THE
HAMPSHIRE GYPSIES
As the Gypsies lived so close to nature it
was not unusual for them to make medicines from the animals and plants of the
locality, and their knowledge of folk cures is well known. But the recipes
themselves are a closely guarded secret and are handed down from generation to
generation. A gorgio would not know even a small part of the ingredients even
though certain plants and animals are widely recognised as part of the Gypsy's
medical bag.
Warts and corns were treated with the
deep-orange juice of the greater celeandine, though folklore says that often
the Gypsy women would wish the warts away!
Symbolism and magic are relied upon, and a
New Forest Gypsy woman was reported to have said that the best way to cure
warts was to impale a large black slug on a thorn bush and as the creature struggled so the wart would wither and when
it finally died the wart would drop off!
Tansy, a herb with a strong spicy perfume
that has a bitter flavour shows what superstition and medical lore is when an
infusion of the plant was said to be good for gout, but to wear a sprig of
tansy inside the boot was used to ward off fever.
Colds and bronchitis were common and a
large number of plants were used for their treatment, such as the smoked or
dried leaves of the coltsfoot, the Latin name being Tussicigo which means cough
plant, and since the times of the Romans its leaves have been said to be
beneficial for asthma and bronchitis.
The pennyroyal is also used for treating
chills and colds and so was an infusion of the purple leaves of the cuckoo-pint
which was first powdered down.
Ground Ivy is used and added to wood sage
in a tea is said to be an excellent way of treating colds.
Snake flesh and shells of beetles were used
for tonics. Animals were often more normally used in a magical way, and a Gypsy
who carried the skin of a frog or eel hoped to avoid rheumatism, a spider worn
about the neck in a small silk bag was said to reduce fever, Frog's flesh was
used as an ointment to cure piles and pig's fat is common to may of the medical
concoctions that the Gypsies made.
But plants and animals have been used in
other ways, not least in the Gypsy's cooking pot. Wild garlic and nettles add
flavour to a stew or roasted hedge hog which was a traditional delicacy, the
animal being coated in mud and roasted, the spines coming off with the dried
mud.
Also poisonous plants play a role in the
Gyspy's herbal remedies. The 'drab' was a lethal mixture that was used on
animals which the Gypsies would then beg from the farmer for their flesh.
In the New Forest boiled leaves of the
foxglove would be used as 'drab' and
mustard concealed in potatoes or bread was used to kill pigs. Other poisons
such as hemlock and nightshade, as well as many kinds of fungi, aconite and the
brown seeds of laburnum. The Gypsies however did not always use these poisons
to kill animals, for they were known to be a cunning and versatile race when it
came to tricking the gorgio. The times recorded that Gypsies suffocated a sheep
in the New Forest by cramming wool into its mouth, and then managed to persuade
the owner to give them the carcass on the promise they returned its fleece.
Plants and animals were also regarded in a
superstitious way to not only war off evil but to bring good luck. A
traditional charm against all ill wishers was the blackthorn and the menfolk
would often be seen with walking sticks made from the black wood of this tree
as a protection against danger.
The 'evil eye' was much feared, this was a
kind of spell cast by a malevolently fixed gaze, and there were numerous charms
for protection from it. The kin of a snake was hung on the caravan door to turn
aside the effects.
Another form of lucky charm was the frog,
and in the New Forest the water where a frog lived was always considered to be
clean and drinkable. It is said in legends that after the crucifixion of Christ
the Virgin Mary was consoled by a frog. The creature begged her not to cry and
told her she must accept Her destiny. Mary found comfort in this and blessed
the frog forever saying that wherever it lived the water would be pure and
clean.
The Gypsy is always deemed to be surrounded by domestic
creatures such as dogs, cats and horses
and some of the dogs were deemed mochardi while others were lucky or had a
special place in the family. No dog was ever allowed to enter the tent or wagon
and also not allowed to lick the face of a sick person. Some Gypsies would not
drink from the same source that a dog had used. Dogs were mainly used in the
hunting of rabbits and hares. Cats were also considered unclean although they
were often shunned for fear that they were witches 'familiers' rather than any
ritual sense of being unclean.
The horse however has always been the
Gypsy's best friend and it was sacred to him. The eating of horseflesh was
forbidden and if one broke this taboo then they would become mad. The horse was
also considered a symbol of both luck and prosperity and in the New Forest a ring
that had been plaited from the hair of skewbald (brown and white) or piebald
(black and white) horses, especially the stallions was considered as a good
luck charm to the wearer. Hence the gypsy would sometimes be heard to say ' may
your horse live long' which meant Good Luck.
The Gypsies of the New Forest claimed they
were the first to tame the local wild horses and bred them for riding and
towing their caravans, but the real business lay in buying and selling the
animals. Horse doctoring was often devoted to hiding the defects of the animals
but there were many honest remedies as well.
Nettle leaves boiled in water and used as
hot as possible for a poultice was a common remedy for lameness and sometimes a
poultice of green tar would be used, Sulphur and lime were often used on mange,
marsh mallow ointment or a liniment of camphor, methylated spirits and oil of
turpentine was used to sores and sprains.
Gypsies were also reputed for 'faking'
though and even Romanies were unable to cure a horse of broken wind, but a
mixture of wood tar and aniseed or treacle would relieve the condition. Just
before a sale a compound of henbane and elder berries were fed to the horse to
improve its breathing for a short while, just long enough to make a sale! The
New Forest was the scene of the autumn pony sales about eighty years ago but
nowadays there are few families in the country who make their living in horse
dealing.
The traditional work of the Romanies were
smiths and metal workers, musicians, hawkers and fortune tellers but the Gypsy
Lore Society lists over a hundred other occupations and some of these have
never been followed in this country, many of them that had have now vanished.
Agricultural work was the next most
important occupation, the other being horse dealing, with the gypsies in the
New Forest and at harvest time they often were seen strawberry picking on local
farms. They loaded their carts and went to Kent, Worcestershire and
Herefordshire for the fruit picking or to may hay.
Many Gypsies were and still are dealers in
scrap metal and in the New Forest it was quite a common site to see the Gypsy
riding down the street on his cart shouting out for scrap. The work was hard
but a living was earned and this was reflected in a rather bitter Christmas
song that the scrap merchant used to sing as he travelled around the forest.
'The roads are very dirty, my shoes are
very thin,
I
have a little pocket to put my money in.
Your pocket full of money, your cellar full
of beer,
I
wish you a merry Christmas
and a Happy New Year.'
The rest of the year was normally spent
making clothes pegs, dairy churns, casks for 'home made wines' which were
popular in the forest, straw baskets, beehives made from straw and nets made of
string for catching rabbits. Paper and rushes were fashioned into artificial
flowers and the women would gather daffodils to sell in the market. Even today
there are still Gypsy women going around the town centres selling 'lucky white
heather'.
The women usually hawked what the men had
made and some of these wares they peddled were bought cheaply and then sold on
or exchanged.
In 1897, Granny Gritt who was a Gypsy
pedlar and who appears in John Nortwood's collection of Victorian and Edwardian
photographs would be seen peddling tape in exchange for rabbit skins at Fawley.
Granny Gritt the Gypsy pedlar is Mary Sherred who married William Gritt,
who was son of James Gritt and Sarah Harris.She was born about 1842 in either
Cranborne or Winterborne, Dorset, depending on what years census returns you
read! The lady chibley (thats how they
used to speak in those days) sweep is Emma Gritt widow of Job Gritt who
continued the business after Job's death in 1907.She was Emma Gregory a widow
on her marriage to Job and was originally a Rampton.She was born about 1849.Her
picture is also on the front cover of "Fleet a Second Selection" by
Percy Vickery (Britain in old Photographs series ) The Gritts, Harris's,
Ramptons,all seem to have intermarried
along with the Rawlings, Ayres and Sopers, all chimney sweeping families.
At one time apparently they used to make more money out of selling the soot
than they did from the actual sweeping. In 1897 at Fawley 'Granny Gritt', a
Gypsy pedlar who appears in John Norwood's collection of Victorian and
Edwardian photographs, peddled tape in exchange for rabbit skins.
The door to door selling was an opportunity
for the Gypsy woman to persuade a housewife to have her fortune told if they
'crossed her palm with silver' and a fair amount of money was made on the side
through this. Many forms of divination were practices, with palmistry being the
most usual. But English Gypsies were also know to do Tarot reading, consult
crystal balls and read the tea leaves.
Often fortune telling was simply an easy
way to make money but on some occasions the prediction proved to be accurate.
Granny Cooper who was a New Forest Gypsy was said to have a remarkable gift of
foreseeing the future and once read the hands of a Salisbury ploughman and his
wife, and predicted that the couple would soon become rich and the man would
not have to work again. Some days later while ploughing his field the blade
struck something solid. He dug away the soil and found a crock that was filled
with gold coins. Granny Cooper was handsomely rewarded and the couple lived the
rest of their lives in comfort.
The Gypsy would also love entertaining and
had a fondness for music and dancing. Often the women danced and sung for money
at local fairs and horse races and one old New Forest Gypsy woman remembered
when she and her sisters were asked to dance for King Edward VII at Epsom
races. To the sound of tambourines the women swirled about in their colourful
skirts performing for the king while his friends threw coins for them from the
grandstand, and Granny Waters could remembe when, about the turn of the century
she and her sisters would earn around fifty pounds a day dancing at other race
meetings
The Lamb sisters also used to sing to large
crowds at the Forest Inns, their clothes reflecting the Romany love of colour
were decorated with pieces of heavy picture chain when they had no other
jewellery to wear.
Gypsy life however was not always easy or
happy and for centuries they were classed as beggars, thieves and vagabonds,
driven from place to place. But they developed a strong will to survive and
were good at subterfuge, They took on local names to appear less conspicuous,
Smiths, Stanleys, Lees, Cooper, and many more, some of these can still be found
in the Gypsies of Hampshire. They observed Christian rites and accepted
indigenous beliefs but above all they developed an excellent self-defence
against officialdom, which they looked upon as tiresome, in this they never
told the truth. They did not want to let the gorgio know about their race, so
they insulated themselves and protected their traditional beliefs and customs
beneath a veil of conformity. Sometimes instead of speaking Romany they would
use a mixture of it together with English which still made their speech
unintelligible! The Gypsy language has been the subject of a lot of study and
their words are still current even though there are probably very few if any
English Gypsies who today speak pure Romany.
Brian Vesey-FitzGerald records an
interesting example of the fact that some of the words would lie in the
subconscious and only appearing in moments of excitement or distress, when he met a New Forest story teller who was
recounting and exciting story of a poaching trip. As he reached the climax of
the account he would suddenly exclaim 'Disilo'. When asked what this meant he
would reply rather impatiently 'Day Comes'. But when he was asked days later
about the word he denied all knowledge of it! The word was often used by the
Gypsies of the Balkans, though he himself was unaware that he knew it.
Over a hundred years of study has shown
that the Romany originally came from India though the language has both
borrowed from and given to languages of the countries that the Gypsies
travelled through. The English has gained the word 'pal' from phral meaning brother, 'cosh. fro Krash, a stick. But the
Gypsies have no system of writing as we know it as they had no opportunity for
proper education due to being nomadic. All their traditions and rites as well
as laws have been passed down form word of mouth, but they do have a way of communicating
between themselves and again it is in a way to keep outsiders ignorant of their
movements. This secret code is the patrin, which is a system of signs left on
the road they have passed along, giving a clear message to other Gypsies
following later, Often these may consist of a handful of grass or a notch on a
tree or maybe a cross drawn on the ground. But the Gypsy can tell which
direction was taken, and how many wagons or families are in the group, even how
far ahead they are. Other signs normally found on the wall of a village will
show whether the villagers are friendly or not. In the New Forest bent sticks
indicate travellers on foot, and straight stick meant vans, branched twigs or a
spray of gorse denote a family with children. This patrin may vary from family
to family and thus the information would be intended for one particular tribe,
which was often the case for most New Forest of Hampshire Gypsies.
They Gypsy who lives on the edge of society
loving freedom and ofte courting danger inspires a rather over romanticised
picture of the way that they live. Poets such as Shakespear or Sir Walter Scott
often portrayed the vagrant Gypsy as a theme. Some of their treatment however
was down to George Borrow whose books first brought the Gypsy to public notice.
Borrow live and travelled with the Romanies and learned their various dialects.
Books such as Lavengro and The Romany Rye gave the opportunity for other
authors to popularise the romantic idea of the brown skinned nomad, whose
strange customs and beliefs made him into an outcast.
Borrow believed that he was recording the
life style of a race that would soon vanish from the face of the earth and
Charles Leiand who was another who studied the Gypsies, held the same opinion
fifty years later. Twentieth century scholars believe in the fact that they are
studying a group of people whose customs, languages and taboos are gradually
dying out. But the romance still surrounds the Gypsy, and there are few who do
remain true to the Romany way of life. In this modern world of today, with motor
cars and mechanised industry, the Gypsies are classed even more so as misfits,
often being greeted with signs saying 'No Camping', and also finding no outlet
for their hand made crafts.
The laws relating to Gypsies have always
been repressive and in 1959 the Highway Act made it an offence for them to camp
beside the road. If they did camp there, the local authorities would quickly
evict them and if necessary police would be used to enforce the eviction. They
could not get employment or have their children schooled or apply for permanent
housing.
It was in 1965 that a national survey of
travellers was made, and this was the first comprehensive study of Gypsies in
England, From this came a carefully planned scheme for housing them in local
authority accommodation and for getting them permanent employment. After the
end of WWII some of the Gypsies found shelter in disused huts on former Air
Force bases, such as Ibsley and Holmsley, but in 1947 it was reported that
Gypsies in the New Forest lived in these camps at a standard equal to that of
the Stone Age, often without water or sanitary facilities and no proper
shelter. The New Forest District Council
managed to house some of these poor families during the 1950s, and the house
dweller cannot really appreciate what adjustments these people ha to make in
this transition to a settled life, as no provision was made for trauma until
intermediate camps were set up, four of these being set up by Hampshire County
Council at North Baddesley, Headley Down, Yately and at Thorney Hill near
Christchurch, with each camp having a warden and a training officer.
Prefabricated bungalows housed the Gypsies
and they were able to attend classes on how to use basic necessities such as
electricity, how to cook and sew and generally on how to run the house.
Opportunities were also available for them to learn to read and write. Many of
them dealt in scrap metal but this was discouraged in favour of regular
employment.
By July 1966 most of the men living in
three of the county's special centres were employed as general labourers on
building sites, lorry drivers or park attendants, and advantage of the Gypsy's
knowledge of the Forest was taken for many of them were employed in forestry
work. Around a hundred families have been settle in council houses from these
intermediate camps and the programme was so successful that the camps at
Headley Down and North Baddesley have been closed.
A lot of Gypsies do not wish to settle in a
permanent place and in the north of England there are still families who live
the nomadic life. The Hampshire families were fairly static or occupied
permanent winter quarters and wanted to be housed. But groups still exist who
live in sub standard camps. On the northern edge of Southampton County Borough
and on the eastern border ear Eastleigh are two such camps. Here the gypsies
were left to their traditional ways, dealing in scrap metal and hawking their
wares, until they are also permanently settled.
Today except for the odd family that still
wander over the border from Berkshire there are no long any real travellers
left in Hampshire, they have been overtaken by new rules of society and have
had to adjust themselves to them. With this they have lost their freedom and
true identity.
