Romany Life: Experienced and Observed during many Years of Friendly Intercourse with the GypsiesCuttriss, Frank
History
Romany Life: Experienced and Observed during many Years of Friendly Intercourse with the Gypsies
Cuttriss, Frank
Romanies -- England
The simplest form of what may be termed the covered van type of
dwelling is shown by the second van from the front in the Illustration.
The top or tilt is usually removable so that the owners may use it as
a tent, leaving the van free for ordinary purposes. I know a family
possessing a van of this description, who, during fruit picking,
contract for carrying to rail by means of the van while the tilt is
pegged down to the ground and utilized as a sleeping apartment.
I have been fortunate in obtaining in the one photograph, four
different classes of living wagon. The tilt of the simplest type is
composed of arched ribs covered with canvas or tarpaulin, that of
the foremost, and altogether more substantial vehicle is composed of
similar ribs which are covered with narrow planking, and this, in turn,
is covered with painted canvas.
[Illustration: TYPES OF LIVING WAGON.]
Most of the caravans are the work of professional wagon builders,
and vary in accordance with the ideas of the client and the sum he
is prepared to spend. Occasionally the gypsy constructs his own
habitation, and in such case usually purchases the under-carriage and
ironwork; he obtains most of his woodwork ready sawn, and executes the
greater part of the ornamental work, bevelling and so on, with the
knife, in the use of which he is an adept.
With regard to interior arrangement, there is, of course, as great, or
even a greater, difference in the cost and care expended on different
caravans than is apparent in the matter of exterior, but there is
withal a certain similarity in the disposition of the essentials. As
one enters the wagon, the fireplace is usually on the left hand, one
of the principal reasons for this being that when travelling, and
conforming to the rule of the road, the chimney protruding from the
roof is not liable to be damaged or broken off by the lower branches
of wayside trees, etc. Small ordinary, American, “Hostess” or other
stoves are fitted, but I recollect seeing in a caravan a stove that
consisted only of a piece of sheet-iron bent to a rough cylinder
tapering to a chimney, the lower part having a piece cut away and a
grid affixed therein. The family had no trouble to keep out the winter
cold, for this rather primitive stove would burn almost anything, the
van included if not carefully looked after. Almost invariably the
beds are across the van at the far end so that the weight is over the
hind wheels; usually they are raised some little distance from the
floor—the open space beneath being variously utilized, sometimes as a
sleeping apartment for the children, at others it is enclosed and has
doors for use as a cupboard. Plain or glass-fronted corner cupboards
may be found, and in some I have seen good pieces of old china, genuine
stuff, not the reproductions which are to be seen so frequently
nowadays.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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