Our Forgotten Years extract

Taken from Chapter 4

When we reached the next village, Lilea and I went out with our mams and Aunt May to call on the doors. It was the first time that year we had gone calling, and so me dad pulled me aside to give me a strict warning.

“Maggie, my gal, when you go out today you will see money on the doorsteps. That money is not yours, Maggie. It belongs to the baker or the milkman or butcher, but not you. Now have you got that?”

“Yes, dad, I knows it,” I replied.

“Well remember it, or you will get locked up!”

It was a familiar warning; he always gave us the same talk whenever we had to knock on doors, fearing that we would get ourselves into bother. We knew better than to pick anything up, but would accept a penny or two if some kind lady offered it. There were also the ladies who would set their dogs on you, or throw water at you just for opening the gate. You would meet all kinds while out calling, I can tell you; the good, the bad and the indifferent.

We were dressed up warm for the long walk ahead of us, me mam carrying the hawking basket full of flowers, and Lilea and I with our handfuls to sell. We worked well like this and I knew how to talk to the housewives at the doors.

“Can I sell you a bunch of lovely fresh flowers, mam?”

We would repeat it again and again through the day, and though so many people refused us, the snowdrops would sell. Snowdrops were such a popular wildflower, and though it took time to walk around the villages we were the first Travellers to have done so, as me dad had surmised. Pick first, sell first – that was his motto.

During the day Lilea and I had been given a few sweets and biscuits, but it didn’t help the cold. We were dreading the long walk back to the wagons until May called out that she had sold her last bunch.

“Well, let’s head back now so I can cook for my lot,” said me mam. “I could eat me a grunt [pig], I’m that hungry!” We all agreed and happily began to make tracks back along the road.

But all was not well when we arrived where we had stopped. Instead of seeing the welcome site of a roaring fire and our own wagons there was an empty space where they should have been! The police had been and moved them on, and all we found were lumps of grass left for us to follow, breadcrumbs to show us the roads our family had took. We walked on till we reached a crossroads, counting the lumps of grass to choose the right road. Eventually we heard a horse coming towards us, and to our relief it was our own Patchie, being ridden hard by me dad.”

Taken from Romani Cooking

Below you will find a few of my favourite recipes. These meals were nearly always made over an open fire, using a kettle iron to balance the big black pots we had. When I was young we never had scales to weigh our flour or fat on. Instead, we would manage with a spoon or teacup and so developed a keen feel for the amounts that each recipe needed. Because of this, I can’t give exact measurements for any of these recipes, but have included them to give an idea of how we lived and the sort of food we ate. Please treat these recipes in that spirit.

Joe Gray

This is the most common hot meal we cooked, with a smell so rich you can tell it from a great distance. To make it:

• Half fill a swing-handled pan with water and place it over the kettle iron to simmer.
• Wash and chop up tatters, onions and other veg (like swede or carrot) and add to the pan, seasoning with salt and pepper.
• After ten or fifteen minutes, when the veg is half-cooked, slice off thick slices of bacon from your side of meat and add to the pot. As the water steams off, the fat from the bacon will finish cooking the meal, creating its own gravy.
• Using a skimmer or fork, keep the meal turning until cooked, adding a drop more water if needed.

Pancakes

These pancakes come from an old recipe and have been made in the same way for hundreds of years. We often ate them as snacks in cold weather, such as when we were working on the pea fields and hop gardens. Once cold they are kushtie sliced in half and spread with jam.

• Have a good swing-handled pan hanging over the yog, with a dollop of lard melting in it ready.
• Mix plain flour with lard and dried fruit. When well mixed, add water to bind into a dough.
• Break off a bit of dough and pat it in your hand until you get a round, inch-thick piece of dough, about the size of a small plate.
• Pop it in the hot pan, making sure it doesn’t cook too fast, and flip the pancake when one side is cooked, to brown the cake on both sides
• Turn out onto a plate and sprinkle with brown sugar.