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Home > Romani Studies > Stopping Places
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Stopping Places

A Gypsy history of South London and Kent

Author: Simon Evans

Price: £14.99 (free postage)

"

“I cannot recommend this book enough to anyone with an interest in Gypsy life and history. Wonderful photos. I was delighted to hear all the quotes … A true account of a lifestyle that was snatched from under our feet.”

-Mick Harrington,
a Kent Traveller, Travellers’ Times

About the book

Stopping Places was shortlisted for the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award 2005

The county of Kent, the "Garden of England", was also the market garden for London.

The regular round of seasonal work — picking hops, fruit-picking and gathering peas, beans and other crops — attracted families of Gypsies who returned to the same encampments and worked on the same farms from one generation to the next.

  • More about the book

    Stopping Places gives vivid first-hand accounts of the traditional life of these Gypsies, living in bender tents and horse-drawn wooden vardos, until the mechanisation of farming began to reduce the need for casual labour.

    At the same time, life on the road was becoming increasingly difficult because the traditional stopping places were disappearing. Eventually a whole way of life was swept away, often violently, and the Gypsies were forced to live "on the verge" or on officially designated council camp sites.

    Increasingly, the ultimate fate of many Gypsies today is to make the traumatic transition from a nomadic lifestyle to enforced settlement in houses.

    The events in South East England recounted here, with over 170 stunning photographs, mirror the experience of Travellers across the United Kingdom.

  • View the table of contents

    Contents


     Acknowledgementsvi
     List of Illustrationsvii
     Introduction1
    1The Old Ways12
    2Horse-drawn Days31
    3Winds of Change51
    4Nowhere to go79
    5After the Act118

  • About the Author/s:

    Simon Evans

    Simon Evans produces radio for the BBC and in May 2004 won a Sony Award for his work on Romany Voices for BBC Radio Kent.

    He is also a writer, photographer and video-maker.

    He has a longstanding relationship with the Romany community in Kent and is involved with a number of innovative educational projects which aim to integrate Romany culture into the school curriculum.

ISBN: 978-1-902806-30-3 Format: Paperback, 176pp Published: Oct 2004

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Big Louie and Me
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Smoke in the Lanes
Smoke in the Lanes
We are the Romani People
We are the Romani People

Any questions

Contact us at UH Press if you have any queries or would like to find out more about this book.

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  • Assembling Enclosure
  • Custom and Commercialisation in English Rural Society
  • Farmers, Consumers, Innovators
  • Lady Anne Bacon
  • Wearmouth and Jarrow

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