| Description | Peggy Seeger talks with a group of women.
Track 1: A woman talks about making Irish stew and explains how to cook a hedgehog, 2.00 mins
Track 2: She talks about eating hare and rabbit, buying cheap meat from the butcher, making soup and plum puddings, and cooking her food all together in a pot, 2.09 mins
Track 3: She talks about eating toast in the morning and says they cook a proper dinner on Sundays. She describes a typical day cooking, washing, cleaning, and looking after the children, 1.54 mins
Track 4: She talks about listening to the wireless and says she can’t afford a television. Another woman says that gypsies are as clean as other people and talks about people looking down on ‘gypsies’, 0.57 mins
Track 5: They talk about the hard work involved in keeping the caravans clean. They say that the travelling life is harder than the settled life. A woman talks about Mr Dodge, who ‘tries for the gypsies’, 2.18 mins
Track 6: A group of women talk about paying for water, 1.05 mins
Track 7: Silence, 6.06 mins
Charles Parker talks with Charles Holliday.
Tracks 8-14: Charles Holliday talks about his childhood on the road – ‘things were real hard’. He says that it was difficult to get a living and find places to stop. He says that his family have always been travellers and have travelled up to Scotland to see somewhere different. He says they had several regular stopping places at Woodford and he was born at Wanstead. He says his father’s family were Lees. He says that people did not get married in those days, they used to jump over the broom and the children were not ostracised. He says that he is a traveller, not a gypsy. Charles Parker asks what the difference is. He says that the Lees are the oldest travellers on the road and the Hollidays used to live in a house. He says that ‘true-bred gypsies’ are bred and born, and do not marry, and call people who live in houses ‘gorgios’. He says the old generation of gypsies have disappeared. He says he was born in a van. Charles Parker asks how the Lees started travelling – he says that they were bred and born in tents. He explains how his family earned a living through agricultural work, making pegs, and talks about fighting in a ring. They also made money from horse dealing and fruit picking. He says that the father was always the boss of the family. Charles Parker asks about his family: he was one of eight children. He says that sometimes his family would travel alone, sometimes with other families. He talks about bird catching and rabbiting, travelling from London to Scotland, catching birds on the way, caging them and take them back to London to sell in Club Row, near Petticoat Lane. He says that this doesn’t happen any more because the birds are protected.
Track 15: They talk about the old traveller trades, such as pegmaking, dying out. He lists other traveller trades such as basketmaking and making pots and pans. He talks about working in a cleaner in a flying school during the Second World War and working as a fitter on aircraft, 3.19 mins
Track 16: He talks about being able to work as a fitter and read the blueprints for aircraft even though he can't read or write. Charles Parker asks whether he found the discipline of a factory difficult to accept: he says that he found it very difficult, 2.10 mins
Track 17: He says that he enjoyed the work in the aircraft factory and his wife worked there too and they earned more bonus than anyone. He talks about working on fruit picking and says people have no worries about travelling, 2.02 mins
Track 18: He says that he travelled until the war and he met his wife fruit picking at Wisbech. He talks about fruit picking on Mr Battram's farm and talks about Mr Battram and Mr Miller, 2.47 mins
Track 19: He talks about travellers meeting at the fruit picking and playing music in the evenings, 0.46 mins
Track 20: Charles Parker asks him about his boyhood: he talks about feeling 'set apart' and people shouting 'gyppo' at his family when they drove past. He says that people at Wanstead, where he was born, knew him, but he realised his family was different when they started to travel about. He talks about children in his school trying to beat them up, 2.27 mins
Track 21: Charles Parker asks why his family did not travel for the first six years of his life - he says he does not know. They talk about changes in Wanstead and working fruit picking, 2.05 mins
Track 22: Charles Parker asks how his mother managed having six children in a caravan - he says they had two vans. He started working when he was twelve, 1.23 mins
Track 23: They talk about schooling - he says he couldn't learn to read because didn't have long enough in one place and schools wouldn't take him unless he stayed for several months. He says his father could read, sing and play the mouth organ. They talk about his family, his children and grandchildren, 2.38 mins
Track 24: Charles Parker asks about the songs his father sang: he says he learnt them but he doesn't sing them any more, 1.02 mins
Track 25: He talks about working in the gardens and fruit picking in February and March, 1.17 mins
Track 26: Charles Parker asks about horse fairs: he says he used to break and breed horses. He talks about keeping animals: goats, chickens, and greyhounds, 1.43 mins
Track 27: Charles Parker asks about trading horses at fairs: he says that they did not mix with the fair people. He talks about horse fairs. He says they settled down in a house after the Second World War and says that travelling people have disappeared since the War, 2.17 mins
Track 28: Charles Parker asks what trades were available to them after the War: he says that they didn't want to stay - they wanted to deal in scrap, 1.08 mins
Track 29: They talk about the changes in conditions for travellers since the War. Charles Parker asks whether the travellers were made more welcome before the War: he says it depends whether people knew them and attitudes have altered for the good since the War. He says it is more difficult to find places to stop and people will give travellers work, but don't want them to stop, 2.14 mins
Track 30: He says that people will accept travellers for work, but not to live with. He says that the police will move travellers on because of new regulations. They talk about people nearby who was recently moved on, 3.03 mins
Track 31: Charles Parker asks about the market for scrap metal: he says that there is a good market for tyres and metal. Charles Parker asks when he stopped using horses - he says he used both horses and motors after the War. He says he still likes travelling about because he's been brought up to it, 2.25 mins
Track 32: He says that farmers have treated him well; they will give travellers a job because they are good workers. Charles Parker asks about feuds between families: he says that there are very few quarrels, 1.54 mins
Track 33: Charles Parker asks about meetings in the Green Dragon pub and asks whether they make music there. They talk about relations with the inhabitants of nearby towns: he says that it's easy to be sociable, 1.13 mins
Total: 1.09.03 mins
Dubber's reference number: PLA KF549C0337580 |