Rabbit Stew And A Penny Or Two: A Gypsy Family's Hard and Happy Times on the Road in the 1950s

By Author / Illustrator

Maggie Smith-Bendell

Genre

Real life

Publisher

Little, Brown Book Group

ISBN

9780349123615

Format

Paperback / softback

Published

16-09-2010

Synopsis

Born on a Somerset pea-field in 1941, the second of eight children in a Romani family, Maggie Smith-Bendell has lived through the years of greatest change in the travelling community's long history. As a child, Maggie rode and slept in a horse-drawn wagon, picked hops and flowers, and sat beside her father's campfire on ancient verges, poor but free to roam. As the twentieth century progressed, common land was fenced off and the traditional ways disappeared. Eventually Maggie married a house-dweller and tried to settle for bricks and mortar, but she never lost the restless spirit, the deep love of the land and the gift for storytelling that were her Romani inheritance.

Maggie's story is one of hardship and prejudice, but also, unforgettably, it recalls the glories of the travelling life, in the absolute safety of a loyal and loving family.

Reviews

lilyann - Age 12

it is my culture and back then things were a little different