The Gypsy Ribbon

The Gypsy Ribbon

The Gypsy Storyteller and her Shadow

travel the roads of Australia

by John Wright

The Gypsy Ribbon

John Wright

Copyright © 2006, 2011, 2012 by John Wright

Smashwords Edition

John Wright asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with copyright legislation and conventions.

All rights reserved. This publication shall not, in any manner, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the author’s and publisher’s consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 In at the Deep End

Chapter 2 The Hands and the Egg

Chapter 3 Vardos in the City

Chapte 4 Delightful Dundullimal

Chapter 5 The Tropic of Capricorn

Chapter 6 Interlude

Chapter 7 Around the Campfire

Chapter 8 Children and Books

Chapter 9 Southward Bound

Chapter 10 Up on the Range

Chapter 11 Windscreen Alley

Chapter 12 Culture and Kites

Chapter 13 Highs and Lows

Chapter 14 A Windy Atchintan

Chapter 15 The Storyteller’s Stories

Chapter 16 Looking Back

Glossary

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Gypsies are the ‘Bouquet Garni’

In the soup of our society,

Adding piquancy and flavour

To our everyday affairs.

They are seldom much intrusive,

But they sprinkle some variety,

Then precipitately vanish –

Leaving mystery in the air.

Kate Wright

From ‘the Gypsy Cookbook’.

Introduction

When most people think of Gypsies they usually envisage them as nomads, perpetually travelling with, and living in, Victorian style caravans, carts and tents. In general this is no longer true. When asked about Gypsies, the vast majority of people will say that there are ‘no Gypsies in Australia’. This belief is equally untrue.

These people are not recognised or acknowledged as belonging to our multicultural society. Kate, the Gypsy Storyteller, and her Shadow, John, returned to the road after years of living in towns and cities. They travelled in a motorised version of the old-style Victorian Gypsy caravan, towing a small version of the formerly popular Bowtop caravan. Kate earned our living by recounting traditional Romani stories while John arranged travel and subsistence.

This book describes almost five years of roaming more Australia, living as close as possible to the nomadic Gypsy lifestyle and bringing the rich cultural heritage of the landless Romani to a wide variety of non-Romani people. While doing so, Kate investigated non-Romani attitudes to Gypsies and their disposition either for or against prejudice and discrimination. She was interested in the reasons for adverse behaviour.

Here is a story of joy and heartache; of elation and despair; of new friends and new enemies; of discrimination and acceptance; from the bitter winter winds of South Australia to the tropical climate of North Queensland.

It is an eye-opening account of one woman and her shadow’s adventurous survival experiences as she took her culture and stories to the multicultural society of modern day Australia, not only to tell of her people and their history but to study their reactions and try to understand why others always portrayed the Gypsies so negatively.

I was swinging a sledgehammer in the back yard of the little house, breaking a concrete slab from which I had removed a garden shed.

Kate hurried down the garden path waving a letter.

‘Can I take over Basil’s wagons? He has to go back to England soon’

I paused from this labour, saw the excited gleam in her eye and said ‘Yes’.

‘Oh. Good!’ she responded, turned and hastened back towards the house. Our eldest son, Lindsay, had wandered in for a lunchtime cup of tea and a brief inspection of the progress in renovating his former home. He was brushed aside at the back door as Kate swept past him with a hasty ‘Hi!’

I laid down the sledgehammer as Lindsay continued along the path and we met halfway.

‘What’s all that about?’ Lindsay queried.

‘I think we’re just about to find out’, I answered, pulling off my work gloves. ‘Let’s have some lunch while she tells us’.

Gathered in the tiny lounge room, balancing plates, juggling cups of tea and coffee, munching sandwiches, we listened as Kate recounted Basil’s circumstances.

‘His wife, Janet, has just lost her daughter. She tripped and fell in the lounge room, struck her head and died. It was very quick and, of course, unexpected. Now Basil feels that Janet needs to be with the rest of her family in England. He thinks it may help them all to adjust to the shock and trauma’.

Lindsay blanched, ‘What a horrible thing to happen!’

Kate quietly said ‘Poor Janet! She must be heartbroken. I’ll write to her and tell her she has our sympathy’. Lindsay expressed all our thoughts. ‘Why Basil and Janet?’ Tragedy…always strikes so unexpectedly’.

‘Does his letter say how long they will be away?’ I asked.

‘He doesn’t know how long this is going to take, but he reckons ‘about two years’.

‘It’s too long a time to consider storing his wagons and puppets. The wagons would have to be found a good home and the puppets packed for the journey halfway around the world.’

‘When is he planning to go?’

‘Early next month’, Kate replied.

‘We’ll have to move fast then, to make arrangements here, assuming we’ll be going back on the drom (road) sooner than expected’.

‘Will you still finish off decorating the house before you go?’ Lindsay was always the most pragmatic of the family.

Kate was not to be distracted from her main objective. ‘Can I phone him and say we’ll have the wagons?’

‘Of course you can, Sweetheart’. I could sense an opportunity now for Kate to fulfil one of her ambitions - to go back on the drom in her own wagon again.

For the past many years I had been unable to provide the necessary resources for her to do so. This could be her big chance.

‘Will you ring him then, while I make more coffee?’

Kate has an abiding dislike of the telephone, due to a subconscious conviction that telephones were only invented for the specific purpose of conveying bad news. ‘OK.’ I swallowed the last mouthful of coffee.

‘Hurry up then, before he decides to offer the wagons to someone else. Here’s his number.’

She rapidly departed to the kitchen to rattle the cups and spoons - but not loudly enough to prevent her hearing the subsequent conversation.

Brrrp, Brrrp, Brrrp, Brrrp. ‘Hello. Basil speaking.’

‘Hello Basil. It’s John.’

‘I thought I might hear from you.’

‘We’ve just received your letter and wanted to say how sorry we are to hear about Janet’s daughter. I’m sure she’s very upset. How is she coping?’

‘She’s been distraught but is beginning to realise that we could not have prevented what happened. It was an accident.’

‘Well, we understand why you’re going to the UK. If we can help you, all you have to do is phone us.’ The telephone signals had indicated that this was a long distance connection and I was conscious of the cost of calling Basil on his mobile phone. ‘Where are you, Basil?’

‘I’m standing in the freezer aisle of Coles Supermarket in Albany, in the south of Western Australia’ he said, ‘trying to find a way to ask Janet if we can have something tasty for dinner tonight.’

Loves his tucker, does Basil, never mind the cost of this call. He was over 3000 kilometres away, on the other side of Australia from us in Sydney!

‘Kate would like to have your wagons and I’m sure they will be properly cared for. When will you be here? Or do we have to come and collect them?’

‘Oh. No, no, no. We’ll be heading east again in a few days but we have to stop in Renmark and Mildura on the way. I’ve promised to do some Punch and Judy shows there. So we should be back in Sydney in early April. I can let you know the exact date when we get our overseas flights confirmed,’

‘O.K. Understood’, I said. ‘We’ll write and exchange details - and phone each other when necessary.’

‘That’s great,’ said Basil. ‘Love to Kate. I think we’ll have roast pork tonight, with apple sauce. Yum!’

This conversation signalled to me that a dramatic change could be expected in Kate’s lifestyle and mine.

For several years Kate and I had been talking about going back on the drom. For the past three years we had been doing something about it. We had sold our waterfront apartment close to the centre of Sydney and bought a three-bedroom brick house on a larger block of land in the outer western suburbs at St. Mary’s.

Lindsay and Bernadette, with their three children and a dog, moved from their small weatherboard house in an industrial suburb to enjoy the extra space of the western house, and doghouse.

We had moved into their smaller house in order to renovate it or, at least, to make it an attractive proposition for a potential buyer.

When it was sold, Lindsay and his family would use the money from the sale to buy our house in the western suburbs. This would leave us with sufficient funds to outfit ourselves for living on the road.

Then, as Mr. Toad said, ‘Heigh-Ho! for the Open Road!’

Meanwhile, Kate was completing her university studies for her BA (Hons) in Communications. Her majors were Philosophy of Culture and Writing.

I was working south of Sydney, on a management project contract, with weekends, holiday periods and ‘spare’ time spent on refurbishing Lindsay’s property.

Into this entire activity Basil’s letter dropped like a bombshell.