A GIPSY ENCAMPMENT IN ESSEX.
“A strange people, still living apart and keeping apart, the gipsies are, in England, as in other parts of Europe, a wandering tribe. School-boards, local authorities, the endless regulations by which civilisation seeks to protect itself, have made times hard and life difficult for the gipsies. Nevertheless, the little homes on wheels and the strange semicircular tents in which the nomads live are still to be seen on many a patch of open land, especially in the South of England. The life is a healthy one, and is not without its romantic side, and it must be admitted that the gipsies have moved with the age, and that they have ceased, in a large measure, to deserve the detestation in which they were long held by owners of hen-roosts and of all the small portable possessions of the farmer and the cottager.”
This was published in 1896, when the Gypsy population in the UK seems to have been held in moderate regard. It seems that they might be considered a “picturesque” addition to the native culture. On my travels throughout Europe and Asia today, they seem to be mostly a despised people. In my memory the last sympathetic media coverage was in “Sky West and Crooked” in the ’60′s, where Hayley Mills benefits from a relationship with a Gypsy man. I used to think that mass media has power to influence social attitudes, but then I think the Gypsies will always be a people apart. Don’t pass up an opportunity to see this movie – classic British cinema!
Related Links:
Sky West and Crooked (1966)
Vintage Gypsy Print, mounted, matted, ready to frame
Gypsy Names of Countries and Towns
