

>> http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0722539940/qid=1145193123/203-6922242-5972706

MickT

 

[CLEM]

Well I cannot confess to knowing a great deal about them but those on the local site to me are a pain in the rear,dumping crap anywhere they can and ruining the local countryside with mounds of rubble and rubbish.At the back of the site there must be quite lirerally hundred and hundreds and hundreds of tons of rubbish which each year the local council has to clear up which is paid for by the tax payer.The wood that I played in as a boy is spoilt,the pool I fished in for hours on end is polluted and the whole place stinks of rubbish.They want all the benifits of society(and they get it) but not have to pay for it,they make me sick.Parasites.

 

[-Switch-]

Hmmm...

Let's not forget that there are several different travelling communities, and Travellers (or Pikeys as they're so often referred to) are very different to traditional Romany Gypsies.

 

[CLEM]

Hmmm...

Let's not forget that there are several different travelling communities, and Travellers (or Pikeys as they're so often referred to) are very different to traditional Romany Gypsies.

Well that may be so I do not doubt you Switch but those by me the country could do without to be prefectly honest.They have no respect for anyone or anything.

 

[gunnix]

Well an experience with gipsies is that they ruined part of a squat I lived in. They gave a lot of beer every day to us, and in return they could take old metal from the building. But they had to be thrown out because they showed no respect for the trees nor for the building.

Another is that there are some gipsies living in another squat and cooking great meals every tuesday. They are nice people. But with gipsies (just the same as with italians for me) many times it seems to me they are very nice just so they get what they want... if you understand what I mean. But ofcourse I haven't got much experience with them, so what am I talking about

 

[-Switch-]

I totally understand your frustrations there CLEM, I've had nasty experiences with Travellers too. There are plenty of sites round here that regularly get invaded by travellers and when they leave it looks like a bomb's been let off. They have no respect for anything outside of their life and they contribute significantly to the level of crime in the area.

But they aren't Romany Gypsies. True Romanies have a peaceful and respectful way of life and a rich, historical culture and are often upset that they are confused with more 'modern' Gypsies.

 

[demographic]

I am not trying to re-enforce stereotypes but any Gypsies round here are also not really the kind of prople I am keen on either.

Sorry chaps.

 

[tomtom]

this thread could go down hill very quickly and very easily, please dont let it turn in to a rant thread about past experiences.

 

[gunnix]

this thread could go down hill very quickly and very easily, please dont let it turn in to a rant thread about past experiences.

Yea I agree, we'd better be talking about what we read in romantic books about the gypsies.

 

[hammy]

Yea I agree, we'd better be talking about what we read in romantic books about the gypsies.

Do these people still live in our world though???

 

[bilko]

Thanks for your thoughts everyone, i guess i should have made the distinction between Romany and travellers clearer.
Thanks for the link on that book too, i'll be ordering later.
it is a shame that there are people that tar the name of decent gypsies ( if there is such a thing )
hopefully that book will give me some real insight into a dwindling race.
As for the other sort who rip up fences and park up on communial land draining it and spoiling everything around them i share your contempt.
I'll let you know if the books any good...I'm a slow reader mind

 

[-Switch-]

this thread could go down hill very quickly and very easily, please dont let it turn in to a rant thread about past experiences.

Yes, quite. Let me just state again, because Bilko and myself have obviously not made it clear enough, that this thread is about the traditional methods and skills used by the Romany Gypsies and their links to the bushcraft that we practise. Please do not reply with examples of stereotypes and malicious generalised statements about all travelling folk - that's tantamount to racism and that's not what this thread is about.



I think Bilko has brought up a good subject here. Romanies are, as far as I know, the only people in the UK that still employ 'bushcraft' techniques in their day to day life. They have a colourful and proud history and culture and alot of their traditions have lasted into modern times.
I for one would like to learn more.

 

[tomtom]

I read an article a year or two ago on the subject that I found very interesting..
The author heard he had Romany ancestry wanted to find out if the kind of people you read about so 'romantically' in their brightly coloured carts still exist in the UK today so he went to find out.. There was a very interesting article with one of the very few gypsies families who still live the traditional horse drawn life style of the Romany’s in where the head of the family explained a little about the closeness to nature they had everyday, how they always try to leave a site cleaner than they found it, forage for what food they can from the hedge rows and cook over an open fire.. Form what he said despite there being very few Romany’s still on 'the open road' due to a lack of available campsite and the fact our roads are so busy there is still a Romany community in the UK they turn out in large numbers for the Romany festivals, they live in normal houses and do normal jobs but keep hold of their traditions and beliefs.

 

[Spacemonkey]

I wrote a long reply to this thread about the origins of Romany Gypsies, but kept getting error messages when trying to post and lost the lot. Great fun after typing for so long... So I did a bit of Googling and found a site that backed up my historical memory and saved me typing it all out again:


http://www.paulpolansky.nstemp.com/gypsies.htm

For what it's worth, my mother has always claimed Romany descent on her mother's side, and looking back at family photos over the last 100 years I would tend to agree!! But then we're all a nice genetic hotch-potch on this little island of ours...

 

[-Switch-]

http://www.paulpolansky.nstemp.com/gypsies.htm

For what it's worth, my mother has always claimed Romany descent on her mother's side, and looking back at family photos over the last 100 years I would tend to agree!! But then we're all a nice genetic hotch-potch on this little island of ours...

Good link
Although it doesn't mention the existing British Romany traditions and mainly concentrates on European Romanies who have unfortunately been persecuted into giving up their identity and culture.
Interesting reading though

It made me think...
We watch television and read books and they tell us about these societies and tribes across the world that are losing their traditions and skills because of invasive modern culture, and they always seem a million miles away. Yet these people have lead a nomadic existance for centuries, learning skills and fitting them into their culture to be passed down to future generations - and now we see them also losing it to persecution, ridicule and modern influences and we tend not to see the similarities between them and the indigenous peoples of other countries.
It's a great pity and it would be good take the chance to learn about these cultures before they're gone completely.

 

[Martyn]

Hmmm...

Let's not forget that there are several different travelling communities, and Travellers (or Pikeys as they're so often referred to) are very different to traditional Romany Gypsies.

Absolutely. A friend of mine built his own horse drawn caravan in the traditional Gypsey style some years back and he spends nearly all his free time travelling the countryside in this caravan. He often gets mistaken for a Gypsey, but he isnt. He is pretty clued in to the travelling community though, but his interest is in a gentle rural way of life. He was telling me that true Romany's are pretty thin on the ground these days, those who live off the land are few and far between and are probably mostly in their 70's. He said the vast majority of what we Gorjers call Gypsies, are actually travellers & tinkers of a very different sort.

 

[Toddy]

Many of the tinkers, I never heard them referred to as gysies until I met an Englishman, were seasonal agricultural labourers, who were welcomed when needed and scorned otherwise. They picked up a vast repetoire of skills as they travelled around but very few were considered tradesmen.
A hard life I suspect; their women folk certainly aged very quickly when I was little. I saw a family every summer for about eight or nine years and the young bride who picked me up and put flowers in my hair became a thin, careworn woman, with too many babies of her own, long before I grew up, and she had been very beautiful.

I think a lot of the problems of the travellers sites are simply because there aren't enough of them. All of their detritus is concentrated in so few places, while the rest of us have our bins emptied every week and discreetly disposed of in *Mega* dumps and landfills.

One of our workshops was in a travellers site in Glasgow for a while; no litter since the council binmen visited everyweek just as they do for most households, lots of dogs and the site always looked like a cross between Steptoe's yard and a Scrapmerchants. It was astonishing some of the stuff that turned up and disappeared again when it was just what someone wanted. Interesting folk with lots of contacts.

I think countryside skills would have been much more prevalent among these peoples in the days before the infernal combustion engine, nowadays they rush around just like the rest of us, and I suspect miss just as much.

Cheers,
Toddy

 

[Keith_Beef]

I think a lot of the problems of the travellers sites are simply because there aren't enough of them. All of their detritus is concentrated in so few places, while the rest of us have our bins emptied every week and discreetly disposed of in *Mega* dumps and landfills.

I had some limited contact with gypsies in the UK.
I got to know quite well a family of settled gypsies, the man was on some sort of consultative body and was well versed in both traditional lore and European Union law.

I also went up to Appleby Horse Fair one year.

There seem to be a lot of scorn on the part of those who consider themselves Rom towards "travellers". But then, this was back in the eighties, and there was also a lot of scorn towards "crusties" and other "rave party organizers"...

Anyway, the gypsies I knew were always trying to get hold of old machines (washers, driers), cars, anything at all, to dismantle for scrap. So, of course, their garden looked like a scrapyard. The "gajos" around were all in favour of recycling, so long as it happened on a council-run site out of sight.

I think countryside skills would have been much more prevalent among these peoples in the days before the infernal combustion engine, nowadays they rush around just like the rest of us, and I suspect miss just as much.

Hit the nail on the head, there, I think.

We will be sadly disappointed if we try to fix the gypsies in a romanticized golden age; wanting to see the rural idyll being acted out on a patch of greenery at the edge of town.

The gypsies are part of the modern world, with its Mercedes Benz box vans pulling 40 foot trailers. With supermarkets and butane stoves. They're not going to shun the convenience of modern technology just so a bunch of townies can gawp and say "aren't they quaint".


K.