life of a romanychall' . my romany storys'

all my stories are from myself or my family!

Hotchy time!

Well the summer is all but over soon and at and brugh hill time… that means its mushroom time. The puv's will be filled with Romanies with baskets picking mushrooms, all trying to get the button ones first!

But the time we all waited for was the frosty mornings or hotchy time, cos when the frost hits the ground that’s when the hotchies nest up and are fat for eating. If a man was good at finding hotchies he was as well known to Romanies as a pop star to the gorgers!

My family and friends will all meet up on Sundays with there sacks, salt, bread and butter, and of course the gypsie tea. They would all split up in pairs to find the best hotchy ground… a dry hedge or a dry clear wood. Each mush wanting to be the king of the hotchy men on that day, and wanting to find the most, and some would cheat coz they had been there before and already knew the best bores to dik at. Others like myself has the jukles little terriers... I had a Border X Lakeland.
I hawked an old gamekeeper for her and I’m not blowing my own trumpet but ‘Flint’ was the best hotchy dog there was...a good hotchy dog won’t chase rabbits cos there’s rabbits everywhere and the last thing you want is your juk to take off after a shushy when you’re after hotchies! Well I’ve seen Flint chasing a shushy and stop on the spot and bring back a hotchy... priceless... although by the time old Flint passed away I was sick of looking at hedgehogs ‘sal,’ and she never stopped god help her!

But when all the men got back this was the good bit… the eating around the yog! All the crack about who got the most… and the excuses about who got less!

Even sometimes the moskres would pull over and ask what we are doing with the fire, but when we tell them they go into shock but laugh and leave us in peace!

If there’s one thing better than hotchies its conengras… but if I start on that and juks I’ll be here all day!

It will soon be hotchy time and I can’t wait!

Copywrite © 2007 Leeboy' Boshomengra

uncles' achin' tan''

BY leeboy

The gorger mush told me there’s no where to stay?
So I turn and say thank you, then just walked away.

I went to the next and the answer the same,
You’ll have to move on and there’s no one to blame?

So what happens next? Do I sink do I swim?
I drive to a site, but they won’t let me in.

They say they’re full up, and it looks like its true,
But I’m still on the road so what should I do?

I look at my family all sat in the van,
And think of my uncle and his old achin tan

I puched my old uncle, can I shift on your site?
Of course you can son' you jin its all right.

So everything’s cushty I’ve somewhere to jell
But where I pull next, there’s no one can tell?..

That’s a poem about looking for a place to stay when you’re on the road. Years ago it wasn't so hard... There was plenty old pull-ins like the old coal board land, or a farm or just a rough old lane.. But in these days there isn't no were that hasn't been turned into a housing estate or a car park... So we have to pull onto sites or as my old dad calls them concrete reservations… today loads of Gypsies now live in houses, but we still have trailers for the summer and we tend to buy houses next to each other's as our family is always close.

Travellers and Gypsies have had a bad reputation for leaving rubbish or mess 'behind them'... well I can only tell you that no Romany Gypsy I know! Or anyone in my family has ever left a mess after us!!! If anything we leave a peace of land cleaner than before we shifted on to it!! Before we shifted my dad would tell us to go and pick up any mess right down to the last match stick!! And if he saw us throwing down a sweety rapper we was told off for it and made to pick it up strait away!!

I’ve spent a lot of time on sites and on the road... Most gorgers don’t trust Gypsies and I must say they have good reason not too...But it’s not the fault of the Romany... Yes there is good and bad Romany's but on the whole we are decent and peaceful people. But there are others that do wrong and we get tarred with the same brush!!

Thankfully things are slowly changing and I find that more and more people are starting to trust the Romany Gypsies!

Wherever we have pulled we have made loads of gorger friends...We make them welcome as our own and whatever we are eating we share!!

Like most Gypsies we have suffered racism but we have had many good friends that well and truly make up for any bad people we have met and so we haven’t dwelt on the bad people or racism, and we leave them with there unhappy life’s... we just get on as best we can with our lives.

For as much racism we got off of gorgers we have had just the same off of the travellers. It was more so in my dads days... The other travellers would call us the black faced ones!! Today it’s a name we are proud to be called!! But even as I was growing up in Scotland I was called dirty black face one! Or look it’s the black faces!! A lot of my family is very dark and some aren’t but we still got called the same!! Never the less we was always very proud of being Romany Gypsies and its funny that now I’ve grown up every one wants to be a black faced one!! And a Romany Gypsy!! This is something that makes real Gypsy people both laugh and very angry at the same time!!

Today Gypsy people come in all shapes and sizes some are dark and some are white, some have black hair and some have blond. this is because we have married in and out with gorgers or travellers but to be a Romany you MUST have the black blood, and Gypsies that carry the black blood will know all the other old families and remember all the old ways that the rest can only read about and try and copy!

Wagons, trailers, stick fires, hunting, duckering, horses, dogs, rumness are all a very important part of the Romany life style that I grown up knowing! But the most important thing of all is family! That’s what makes a Gypsy who he is!! Family!!

And so wherever they make us live or whatever we have to do to survive we will always be proud Romany Gypsies... And nothing can take that away from us!! Thankfully the future is just starting to look OK for the British Romany Gypsy!! Cushty bok to all my Romany cousins!! And all my gorger friends!!

Copywrite ©2007 Leeboy aka Boshomengra

king of the Gypsys!..

I was thinking about my uncle today. If there ever was a king of the gypsies it was he! He was my dad’s uncle my granny’s brother... but he was uncle to me. He passed away last year, one of the last atachapen coleir rat romani mushes. He stood 6 feet 2 and could cour for fun but never caused a fight in his life! yet he fought the best and beat the best… and the men he beat never had a bad word against him!

He could find a hotchy better than any man' and had some of the best canengra jukles in the country. He could rokker rumness like a man could speak English.

Black, white, Jew, gorger or gipsy he would take you in and feed you till you could not walk and always making you feel like one of the family.

He woke me up one morning at about 6 am. it was a cushty summers morning but I was nafli with the lavinda from the night before. He said ''get up my big dinler I want to show you something''
I thought “what ever’s this?”
His truck was outside. I said ''were we going Uncle ?”
He said “shut your mouth and get in boy!''
Well what could I say but “Go on then” ....well we drove for ages!
He asked “are you hungry my lad?” but it was in rumness as always with him!
I said “yes a bit.”
“I’ll take you to the best place for breakfast you’ve ever seen in your life my boy!

I’ve known this old rakly for years!” he said... and as usual he was right! It was handsome...I ate like a pig that day!

So we went on and I still didn’t know what I was going to see… road after road, field after field...Until at last we came to a old winding trail that leaded to a old apple orchard surrounded by trees..
”Well here we are” he said
“Dordy!” I thought… “What ever’s this?”
He went on to tell me ...”when he was a little boy he used to pull here every summer. There were 5 or 6 wagons and we would meet up here in this orchard every year. All the men would go corsing for conengras and shushy’s and the old rakly’s would go out duckering and selling what they could to earn bread money."
He told me how the men would cook the conengras in the big pots and make gipsy tea... And he told me that my grandad pulled here and met me granny at brugh hill fair... And how all the dogs were better then cos there was more hares to hunt.. well we talked for a dost of cherus. and when we got home we went to the kichimur and talked some more. I really wish I could go back there again. You don’t know at the time, but that was one of the best day's of my life . .

all these storys are true and taken from my self and my family'

Gypsy Leeboy'

Picture courtesy of John Barker.

wagon built by Hills for Lias Winter in 1923.

Boshamengra and the' BENG!

Years ago when I was a little boy my granny would tell all the family story’s and every one would come to hear her talk of the old days and tell story’s of ghosts and tales of all the places she had been in her life. She was a Boswell and her mam was a Smith. I must say I’m a bit inter-bred which explains a lot Sal!

Well one day we were all sat in her trailer and I said “tell us a story granny.”
She was wearing a scarf of red and gold and she had an old shawl wrapped around her. Her hair was nearly white at that time and her skin was a beautiful olive colour. She had a quick temper and would look after her own but she had a heart of gold and would give you her last penny if you needed it … she always felt sorry for someone. She would say “god help that poor purry rakly with her bit of tikna. I do hope she’s ok, if I had a dost of luver I would give her it.''

Granny said that years ago when she was a little girl they would pull to different towns so the women could hawk. Her mam like her would go out selling lucky charms, pegs and duckering.

Most of the men would stay home making hobbin in a big pot over the yog.

Well one time they pulled at this big stately house in which the lord and lady lived. They had pulled there every year and knew the lord and lady well.

This day the lord came down to the wagons and said to my granny’s old grandad “would you mind coming over with your fiddle and playing tonight for us Mr Boswell and I’ll see you right''
The old Boswell man was the best fiddle player in the country! My granny said he could play anything that he heard, even if he only heard it one time! So he said “ok I’ll be there” and he thought ‘cushty!’

Now, that night it was pitch black in the field but a full moon lit the road to the big house. My gt gt gt grandad went to the kitchen door at the back of the bory ker, and the maid let him in as she had known him well cos he'd played there many a time. She made him some tea then went to serve the hobbin to the ryes and rawnies.

My grandad was on his own drinking his tea and tuning his fiddle when this big rye walked in with a violin case, he was 6 foot 3, dressed in the very best, a handsome man my granny said, and he had a long white moy with pitch dark eyes. He sat down in front of my grandad, who thought he was one of the ryes and he said to my grandad “do you think you can play better than I can??”
My grandad said “I don’t know'' but thinking to himself “this mans a dinler.”

Just at that this rye opened his case and started to play his fiddle, my granny said that her grandad was ladged but he couldn’t help but join in, and as fast as the man played my grandad played faster and faster and faster till both men’s feet were banging off the floor!
Bang, bang, bang…. My grandad’s fingers were aching but he could not stop, and this mush just kept smiling and staring at him...But the banging was getting louder till my grandad looked down at the mans feet and saw the man had a goats foot banging off of the floor!! My grandad looked at the man who was now laughing madly, and then he passed out!!

The kitchen staff brought him around…”are you all right Mr Boswell?”
He asked “who was that man?” and then he told them about the mush…. they just looked and said “there hasn’t been anyone here like that.''

Well they got him back to the wagons and they had chitsy sooty that raty and first day light they were gone and never went back there again!

Copywrite © 2007 Leeboy' Boshomengra.

everyones life is a story!.. Gypsy Leeboy!

lias boswell'

The people of colour!

Romany folki have always loved bright colours' mixes of red yellow black gold'' any thing that was colourful the gypsys loved'.. the old wagons were painted and carved with all different colours' and the diklos were a mix of red and yellow and black and gold'.. the gypsy horses are col'a porna or lola porna' we love goldfinch birds and even the Gypsy bird is cola porna

as well as loving colourful covers' romanychals love new things.

it was many years ago' and the days of old horse drawn wagons were coming to a close'

my grt grandad' didn't want to leave his cushty bowtop wagon,' he was happy with its cut and carved birds and horses and grapes' after all it was he that had carved them!! … and he loved the reds and greens and gold colours that he had masterfully painted on the old wagon himself.'

but times were changing and my old grt granny had worked hard all her life'

she would go out dukering and selling' lucky charms' or lucky heather…

she would walk every day whatever the weather' from the old wagons' into the little towns were she would walk all day 'doing her butsy and trying to ern a shilling for mora and tud' and then she would walk her self all the way home.'

most old Gypsy women had feet like leather' and a lot of the time you would see some of them without any shoes on there feet at all!

well'.. one day my old Granny had seen this brand new modern trailer 'an eccles'..she decided on the spot that she would kin her self one of these tralliers''..

so she worked and saved herself some money ' like most old Gypsy women she was very good with money and new how to value and save a shilling'

after they got the trailer home' she loved it and thought it was cushty''

my grandad had a old ford truck to move it with!!..

but he thought their was one thing wrong with the new trailer? it was just plain boring brown wood'

but it was all the new style and my granny was happy with the way it was.'

so one day she went out hawking'. walking herself into a little town'.. it was a long old day and she decided to take her self back to her new trailer'

when she got home she opened the door and there sat with a paint brush in his hand was my grandad !..what have you done you old dinler!!! my granny shouted''

my grandad was only a small man' black as coal with a heart of gold,' ive made it better he said !

my granny was so angry she couldn't speak!!

he had painted goldfinch and gypsy birds' horses 'grapes and all types of fruit,' it was all done in deep rich colours' and painted expertly.'

today you couldn't put a price on the work he had done' but at that time it was old fashioned.'

my granny wouldn't speak to him for a long time' but my grandad was a lot more happy living in his painted trailer.

it was different with my other old grt granny' she would paint everything'

if she got some new china plates' she would paint them all handsome colours'

one day my other grt granddad' bought her some of the finest bone china that money could buy!!

and my old granny painted it with handsome colours'. my grandad' said' whatever have you done now woman!! … go away '' she said' it was all poverty pona !!.. please your self he would say?

but every one of the old people loved colourful things'.. if today you had half the pots or wagons '' or any thing that they had painted' you would be a very wealthy person!

one day i was rokkering to this old welsh Gypsy friend that i know'. we was sat drinking a mutamengra' when all of a sudden i looked at the back of his trailer and bitty chavvy who was about 5 years old had a big paint brush in his vast' and was cheerfully covering the back of this cushty westmond star with red paint!!.. dik here i said' he's ruined the varda!!

keker be dinler my friend said!! i new that boy was an artist! its bred in him'' just dik at him paint' leeboy.' i said ouli'' its cushty? and i always sal about that day.

the world would be a lot duller place with out the romanychal''

you have no nead to be rich'' as long as you have your health and bread to eat' you dont nead any thing elss' (

my (grandfather )