by Jess Smith
For too long Scotland’s Tinkers, Travellers and Gypsies have stood holding out a hand of friendship; please accept this offering and let us be one nation. After all, we are a mere five million in population, dwindling daily. Let’s be fellow Scots and give our country a future where there are no differences, no racism, and no divides.
My friends, we have come yet again to the end of our journey, but this time I don’t want to say, ‘The End’. Instead I’ll just part from your faithful companionship with the words, ‘keep that kettle on the boil...’
GLOSSARY OF UNFAMILIAR WORDS
abun—above
ahent—behind
ba’ heid—bald person
baffies—bedroom slippers
bairnies—small children
bawbees—coins
bide—stay
birl—whirl around
bisom—rascally person
bool-moothed—posh-talking
bowdie—belly, womb, also shelter
braw—fine, excellent
braxy meat—meat which is dried, salted, stretched and cut into strips
braxy water—peaty water
breeks—trousers
breenge—rush, lunge
brock—cast-off wool from sheep
but-and-ben—two-roomed cottage
chat—small person
chitties—tripod
cluckie doo—woodpigeon
cornkister—bothy song
coup—rubbish dump
couthie—friendly, pleasant
cratur—creature
craw—crow
cromachs—sticks, shepherds’ crooks
croupit—suffering from respiratory infection
cuddie—young fish
cuddy—horse, pony
deek—look
div—do
docken—dock (plant)
dook—dip, dive
dreich—damp, dismal
dukkering—fortune-telling
een—eyes
een-gouged—with eyes put out
face like fizz—an expression of great displeasure
fauld—sheep fold
fit—what
fly—cunning
frickit—scared
fu’—drunk
gadaboot—wandering person
gadgie—man, particularly a non-gypsy
gloamin—twilight
gourie—woman
guffy-faced—with a fat, flabby face, staring uncouthly
haar—coastal mist
habin—food
hantel—group of people
hingin’—hanging
hippit—stiff
holt—otter’s lair
homer—casual job done for a friend
hoofit—hoofed
hoolit—owl
horn-moich—totally mad
jugal—dog
keeking—peering, peeking
kelpie, water kelpie—monster living in water which transforms itself into a horse to entice its victims
kye—cattle
leein—lying
loup—leap
lowy—money
manged—asked
manishi—woman
maun hae—must have
midden—rubbish-dump
moich—mad
mort—woman, girl
muckle—big
pagger—fight, hit
panny—urine
peeve—alcoholic drink
pirn—bobbin
plaidies—tartan capes
puddock—frog or toad
quine—young woman
ragie—silly, stupid
sark—shirt
scud—blow
shan—strange
skelf-like—slight, thin as a shaving
skelp—hit, beat
skitters—nervousness inducing diarrhoea
spirtle stick—stick for stirring food in a pot
spunk—spark
stappit—jammed
stookied—plastered
stotting—bouncing
swelt—swollen
tackety boots—hob-nailed boots
thrapple—throat
thronged hen—throttled hen
toories—caps
tushni—pieces of hand-made lace
wallies—false teeth
waur—worse
weans—children
whaur—where
wheen—large number, amount
yaps—individuals with too much to say for themselves
yookies—rats
ENDNOTE
1. As you will have guessed, MacSpit is a fictitious name chosen to conceal the identities of these particular folk—their real name bears no resemblance to it in any way!
One of the many rich traditions of travellers and gypsies—the coronation of the Gypsy King, Charles Faa Blythe, down in Yetholm in the Borders.
(Bob Dawson)
A typical camp of Highland travellers. This one is at Pitlochry.
(Bob Dawson)
The travellers earned a living by working at the traditional country trades. This is Isabella Macdonald, tinsmith, in 1889.
Every year these nineteenth-century travellers would head for Blairgowrie and the berry-picking, just as my family did.
(Maurice Fleming)
Strathdon tinkers getting the donkey ready for the day’s journey.
(Bob Dawson)
Camps could be high up in the hills, like this one…
(Bob Dawson)
…or in even more unusual places, like this one in a cave in Wick! Cave-dwelling gypsies are mentioned in the chapter ‘The Curse of the Mercat Cross’.
(Bob Dawson)
Jess’s father, pictured when he was serving King and Country during the Second World War.
Jess’s mother and father in 1942, at Pitlochry.
Jess’s children—Barbara, Stephen and Johnnie.
Jess’s husband, Dave.
Jess with Johnnie (left) and Stephen in 1983.
Jess today.
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM BIRLINN BY JESS SMITH
JESSIE’S JOURNEY
From the ages of 5 to 15, Jess Smith lived with her parents, sisters and a mongrel dog in an old, blue Bedford bus. They travelled the length and breadth of Scotland, and much of England too, stopping here and there until they were moved on by the local authorities or driven by their own instinctive need to travel. By campfires, under the unchanging stars they brewed up tea, telling stories and singing songs late into the night. “Jessie’s Journey” describes what it was like to be one of the last of the traditional travelling folk. It is not an idyllic tale, but despite the threat of bigoted abuse and scattered schooling, humour and laughter run throughout a childhood teeming with unforgettable characters and incidents.
TALES FROM THE TENT
In Tales from the Tent, Jess Smith – Scottish traveller, hawker, gypsy, ‘gan-about’ and storyteller – continues the unforgettable story started in Jessie’s Journey of her life on the road. Unable to adjust to settled life working in a factory after leaving school, she finds herself drawn once again to the wild countryside of Scotland. Having grown up on the road in an old blue bus with her parents and seven sisters, Jessie now joins her family in caravans, stopping to rest in campsites and lay-bys as they follow work around the country – berry-picking, hay-stacking, ragging, fortune-telling and hawking. Making the most of their freedom, Jessie and her family continue the traditional way of life that is disappearing before their eyes, wandering the roads and byways, sharing tales and living on the edge of ‘acceptable’ society. Intertwined with the story of Jessie’s loveable but infuriating family, incorrigible friends, first loves and first losses are her ‘tales from the tent’, a collection of folklore from the traveller’s world, tales of romance, mythical beasts, dreams, ghostly apparitions and strange encounters.
TEARS FOR A TINKER
In the third and final book of Jess Smith’s autobiographical trilogy, Jess traces her eventful life with Da
ve and their three children, from their earliest years together. Their adventures and achievements are interspersed with stories of her parents’ childhood, her father’s ‘tall tales‘ and the eerie echoes of ghosts and hauntings that she has heard from gypsies and travellers over many years. Fans of Jess Smith will not be disappointed with her latest memoir, full of more unforgettable characters and insight into the travellers’ way of life, a tradition that stretches back more than 2000 years and survives in the rich oral tradition of its people.
WAY OF THE WANDERERS
Scottish Gypsies, known as Travellers or Tinkers, have wandered Scotland’s roads and byways for centuries. Their turbulent history is captured in this passionate new book by Jess Smith, the bestselling author of Jessie’s Journey and a Traveller herself. Her quest for the truth takes her on a personal journey of discovery through the tales, songs and culture of the ‘pilgrims of the mist’, who preferred freedom to security, and a campfire under the stars to a hearth within stone walls. The history Jess has uncovered reveals centuries of prejudice and shocking violence by settled society against Travellers, including the enforced break-up of families and separate schooling. But drawing on her own and her family’s experiences as they wandered the glens and braes of Scotland, she also captures the magic and rich traditions of a life lived outside conventional boundaries.
BRUAR’S REST
Bruar’s Rest is an epic tale of love and loyalty set against the backdrop of World War One. The story opens in the Highlands at the beginning of the twentieth century. The gypsy wife of wild drunkard Rory Stewart dies giving birth to their second son. Many years pass, and Rory and his sons are rootless travellers on the roads of Scotland. One night, during a winter storm, they save another traveller family from freezing to death in a blizzard. Bruar Stewart and one of the girls he rescues, the hot-blooded and beautiful Megan, fall in love. But the First World War is declared, tearing their lives apart. Bruar is reported missing in action, and Megan sets off on a long and perilous journey to find him...An epic tale of love and loyalty by the author of the spellbinding autobiographical trilogy, Jessie’s Journey.
SOOKIN’ BERRIES
Introducing “Sookin’ Berries”, her collection of stories for younger readers, Jess Smith writes: ‘I have been a gatherer of tales for most of my life, and I suppose it all began when I was a wee girl. I shared a home with parents, seven sisters and a shaggy dog. It could be said that I lived a different sort of life from most other children, because ‘home’ was an old blue bus. We were known as tinkers or travellers, descendants of those who have wandered the highways and by ways of Scotland for two thousand years’. Acclaimed for her autobiographical trilogy, “Jessie’s Journey”, Jess is on a mission to pass on the stories she heard as a girl to the young readers of today.‘If you are aged from around 10 going on 100, then you’re a fine age to read, enjoy and hopefully remember forever these ancient oral tales of Scotland’s travelling people. What I’d like you to do in this book is to come with me on the road; back to those days when it was time to pack up and get going, and to take the way of our ancestors. I want you to imagine that, as my friend, you are by the campfire listening to the magical Scottish stories that have been handed down through generations of travellers’.