I have quite an interest in living waggons, having drawings and books on them including on how to build bowtops—was in contact some time ago with a wheelwright in England who sent me extra stuff. Maternally i have an ancestor, who was in the west Northants area near Eyedon, called Mary Rawlins whom i think was a Romany (Rawlin(g)s is a Southern England Gypsy surname), nothing about her in parish records except for her death, she being in a common law marriage; her two sons used her surname not their father’s (a common Romany practise), and her eldest son of whom i’m decended from was itinerant. T’aven baxtale!My earliest memory that I can accurately place by age is when I was nearly 4 years old and we were travelling in East Anglia somewhere. Sleeping in the wagon at night and being woken by a great droning noise that seemed to shake the Bow Top and made my dog Trix, who used to sleep under the wagon, bark. The sound seemed to last for ages and it was only many years later that I found out it was flights of aircraft carrying food and supplies on the Berlin Airlift for the German people because the Russians had blocked the City.
For many nights (it always seemed to be at night) the aircraft flew over the farm where we were in a Paddock. Dad was working there for a few weeks. The aircraft came from somewhere over by Liverpool I believe.
I got used to the regular flights after a time. When I got to 4 Mum allowed me to sleep in the straw under the wagon with Trix and we used to lay awake and hear the planes going over on the warm nights and look up and try to spot all the tiny lights in the sky.