Customs
'Bed - when I was a baby was a horse’s collar with a blanket over the top. '
When the First World War come along, they commandeered all the bay horses, black horses you know.
So the Gypsies bred the coloured horses ‘cause they wouldn’t take them. The army was stripping everybody of horses but they wouldn’t take the Gypsies horses because they was coloured.
George
They never really had a lot to leave behind…
When my grandchildren were smaller, I asked them to choose what they would like - when they were little and didn’t know the value of things - and you’d be amazed the silly things they chose, photographs... And that’s the best time to do it. As they’ve got older, any jewellery that I’ve had when they got to 18 I said, ‘Well what would you like?’ And of course, it’s gone down the line.
Susan
My mum was saying in her day, they used to have the real deal.
It was all gold, all sovereigns, they didn’t have no paper money it was all gold at the time. So when they burnt the caravan, they took the gold out and they used to break all the china.
John Butcher
Audio Clips
Damian Le Bas and the horse fair
Remembering a Gypsy funeral in Ditchling
Susan's traditional first aid remedies
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