Jeremy Sandford FanClub Archives ~ www.JeremySandford.org.uk

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PART V

Living in Horse-Drawn Caravans

Travellers are proud of their culture and their traditions and wherever they live, whether in trailers or houses, their walls will usually be hung with pictures of horses and old fashioned caravans.

It was the same in 1972. Then it seemed inevitable that the horse-drawn tradition would soon come to an end. That has not happened. There are still Travellers on the road behind horses.

The majority of these are ‘New Travellers’, also sometimes called ‘New Age Travellers’ or ‘New Age Hippy Travellers’. They are Gorjios who have taken up some aspects of the lifestyle of traditional Travellers.

There are also still some Romany Gypsies and traditional Travellers behind horses, though not so many now as there were in 1972.

Mr Ezra Price

‘I would never eat from a tin.’

As I approach I see him standing by a deserted canal washing out a bowl, his back to me, with that apart, turned-away quality which so many Travellers have when they see Gorjios approaching. Beside him sits a dog which is growling at me.

Behind him I can see his home – an old horse-drawn varda, drawn up delicately under the trees.

I go closer and introduce myself.

‘We’ve been here for eighteen years, we have, sir,’ he tells me, ‘with a bit of land that a councillor gave me. He’s not on the council any more. There’s many has tried to move us, the health men, and other Gorjios, they tried to poison my chickens and my horses and my dogs. And they used force on me, not in direct ways but in all sorts of indirect ways.

‘We lost one of us Travellers a couple of weeks ago, she was an old lady, one hundred and seven.

‘Why can’t they leave us be? Like it says in the Bible, the poison that’s in you, it’ll just poison you yourselves.

‘Of an afternoon I go to get my living for there’s no work around, there hasn’t been factory work for some years. I do a bit of knife-grinding, that sort of thing.

‘I’d sooner get a couple of swedes from the field and a few potatoes and boil ‘em up into a stew, throw a bit of bacon in. The food that’s around today is useless. The bread goes mouldy within twelve hours; the bacon, at one time when you bought the bacon you used to be able to hang it up for six months and it would still be good whereas now it goes bad within a day.’

I asked him whether he would like to go back on the roads.

He said, ‘I am on the road.’ And he said that he would like to travel farther, but he hadn’t a horse right now and the shafts were broken.

‘There’s not many left in the old horse-drawn vardas.’

After he’d finished cleaning a cooking pot we went back to his caravan, an old barrel-topped varda, beautifully carved, with wonderful wooden horses on the front, festoons of grapes along the sides and tiny little high windows at the back.

‘Gorjios are all poisoned now. Their minds are poisoned. I don’t know what has happened to you in the last twenty-five years but things have got bad, the country has got bad.’

‘You seem a happy man,’ I said to him.

‘Yes, I am happy. I’ve got a philosophy of life but it’s the same philosophy that anyone should have who’s not round the bend. Ninety-nine percent of the country now are round the bend. The Gorjios, can’t they see what’s happening? Their own children are turning against them.

‘And they’re poisoning themselves. From the tins. I’ve never eaten from a tin, no, never once in my life. A cooking pot like this is the best, enough to put a couple of hares, a couple of rabbits in it. Why we had such a huge pot is so we can feed five or six people and the dogs as well. Say you had a couple of dogs, you want to let them have it since they gets them, gets them down to work at catching it.

‘And the tenderest thing in the world is a hedgehog.

‘Not in the summer when they’ve been running. They’re no good then, just like dish water. No, when they’re really good is in the winter when they’ve been asleep, laid up, that’s when they’re really good and tasty.

‘There was a man camping, he was an earl, and I took him over some hedgehog one day, not knowing he was an earl, and he thought it was so delicious that he paid thirty pounds for a pair of dogs that I had trained to catch hedgehogs.

‘It’s not hard to train those dogs. You have to know where the hedgehogs go, no good training them to go for the hedgehogs that’s on the road, you have to know where they are.

‘Nettles is good, nettles is very good for you, very good for the blood. And dandelions also, they’re very good for you. Well, soon the winter will be here.’

When I asked him whether he’d ever lived in a house, he said, ‘No, never been in a house, except to go with a Gorjio woman, and I’ve been with one or two of them I can tell you.’

Mr Johnny (‘Pops’) Connors

Seven Weeks of Childhood; an Autobiography

I first met Johnny (‘Pops’) Connors at various meetings of the Gypsy Council, in the late 60s. Dark, fiery, good-looking and a wonderful singer, he was at that time believed by many to be a Traveller destined to negotiate as an equal with Gorjios, to fight them at their own game and win a better deal for Travellers.

At that time Johnny was living, with his wife and many children, in a trailer in a series of patches of derelict land in the industrial midlands. During a period when he was wrongly imprisoned he had written, in capital letters in prison notebooks, an extraordinarily poignant account of his early life as a horse-drawn Traveller. In what follows Johnny also speaks of some of his experiences while living in a modern trailer in the English industrial midlands and on a council site under the Westway in London.

Just before World War Two my father and mother were camped at a roadside camp at Locklington, County Dublin, Eire.

My mother got a kick from a donkey or horse. I was still in my mother’s womb at the time. Seven days later I was born.

During them times my father made tinware such as buckets, kettles, pots, pans, basins, beakers, mugs, plates, baths, etc. It was very hard times for the Tinker in those days and, to make it worser for both me Dad and me mother, it was the wintertime of the year.

There was eighteen children in our family and my father would have to make a lot of tinware and sell a lot of tinware to keep us all going on food and drink. Into the bargain, we would be shirted by the local authorities and police sometimes as often as five times in one month.

When I was five years old a minister ran over me with a Baby Austin car in Banbridge, County Down, Northern Ireland. The Minister gave me a white five-pound note when I was coming out of hospital. My Daddy is very superstitious and he did not want to take blood money from the Minister. So my Daddy would not handle the five-pound note. And he told me to buy boots and shoes for the other travelling children with the five-pound note. I was brought into a shoe shop and I bought boots and shoes for all the children except my sister Mary. I had no money left to buy her boots.

‘What about my boots, Johnny?’ said my sister Mary to me.

‘Oh well, I have none more pounds left to buy you boots, Mary, you will have to wait till another of God’s motor-cars knock me down.’ Mary never got her boots.

I was a terrible mischief-maker. I can honestly say I broke every cup and plate that came in front of me. I hit a very wicked and peevish pony with a stick on the legs and the pony kicked me over a hedge. I still have the mark on my left cheek to prove it.

Food rationing started and the Travellers had no ration books. The only way we could live was to smuggle our food across the borders, food we could not get in the Free State. We would go over the border to the English part of Ireland and buy it on the black market. But sometimes we were caught smuggling over food. And the people that were caught doing this would be fined a lot of money and sometimes they would be sent to gaol. Still we had to keep on smuggling our food and risk being gaoled or fined by the Courts. We just had to smuggle to keep alive. If we did not smuggle we would have died with hunger. We also risked being shot on the borders. It was very rare we went through the Customs. We always used the unproved roads. By using the unproved roads we could travel freely from the Irish Republic to the North without being seen by the police or Customs officials. Some nights we would travel through the fields with our wagons to escape the authorities. Also, I can well remember, it was not a very pleasant journey to travel in a wagon over ditches, hedges, bogs, rivers, especially in the dark. Many’s the time I got slapped against the floor or sides of the wagon when we would be travelling over rough ground. To look out of the door of the wagon on a dark night and see the steam from the horse’s sweat rising towards the blue sky and not a sound could be heard, only the breathing of the horse under the shafts of the wagon, an odd burst of the dogs through the hedges after rabbits and a death squeal from the rabbit in the terrier’s or lurcher’s mouth. This was the only noise that broke the stillness of the night. Low whispering voices outside and all of a sudden a stupid cow said ‘maue’ to the top note of its voice. Everybody jumped, and I scream so blue murder with the fright.

When we were well over and safe away from the Barons we pulled out of the land and on to the by-roads. All the wagons and carts were tied, pulled in along the side of the grass on the verge of the road. The poor jaded-out horses, the lathers of thick white sweat frothed out of them, would be unyoked from the wagons and carts. The horses would be that tired and worn out from pulling the heavy wagons and carts all night; they would just move very slowly out from the shafts.

When they had been unharnessed, the horses would be let loose to find their own sweetness and taste of grass. The camp-fires would then be lighted, the pots and kettles filled with water and they would be put on the fire to boil. And then we would all sit round the fire and have a tablecloth spread out on the grass as a ground table. When the food was cooked you could hear the voices of the children say to their mother, ‘Give me mine first, Mammy. I want more soup, Mammy. I want more poppys, Mammy. You never gave me none. What about me, Mammy?’

And other of the children would get angry and say, ‘You would, you big face,’ or ‘Ya, I was before you.’

‘You were not, with your fox’s nose.’

‘I was first, badger’s eyes!’

‘Old look-at-yourself, bull’s mouth.’

And the voice of a very small child could be heard saying, ‘Soup, me want soup. Give me, Mammy.’

The sweat would be dropping out of their mother trying to serve them all with food. Including me, of course. I was very fat. I used to eat a lot of fat meat and butter and potatoes and cabbage and I would go to sleep in the grass when I ate my victuals.

The next morning I would wake up in the wagon where my Mammy had carried me while I was sleeping. I would dress myself and then go outside with the dogs. The kind of dogs and the breed of them would be lurchers and terriers. They would kill that many rabbits and hares I would not be strong enough to carry all the rabbits and hares home. Two rabbits or one hare was the most I could carry or drag. The dogs would carry one apiece in their mouth. It’s surprising I never got lost in the land. I was always able to find my way back to the camp. Sometimes the dogs would kill a pheasant or partridge. Or go down a fox’s den and kill a fox. Badgers were very hardy and they are really good fighters. It’s not every dog that can kill a badger. Many a good dog the badger has killed. But two good wire-haired terriers will bolt the badger from its den and when the lurcher gets his long mouth around the badger’s neck one of them will have to die because they are both game animals.

Young badgers are lovely little animals. They make very good pets and so does the fox cub. But when the fox gets big he won’t stay domesticated, he will always run away to his wild and open life. I suppose nature made him to be free and that is the way he wants to stay.

Well, Travellers are like nature. Their nature is similar. They don’t want to live in a house. But they do want to settle down on a site with their caravan or wagon or tent. This is their way of life and it has been that way of life for thousands of years. They still like to be free to go and come as they please.

I was always ever fond of fishing and one way I like to fish is with my hands in a trout stream. Even when I was five or six years old I caught big trout, eels, pike, bass, roach and perch. And many’s a bite I got from a pike or eel under a bank or under a bridge or stone in the river. How I used to fish was to put my hand under a pocket or hole in the bank, run my hand very lightly along the side of the fish till I got my fingers near his gills, then I would squeeze lightly on his gills with my thumb and forefinger and then I would pull him out and he would be mine.

Many’s a bite I got from a rat or snap from an otter under a bank. But I always managed to get my three or four dozen of fish on time.

In Remelton, County Donegal, I went to the big river to fish and saw a very big salmon in the shallow part of the river. Sambo, I called that salmon when I first saw him, and my full intention was to get Sambo.

Just up the river from where the salmon was there was a very deep hole. I knew if Sambo got into the hole I would never get him. If Sambo went down the river I would have no bother killing him. The river was at the mouth of the sea and it thinned out to about six inches of water. What was worrying me was up the river, the deep hole.

I went back to the camp and I got four sacks. I put barbed wire around the mouth of the four sacks. This made the sacks the shape of catch nets. I got the four sacks near the hole so if the salmon took it in his mind to bolt he would have to go into one of the sacks before he got into the deep hole.

I was seven years old at the time and Sambo still in the water was thirteen pounds in weight. The water he was in was about two foot deep. I walked into the river and to get where the salmon was I had to swim.

When I got about nearly three feet from the salmon I looked down at him. I had a long pointed stick in my hand. I made a jab with this stick at the salmon. I missed him and he very nearly broke my leg when he hit off me. He tumbled me upside down in the water. I got out of that bank, but where had Sambo got to? I went now up to the hole to where the sacks were set. I tried two of the sacks. Sambo was not there.

But in the third sack he was inside in it as big as an ass. As I pulled out the sack he gave a jump. He tumbled me head over heels again. I went into the hole. I very nearly had been drowned.

The salmon went down the river, still in the sack it was. Somehow I managed to get out of the deep hole after swallowing about a gallon of water. I took up the other three sacks to get them in the right places and there was about nine or ten big trout in them. I broke the trouts’ necks by putting my thumb in their mouth and I pulled their heads back towards me. I threw them onto the bank. I got the sacks again and I went down the river looking for Sambo.

When I saw Sambo, he was out of the sack and he was in the deep part of the river. He bolted when he saw me and he swam towards the hole this time. I saw him going into the middle sack and I got a rock in my hand. I put my foot on the mouth of the sack and I let the rock fall down on top of Sambo. He gave a jump inside of the sack. I hit him again and again. He lay still in the sack and I dragged the sack and Sambo out on to dry ground.

The greasy blood was falling down Sambo’s belly from a wound on the back of his head, caused by the blow from the rock. What a beautiful fish he was. When I took him out of the sack he lay as still as the stones he was lying on. Not a move out of his body. He was like a large ingot of silver as still and pure as his weight.

I felt like a hero now, and again I would look at Sambo. And I was sorry for him. I was sorry for killing him. He was a very game fish.

But we did not feel sorry for him when I brought him back to the camp. Instead I was glad of him when my mother handed me over a big steak of him. It was well cooked in butter fat, with vinegar and lemon-juice. The only swimming he was going to do was in my belly. So Sambo found his way into eighteen little tummies.

My Daddy got very sick. A bus ran into him at Harold’s Cross, Dublin. Nearly every bone in his body was broken. His legs, arms and collar-bone and jaw-bone were broken. His eye was shattered and he was in a coma for seven weeks. And two of the horses was killed as well in the crash. Well, for months my Daddy could not work.

When he got better it was the world’s worst winter. We had to sell the wagon and all our horses except one pony which we kept to pull the bad cart along the road and the bit of green canvas.

Never in the world have people suffered more than we did that winter. What I am writing, when the reader reads it, he will say to himself, or herself, it was impossible to survive. No, it was not impossible to survive. It was a miracle because I witnessed it and so did my little brothers and sisters, and my poor mother and father and our misfortunate animals.

A few days before the big snow the weather was very bad. We were after coming from the Twin Towers in County Donegal. We were crossing Branards Cap and we were forced to turn back with the blizzards. Some of us was in our bare feet walking behind the pony and cart.

That evening we camped near a crossroads at a sheltering hedge. My father made a tent and my mother went hawking to the nearby houses to get the makings for our supper. The icy wind was cutting our skin on our hands and faces, and my little sister in my mother’s shawl, only three weeks old she was, was crying with the bitter cold and at that same time my mother was very ill. She looked very pale, worn out and tired. The snow was blowing through her hair, and when a gust of wind blew, the half-melted snow would drop from my mother’s brow on to my sister’s face in my mother’s arms, and when this happened we could hear a very delicate and innocent cry from the child in the wet frosty shawl.

Our blankets were in the cart and the snow water was falling out of them as my Daddy took them from the cart to put in the tent. When this was done all the children got into the tent, a frosty snot hanging from each one of their noses, their little faces red and blue with cold, and our little hands and feet swollen with the angry bitter weather. Our little terrier bitch, named Nell, keening with pain from the cold, came into the tent for shelter from the icy wind and snow.

My Daddy went to the wood for sticks to light the fire, and he himself was hardly able to walk. The frost was taking advantage of his broken and half-set bones. The poor pony outside trying to put her head into the door of the tent, the snow was cutting the eyes out of her and she was trembling with the cold.

My Daddy got back with the sticks, an armful of old twigs, and he dropped them from his arms on to the ground with weakness. He fell on top of the sticks and he looked up at the sky and said in a pitiful voice, ‘God, look down on us.’

My Daddy managed to light the fire somehow.

And in about ten minutes the fire was blazing. When the pony felt the heat she started whinnying slowly as if to say she was grateful. She pulled her head from the door of the tent and walked over beside the hedge. The smoke from the fire and sparks were blinding her but she was quite contented.

And little Nell went to the fire and sat down on her behind and stared into the fire puzzled and amazed. The children came out of the tent and sat on bundles of straw. The steam was rising from their wet clothes and melting the falling snow in the frosty air.

The kettles were filled and put on the fire to boil, and my Daddy took the wet blankets from the tent and in turn dried them over the fire. Then my mother came back with some dry clothes and food the people in the nearby houses gave her.

She also got some flaked meal and my Daddy put some of it into a dish and threw boiling water over it and gave it as a hot gruel to the pony. And poor Queenie was so glad to get it she nearly said thanks to my Daddy. And when she ate it she trotted up and down the road to keep herself warm.

Soon we had our food, and with every bite we took from the bread, lots of snowflakes we would have in our mouths. It was making the bread soggy. My mother was barely able to serve us all with our food, she was that ill with after-birth pains and pneumonia and bronchitis, and the snow at the same time was dropping down on her black hair and on her innocent face that was as pale as the smoky snow around her.

My Daddy and my brother Jimmy, after their tea, went to the houses for straw. My Mammy said to me, ‘Do you want more bread, Johnny, son?’

‘No, Mammy,’ I said. ‘I am too full now, thank God. Mammy,’ I said, ‘you are sick. You should lie down in the tent for a while.’

She looked at me with tears in her wet eyes, and her wet hair blowing with the wind around her pale face. She kissed me and put her two hands on my knees. ‘Why do you worry about me so much, Johnny?’

‘You’re my Mammy,’ I said. ‘That is why.’

She tried to be cheerful. ‘No, Johnny, I am not sick. I am just tired and fed up with this weather.’

‘You are sick, Mammy,’ I said, ‘and very sick. I will make the bottle for the child. You go into the tent and lie down.’

‘No, son. I am all right. When your Daddy comes back, don’t say to him I am sick. Because I don’t want him to know I am sick. If your Daddy knew I was sick I would have to go to hospital. And there would be no one to look after yous. So don’t tell your Daddy.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I won’t.’

She pulled my nose gently, ‘I will be all right, Johnny, son.’

It was nearly dark when my Daddy and Jimmy came back with two large bundles of straw on their backs, and one of the bundles they strewed and spread around the tent. Jimmy made a little shelter for the little terrier bitch with some of the straw, and the rest he gave to Queenie to eat.

We all went to bed at this time - there was about a foot of snow outside on the ground.

The next morning I was the first to waking, and the sweat was falling down off me with the heat. It was so close I could hardly breathe. The snow was covering the tent. Six foot of it over the tent. Not a sound could be heard.

‘We are finished,’ said my Daddy.

Then after a while we could barely hear muffled voices outside saying, ‘They must be dead.’

It was a lot of farmers digging away the snow to get down to us. They managed to get down to us after some time. Then we were all pulled out, one by one. Then Jimmy started to dig for Nell. He found her. She was after having pups. Nell was dead and all the pups, except one was barely alive. And my sister put him in her bosom to get the life back in him. Most probably he was the first puppy and he was more strong than the others. We called him Spring.

The farmers brought us to the farmhouse and we all had a good meal and a good heat at the inside fire.

Queenie was all right. She found herself a stable during the night with a lot of sheep.

My Mammy gave my sister Mary one of the teats belonging to the child to feed the little pup with and Mary would not let that pup die. She blew down his neck. She rubbed him and shook him till the life was back in his veins, and then drop by drop she patiently let the drops of milk drop into the few-hours-old pup’s mouth.

All through the bad snow the farmer gave us the use of a big warm hayshed. And at the door we had a great big fire, and the people from around the area brought us blankets and clothes and food and milk. And at the same time my Daddy and Jimmy was helping the farmers to dig out the sheep and cattle from the drifts of snow.

My Mammy went to hospital a few days later. And she signed herself out after a fortnight. Then the snow began to disintegrate into slush and the weather was getting better and Spring was yelping. His eyes was just after opening when the snow went.

Then my Daddy and Jimmy made dozens and dozens of tinware articles and then sold them at the shops and houses. And my Daddy built a new wagon. My Mammy was better and all the children had dry noses again. And within a few weeks my Daddy built another wagon.

Queenie gave birth to a lovely black and white foal, and we called her Taxi.

My Daddy and Jimmy bought a job lot of articles from a big Co-op Hardware Store and they sold them at the fairs at a big profit, until we came to have six horses and about twelve donkeys. And Spring was under one of the wagons chewing at a big bone. It was the month of June, and we were camped at Brockah Corner, near the railway bridge. Brockah is a little mountain-town on the side of a valley, and just down below Brockah there is a wood and across from Brockah one could see little golden-coloured roofs of the white thatched cottages and the salmon jumping in the river below in the valley.

We left Brockah and pulled into Ballybokay. We met other Travellers, including Johnnie Doran and his family. Johnnie Doran was the best ulean piper in the world. He was buskering the fair and the whole fair stood to listen to him play his favourite reel ‘Rakish Paddy’. When he played this reel he bought two fine horses, so a deal and a reel was going on at the one time. That reel will never be played by no man the way Johnnie Doran played it. Johnnie, God rest him, was also a smart man with the horses. Johnnie was very seriously injured shortly after. A wall fell on him and broke his spine. He died two years later in Dublin.

I left the fair and my sister and me went out to the quiet country road. As we turned up the side-road to the camp I could hear the uninterrupted sweet voice of a travelling woman echoing across the valleys and hills. ‘Mary,’ I said, ‘don’t make a sound. Listen to that complete yearning in that voice.’

‘Ah, will you go away out of that,’ said Mary, ‘you’re too fond of music.’

‘Mary,’ I said, ‘nobody can be too fond of music. Music is nature and the one that is not fond of music is unlucky.’

‘Ah well,’ said Mary, ‘you’re too fond of music.’

As we got closer to the camp we could see it was a woman called Mary Calley. She was singing a lullaby to her baby. As the notes went low in her voice, the bees kept the drones and beat going with their humming and an odd blue-tit or wren filled in the background with their chirping and whistling. God Almighty, it was something to hear. It was nature and real unspoiled and clear.

The song Mary Calley was singing was called ‘A Mother’s Lament’:

A mother cried while tears were falling,

Rolling down like a lonely stream.

Although she cried while the tears were falling,

There she wandered day by day.

There she worried, growing fonder,

Of the child that made her joy.

But till the next she will stay

Till she finds her angel boy.

The legend behind the song concerns a mother that lost her little child and, as the legend goes, the bad fairies took her little child away and they put an old bewitched and bewildered half-human child in the cradle and took her lovely babe away. The mother waited at the side of the stream for months and months to see would the bad lureacones bring her child back to her. She died broken-hearted when she saw her child floating down the stream. The baby was dead.

That year I got a stroke. I lost the power of my legs and I had no power whatsoever in my back. The doctors said I was spending too much time in the water. The reflections of the sun and water were affecting me and he said I would never walk again. For two years I was a cripple. I could not even stand up and I was fed up with everybody.

We were at Derry. We camped at the old racecourse. We met a lot of other Travellers there. There was not much for me to do, as this was the time I was crippled. I felt very sorry for myself. I could not go to fish or play or sing. I was crippled and to make it worse I got a sunstroke. The only life I had in my body was my hands, neck and head, the rest, except my tongue and brain, was paralysed.

Spring was now a good size. He would come over and lie down beside me and lick my face. No one could come near me because Spring was willing to suffer his death over me. I got a rabbit skin one day and I shook it. Spring took it out of my hands with his mouth and tore it to pieces.

Another day a policeman came to the camp. I was on my own, the rest of the children were sorting scrap and rags up the lane. Spring started to growl when he saw the policeman.

‘How long have you been here?’ said the policeman.

‘We came here yesterday, sir,’ I said.

‘Get up when you talk to me,’ said the policeman.

‘I can’t, sir,’ I said.

‘You cheeky little brat. Get up or I will kick you up.’

The policeman came towards me. Spring caught him and then he bit his leg. The policeman was screaming for mercy. The policeman got the kettle bar in his hand to hit Spring with it, but three or four lurchers came from the other caravans. I shouted at the policeman to drop the bar. He did drop it and the dogs came over to me when I called them in Shelta.

‘I am going to get these dogs shot,’ said the policeman.

‘It’s your own fault,’ I said. ‘The dogs was only protecting me. You came here to bully people. But you got the worst of it yourself. Wait till my Daddy comes back and he will give you a worse beating.’

The policeman walked away with his clothes in rags and no seat in his pants, saying; ‘I will have them mongrels shot.’

I shouted after him, ‘You will have to shoot me first.’

The policeman never came back.

One day a very nice farmer was herding cattle up the camp and one of the cows came over to smell me as I was lying down in the grass. Spring made a spring for the cow’s nose and he swung out of it. When the farmer saw what Spring done naturally he was angry. But when he saw that Spring was only protecting me from the cow’s walking on top of me, he patted Spring on the head and said, ‘Good boy, that’s a good boy.’ Spring was glad that the farmer showed admiration for him and he licked the farmer’s hand. And soon as he done that he came over and lay down beside me. Spring was the cutest, cunningest, loyalest dog that ever was pupped.

In the mornings Spring would come into the wagon and pull the blankets off me and lick my face. I am sure he had some idea what was wrong with me in his own way. He definitely had pity for me. He knew and saw himself as my protector. I trained him to do all classes of tricks just by word of mouth.

For two years Spring was my playmate. He was my amusement with his tricks. He was my pal and my protector. He would sometimes go into the nearby fields and kill a rabbit or hare and bring it back in his mouth and drop it beside me. Then he would look at me and lick my face as if to say, ‘This is for you.’

No matter what I told Spring to do he would do it straight away. When I would be eating my food I could leave the plate under Spring’s nose and he would not touch one bit of it. But if another dog came over to the plate, Spring would warn him with a growl. If he did not take the warning, he would feel the sharp teeth of Spring.

Spring had a kind of reform code to the other animals and they obeyed him. After all Spring was a travelling dog, born in the snow an orphan, and he classed our family as his family. There never will be another dog like Spring.

One day a priest came down the road.

‘Hello, my child,’ cried the priest.

‘Not too bad, Father,’ says I.

My Mammy asked the priest to bless and consecrate the new wagon my Daddy was after building.

‘I will to be sure,’ said the priest. ‘Have you any Holy Water?’ said the priest.

‘No, Father,’ said my Mammy. ‘I forgot getting it at Mass last Sunday.’

‘Well have you got a cup of any class of water?’

‘No, Father. The children did not go for the water yet.’

The priest took a cup out of the dish. ‘Here, son, go down to that river and get me a cup full of water.’

I took the cup from the priest. ‘Father,’ I said, ‘I can’t walk.’

‘Get up you lazy little boy and run down to that river when I tell you.’

‘Father,’ I said, ‘I am a cripple. I can’t even stand up. I wish to God I could run down to the river for you.’

The tears fell down the priest’s face. ‘I am sorry, my child.’

Then one of the other children took the cup from him and got the water. The priest then asked my Mammy for salt and my Mammy gave the priest the salt. He took a stole out of his pocket, kissed the cross on it and he prayed over the water and the salt; now and again he would put a pinch of salt into the water. He then blessed me and the wagon. He told me to keep the water and I would get stronger.

That night I wanted to go to the toilet. I crept out of bed and I fell over the wagon. I tried to catch the shafts so as I could get up again into the wagon. The shafts fell down on top of me and I caught hold of the shafts so as I could drag myself back into the wagon.

Somehow I managed better than any other time and I was glad when I got back into the bed. I fell asleep, smiling. ‘Thank God,’ I said. ‘Thank God.’

About three weeks after I could sit up and in a few days from that I was standing up. Then my Mammy brought me to a doctor in Dublin. He took the fluid from my knees and he told me to do as much exercises as possible. But he could not guarantee my walking again. He was also wrong. For exercises I tried dancing, and in two months’ time I was, and still am, a very good dancer. And I have won prizes for dancing.

I was walking again, thank God. I have never been sick since and I hope to God I won’t. I have never seen the priest since or before. I hope he is in good health wherever he is.

After I got the power of my limbs back, Spring was as glad as I was because there was more exercise for both of us. Wherever Spring was I was. When I would go to church, Spring would come to await at the door of the chapel for me till Mass was over. If I went to the pictures, Spring was with me.

One day a shepherd was driving sheep and the man was in a bad way because his dog was not with him and the sheep was running all over the place.

I offered the man help with the sheep and I said to Spring, ‘Caush comra.’ In no time Spring had the sheep rounded up.

‘That’s a very good dog you have,’ said the man.

‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘He is the best dog in the world.’

‘Would you sell him?’ said the shepherd.

Spring growled at him as much as to say, ‘I will do you a turn, but you won’t buy me.’

‘He knew what I said,’ said the man.

‘Oh yes, sir,’ I said. ‘He knows every word, don’t you, Spring?’ And Spring barked.

Every day I went out hawking with my Daddy, selling tinware and collecting rags and scrap, swapping ponies and donkeys, etc.

And I was a very happy young boy again. In the night-times I would go to sing old ballads and folk-songs at public houses. And at a horse or cattle fair I would sing for money in the hotels and public houses and I would come home to the camp with my pockets full of money.

I was always in my bare feet. And I still did not give up my fishing though. One Sunday I was coming back from Chualin, near Boyle, County Sligo, and I saw a river and I went into it. I caught a good few trout. Just as I was coming out of the river, an English gentleman and lady pulled up their car beside me.

‘Good afternoon, sonny. Can you please tell me how I can get to Waterford?’ said the gentleman.

‘Oh yes, sir,’ I said. ‘I can. But you have a long road in front of you.’

‘How far is it, sonny?’

‘Oh, about a hundred and twenty miles from here,’ I said.

‘Good heavens, is it that far?’ said the gentleman.

‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘And I can’t make it any shorter for you.’

‘Indeed you can, sonny. Just tell me how I get there.’

‘First of all,’ I said, ‘you may turn your motor-car around.’

‘Good heavens, I have just come fifty miles along that road.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘that’s not my fault.’

‘Of course not, sonny,’ said the gentleman.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘go back to Sligo. When you get into Sligo, follow the signpost that says Athlone. Then ask for Kilkerry and from Kilkerry to Waterford. Kilkerry is about fifteen miles from Waterford. As a matter of fact,’ I said, ‘County Kilkerry is bordering on Waterford.’

‘Can you please show me on the map the road to take, sonny?’

‘Oh, I am sorry, sir,’ I said, ‘I can’t read.’

‘Well, how do you know, sonny, where these places are if you can’t read?’

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘we are Travellers. And we have travelled all Ireland.’

‘Well, well, well,’ said the gentleman. ‘What have you got there?’

‘Oh, these are fish, sir, I caught in the river.’

‘What kind of fish are they?’ said the gentleman.

I looked at him very puzzled before I answered him. ‘Water fish they are, sir,’ I said, ‘and we call them trout.’

He started to laugh. ‘What do you do with them, sonny?’

‘Oh, we eat them when we cook them,’ I said.

He laughed again. ‘Will you sell me a few?’ said the gentleman.

‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘I will. How many do you want?’

‘The lot. I will buy the lot.’

‘How much will you give me for the lot?’ I said.

‘Well, let me see now. I would say there is ten pound of trout there,’ said the gentleman.

‘You’re wrong,’ I said. ‘There is about fifteen or sixteen pounds of trout there.’

‘How do you know, sonny?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I have caught fish since I was five years old.’

‘Well, sonny, if you say there is fifteen or sixteen pounds’ weight of fish there I won’t argue with you. I will give you two pounds for them.’

‘It’s a deal, sir,’ I said. ‘You can have them.’

He gave me the two single pound notes and he put the fish in the boot of the car. In the boot he had all classes of fishing tackle.

‘Well, I must say, sonny, I never did see a better fisherman. I watched you catch those fish. You are a proper artist at tickling fish. I also took the liberty of photographing you fishing.’

‘I knew, sir,’ I said, ‘there was something catchy about you.’

The lady got out of the car. She had a camera in her hand and she took several pictures of me with the gentleman. They gave me a box of candy and said, ‘Bye bye, sonny.’

‘God be with you,’ I said.

Travellers never say ‘Good-bye’. Good-bye is for ever. We always wish our company on parting a safe or holy wish like, ‘God be with you,’ or, ‘God send you good luck. God keep you safe.’

We are Travellers history that has never been challenged. English scholars could not make head or tail of Cant, or for that matter Irish scholars. So when they knew they were beaten because none would translate it for them, the English scholars put ‘Cant’ in their dictionaries as hypocritical talk, odd talk or peculiar talk.

The word for Cant in our language is Shelta. A Tinker was asked to translate Shelta to the tyrant Cromwell. ‘I can’t,’ said the Tinker. And Cant it remained since, and Cromwell was none the wiser.

We are the mysterious people in the world: history knows nothing about us. When the first Gypsies came to Ireland from Egypt, they brought with them Egypt ways of life and living. The English dictionary does contain some of our stolen words like fetich which, in our language, means curse. Monya fetich means good charm, good luck. A wise man, we call him, connich fein. Intercourse is feick. Feek means take. What was beating good scholars at our language was the way Travellers pronounced the words. Then when they was asked to spell that word it was like asking a rock to talk. And the scholar had to abandon whatever he set out to do.

We were travelling the Counties Kerry, Cork, Clare and Galway, meeting other Travellers on our travels at fairs, and especially at Ballinasloe Fair. Hundreds of Travellers come to that fair, selling horses, donkeys, wagons, carts, swapping and dealing, telling fortunes, playing musical instruments. For a full week the fair would be on.

Spangel Hill Fair in County Clare is another very big fair, and then of course there is Puck Fair, County Kerry. In Puck Fair all the wagons are camped on the roadside. Hardly any of the Travellers go to bed during the fair. The Travellers have been attending these fairs for hundreds of years. And there are great legends about the fairs:

The hand that kills King Puck

Will wither like the dew.

The blade that cuts his whiskers

Will pierce your heart too.

The rope that hangs old Puck,

Will execute its maker ...

Old King Puck is a goat and he’d be crowned King Puck during the fair. It is also said that the single girl that goes to Puck Fair will leave it doubled.

In the night around the camp fires you would hear some of the best Irish traditional music that ever was played; reels, jigs, airs, marches, and old Irish waltzes - ‘The Galway Snare’, ‘Father Murphy’, ‘Sullivan John’, ‘The Jolly Tinker’, ‘The Catcher-man’, ‘Ellen Brown’, ‘Banclothy’, The Maid in the Garret’, ‘Seven Drunken Nights’, ‘Heather Ale’, ‘Flower of Sweet Strabone’, ‘Lalley Mountain’, ‘The Beggar Man’, ‘John Mitchell’, and many more different names of songs: ‘The Maid of Mount Scisco’, ‘The Sligo Maid’, ‘The Maid behind the Bar’, ‘Rakish Paddy’, ‘Georgie Whites’, ‘The Washer Woman’, ‘Pigeon on the Gate’, ‘Down the Broom’, ‘Battering Ram’, ‘Sally Gardens’, ‘The Black Bird’, ‘The Cork Hornpipe’, ‘The Dawn of the Day’, ‘Wearing of the Green’, ‘Kelly from Killarney’, and many more.

We went towards Tyrone and then towards Antrim. What a grand county that is. Giant’s Causeway on the Bray of Hill sloping to the sea and glens and valleys, dells, lakes, and clear river. And our bright coloured wagons passing through the glens and the sun reflecting the blue, red and yellow colouring of the wagons and carts. Ponies, donkeys, mules, dogs and goats, the children sitting in the doors of the wagons and more of them running behind.

We camped at Ranulestown with other Travellers named Connors and Doran. That night most of the folk went to the local pub where they drink black, creamy pints of Guinness like fish. Guinness to a Traveller is a food, a strengthener, a tonic, a beverage and a health drink as well as a lively community drink. Sometimes we give it to the babies instead of milk.

No matter what way we mix it or take it, it still remains one of the greatest drinks that ever we have drunk. It has reared many a child to be a man and secrets we like to keep, some of them anyway. It’s the secret, sacred drink the travelling people got from Arthur himself in 1758, the year before he made it.

The Guinness is the Travellers’ doctor in many different ways. Suppose I had the ‘flu, the only doctor I would see is a black bottle of Guinness and it would cure me using it my own way.

When the old people came back from the pub the dancing and singing started around the camp-fire. Songs, reels, jigs galore. What a great night that was. And I stole some of their bottles while they were dancing, and myself and a little girl went out in the field and we drank the porter. We got drunk, and we fell asleep. When I woke up my head was paining me. I had to shake the little girl, she was still drunk. And I was going to be blamed for making myself and the little girl drunk. She was about my age, nine and a half years old. I went to the wagons, everyone was in bed. So I went to the press and I got three or four blankets and I brought them into the field and I spread them over the little girl and myself and then slept in the field till morning because I was afraid to leave the little girl by herself. I thought maybe Willy-the-Wist or Jack-the-Lantern or some wicked spirit might harm the little girl and I would get the blame.

The next morning a lot of the older people in the camp woke myself and the little girl. I had to tell what happened and my father was very angry with me over my stealing his Guinness.

That same morning the police came and told us that we would have to move. So after our breakfast we shifted and we came on to Newry where the Irish patriot John Mitchell met his down-fall. There is a great song about him, and the name of the song is ‘John Mitchell’:

I am a true born Irishman,

John Mitchell is my name,

To free my own great country

From Dungiven town I came.

I struggled hard both night and day

To free my native land

And yet I was transported

All to Van Diemen’s land.

When I first received my sentence

In eighteen-forty-eight

My loving wife came up to me

And unto me did say,

‘Oh John my love cheer up your heart

And daunted do not be,

It is better to die for old Ireland’s rights

Than to live in slavery.’

When I first received my sentence

On inland Ireland’s ground

Thousands of my countrymen

Was standing all around.

My liberty was offered me

If I would forsake their cause,

But I would rather die ten thousand deaths

Than forsake my Irish boys.

Fare you well my wife and children,

In heaven I will wait for you.

Goodbye all true born Irishmen

And my old country too.

There is one request I will ask from you,

That’s when I’m dead or gone,

Remember poor John Mitchell, boys,

That wore a convict’s chain ...

Ah, many’s a folk club or public house or camp-fire I sung that song at. We did not stay long in Newry and a few days later my Daddy said he was going up the country that morning.

We were leaving the rest of the Travellers. Nearly all the people in the camp was crying. They were very sorry and lonesome to see us go. ‘Well lads,’ said my Daddy, ‘God Almighty be with yous, and send yous all the height of good luck.’

So the lash of the whip fell on the mare that was under the shafts of the wagon and the mare put her chest to the collar and away she pulled with the wagon behind her. We were still waving to the rest of the Travellers as we turned the bend of the road.

Another time, I was about nine years old at the time, we were camped near Antrim town, and a travelling woman said to the farmer that was going into his field, ‘A good morning, boss.’

‘The devil a good morning it is when you are camped here,’ said the farmer.

‘Don’t bite me, like a good man, sure I only said good morning to you,’ said the woman.

‘Well I don’t want to see your horses in my field,’ said the farmer, ‘you’re nothing but trouble, I don’t want you around here.’

‘God save us, sir, you are a bad man,’ replied the woman.

The farmer was going to hit the woman. ‘Get away, God’s curse to you, you should be ashamed of yourself,’ said the woman.

The farmer simmered down and he got ashamed of himself.

‘I am sorry, missus, I did not mean any harm.’

He opened the gate of his field and into the field he went driving his tractor. As he was going through a gap in the hedge, a stick or a bit of bush caught in his coat; he fell off the tractor, and the back wheel of the tractor went over his leg.

No getting away from it, the Travellers did often put their horses into a farmer’s field at night and many’s a Traveller was murdered by the farmer over it. Well, after all, you can’t see a horse go hungry. Travellers are very fond and good to animals. Travellers do not think any harm out of putting their animals into private land; they say that grass was there before there ever was a farmer. God did not put the grass there for any one man. And grass will be growing over us all some day.

We were never allowed to camp for long in the one place. The travelling children did not have much chance to go to school. I can still picture the big old fat guard on an upstairs model bike, like a fat tomcat on a pair of scissors. Before he could get down off his bike, he would be out of breath.

‘Well, I am afraid you will have to move, the neighbours are sending in complaints.’ It would not be the neighbours who were sending in complaints, it was himself. He would use discriminating words against us to the neighbours. After all, there was then no crime in the country parts of Ireland and the law must see that he do his job, or not he would get twice as fat, and he would not be able to get up on the bike, never mind to get down off it.

Fairly speaking, the police were not too bad in Ireland against the Travellers, but believe me, there were some self-made bastards among the guarda. I never will forget a sergeant in Milford, County Donegal; I was just nine years old and I was coming back from hand-fishing. I had a hank of trouts and eels in my hands. I was after tickling in the river; both of my hands were full of slippery trouts and eels.

As I was walking past a thatched cottage, a cat must have smelt the fish, and the cat came through the half-opened window. There was a big breeze out, and the cat must have hit the stick that was holding up the window. The window slammed down and it got broke.

I still carried on along the road, and an old man about seventy years old came out of the house; he blamed me for breaking his window.

‘I swear to God, I never broke or even went near the window.’

The old man said to me, ‘Is there anybody else with you?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘there’s not.’

‘Well, you broke my window,’ he said.

‘How could I break your window,’ I said, ‘and you looking out of it.’

The old man brought me into a shed, he beat me black and blue with a broom. He locked me up in the shed, and he went for the sergeant. About an hour later, himself and the sergeant came to the shed, unlocked the door, and told me to come out.

‘Well boy,’ said the sergeant, ‘who broke the window?’

‘I don’t know, sir,’ I said, ‘but it must have been the man himself, or the cat that knocked the piece of stick from the window.’

‘You broke the window, didn’t you?’

‘I did not, sir,’ I said.

The sergeant hit me a hard slap on the ear, I could hear bells ringing in my ears. ‘You did break the window, come on, you were passing and you threw a stick at the cat.’

‘I did not,’ I said.

The sergeant hit me five or six slaps on my head and face. The blood spouted out of my nose.

‘You did break that window, if you don’t say you broke that window I am going to beat you and beat you till me arms get tired,’ the sergeant said.

Just then my Daddy came down along the road. He saw my eyes swollen and the blood running down my face.

‘What happened to you, Johnny?’ my Daddy said. ‘Did you get knocked down by a motor, or what?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘the sergeant done it.’

My Daddy had a loaded butt whip in his hand.

‘Did you do that to my child sergeant?’ said my Daddy.

‘He would not tell me who broke the window, and I lost my temper,’ said the sergeant.

My Daddy turned around on one foot and he swung that whip, and it hit the sergeant along the side of the head. He hit the ground, the sergeant did. My Daddy unfurled the lash and he hit the old man a tip on the leg.

‘The cat broke the window, the cat broke the window,’ the old man said.

The sergeant got up from the ground, ‘I am going to arrest you for assaulting me,’ he said to my father.

‘Not till I beat the -- out of you,’ said my father. My father left down the whip on the ground. ‘Put your hands up to save yourself, you big stupid bastard,’ said my father.

My father and the sergeant got stuck into it. My Daddy won and myself and him walked away. There was never anything about it, and my Daddy was not arrested, but I was sore for a month after.

It is a very lonesome time when we leave other Travellers and then pull up that night on the side of a lonely by-road, with just our own family to talk to. We were travelling every day for over a week. Just pulling in for one night and then moving on the next morning till we got to Mullingar, County Westmeath.

There was a very bad RUC sergeant in that town one time. I think he was there during the rebellious times. He was a bastard of a pig dressed in uniform. My Daddy often told us about him. I believe he was the worst man that ever was born from a mother.

When Travellers would camp around Mullingar, this bulldog of a police sergeant would not let the Travellers stay and sometimes during the night himself and a lot of blackguards would go to a camp and pull the Travellers out of their beds and demolish their tents and destroy everything.

But he did it too often. John Donohue put a stop to his gallop.

The sergeant came to John Donohue’s camp, John was not there, but John’s wife and children were. The sergeant jumped on top of the tent and he broke the tent to the ground. When John came back the next morning, his wife was crying and his children were shivering with the cold. John lit the fire for the children and then he went into the town looking for the sergeant, ‘John Bull’s Under Snot Watchdog’ as he called him.

John met the sergeant in the main street. John had an ash plant in his hand and the sergeant had a revolver. John walked over to the sergeant.

‘Good morning, Mr Bulldog,’ said John to the sergeant, and before the sergeant had time to speak, John hit him along the side of the head with the ash plant. The sergeant fell to the ground.

‘Get up,’ said John, ‘or I will kick you up.’

The sergeant went for his gun and as soon as he did, John hit it out of his hand with the ash plant. John kicked the sergeant up and down the town till the sergeant looked like a hug-a-day and John left the sergeant lying in the street.

There is a song about it:

Oh the public houses were not closed

Here and there my two eyes goes.

And I up and I struck the sergeant

Over the eyebrow at the bar.

I knocked him down you might be sure

I trampled upon him on the floor

And I kicked him into ribbons

Before I left Mullingar ...

That sergeant was like a saint ever after. He got his own medicine and he did not like its taste. He never troubled another Traveller.

During that time Travellers had a contract with a bottle, jar and glass firm, and we were collecting all classes of bottles and jars, thousands of gross each day we collected from farms, cottages, hotels, and dumps. But we were also collecting rags, scrap metal, feather beds and horse hair, and buying and selling donkeys, horses, and so on. In the winter months we pulled the sugar beet and made cans, buckets, pots, kettles, baths and basins, as well as mending them. And an odd fortune would be told as well. And we attended all the fairs and marts.

We left Mullingar and we came on to Athlone, the centre of Ireland. And we camped at the Radio Eireann Broadcasting Station. It’s a little country woody road leading off the main road. There we met the McDonaghs (Wexford Connors), Delaneys and Walls and we were all very glad to be camping with company again.

We left Athlone along with a lot of fish I caught that morning and we headed for Tuam, County Galway. There was about twenty families of Travellers with us at this time and we camped outside of Tuam near the old monument. There we met the Dohertys, Wards, Cashes and Sahoes. They were waiting around Tuam for the Ballinasloe Fair.

All that day and part of the night the travelling men were swapping and dealing their wagons or carts and ponies.

County Galway is a beautiful country and it’s a country that I could live long in and die happy, although we never travelled the County Galway much. Galway is the home of the great pipers and fiddlers and singers.

There is a song about Galway, and one evening I was coming back to the camp with a can of milk in my hand and I heard a young girl, about sixteen years of age, she was. She was singing to her little baby brother and when I heard her voice, a thrill of pleasantness crawled up my spine. The yawn of her voice had a culture of its own. The name of the song was ‘The Galway Shawl’:

It’s Aranmore in the County Galway

One fine summer’s morning in the month of May

I overspied a handsome colleen

She nearly stole my poor heart away.

She wore no paint nor she wore no powder

Nor costly diamonds she wore none at all.

But she wore a bonnet with a red rose on it,

And around her shoulders she wore a Galway shawl.

We kept a’talking to ourselves, were walking,

Till her father’s cottage it came to view,

Will you come in till you see my father,

He will play for you, The Old Foggy Dew ...

At this stage a lot of noisy children came running down the road and my enjoyment was spoiled and I walked over to the girl and I said, ‘Miss, that was the grandest bit of a song I ever heard.’

‘Ah will you go away out of that, I am hoarse as an old cuckoo.’

‘No, miss,’ I said, ‘you have a voice as sweet as wild bee’s honey.’

She laughed and she put her little baby brother in the tent to go asleep and I could see there was a smile of contentment on the sleeping baby’s face as she lay him down on the patchwork quilt in the tent.

‘You’re a nice little boy,’ she said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Oh, my name is Johnny Connors,’ I said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘My name is Mary Sahoe,’ she said.

This girl was a pure picture with long curly golden yellow hair. I thought to myself if I was her age I would be more bolder and I would ask her for a date. But that was out of the question. I was only ten years old at the time and I had to abandon my ideas. It was a kind of compulsory matter, I suppose. Anyway, one can’t put an old head onto young shoulders. But at the time I wished it was possible, that was one time I would have loved to be older, at least for a day or so anyway.

‘Well, miss,’ I said, ‘I must get back with the milk. God be with you.’

‘You too,’ she said, and I walked on down the road to our wagons.

My Mammy was a sort angry with me over me delaying so long with the milk.

‘What in God’s name kept you, Johnny, with the milk?’ said my Mammy.

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I was listening to that grand girl down there in the tents, she was singing a fine song and I had to wait to listen to her.’

‘Why don’t you tell a lie sometime,’ my Mammy said, ‘you always have an excuse.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s true. I was listening to the grand fine girl, singing a grand song.’

And my Mammy laughed at me. ‘Johnny, son, you never tell a lie. Never mind what I said to you. Here’s your supper.’

Spring was after finding himself a few bitches, and one of the bitches had a whole litter off Spring. For Spring, he was lying down in under the wagon, a proud father of his pups. He looked at me in a very happy mood as much as to say he was a good-looking dog and the bitches got attracted to him. I looked at him and he wagged his tail.

‘Mammy,’ I said, ‘that Spring is a stupid fool of a dog.’

‘Why?’ said my Mammy.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘he got married too young and he’s never going to feed all them pups.’

My Mammy roared with laughter.

A few days after Ballinasloe Fair, we travelled on to Rosscommon and from that to Ballina, County Mayo. At the fair of Ballina we met a lot of my Daddy’s people and that was the only time in my life that I ever saw eight hundred donkeys together in the one bunch. Johnny Connors (RIP) had nearly three hundred donkeys including some ponies. Jerry Connors had about a hundred donkeys. John Boy Connors had a similar number of donkeys and we had about sixty donkeys. Donkeys was a very big trade. Most of them were shipped to Britain as pets. But a lot went to the Continent. In fact some of the donkeys went to all parts, even to the United States and Russia. People say that it was cheaper to have a live ornament in their garden than to have a big stupid stone. And big ranchers always count it lucky to have a donkey running with their cattle. If a cow or a horse fall in a bog or swamp, the donkey will roar for help and he will continue to do so till the animal is brought to safety. Also when a cow has calved or a mare had foaled, a donkey will protect the calf or foal from dogs and other animals.

People use the words, as stupid as an ass. A donkey is an ass, but he is not stupid. He is a great, cunning pretender. If a donkey don’t want you on his back, he will buck and jump and leap to get you off his back, and if that fails, he will give in or submit for the time being, till he comes to a ditch or a trench. And when you think you have him broken and he thinks that you think you have mastered him, he will stop in his tracks very suddenly and you will be dumped into the hedge or trench. He will stand there looking at you trying to get out of the trench or hedge. The donkey will always make a fool out of a human in his own space of time.

We travelled to all the fairs in Mayo and all the towns, Foxford, Westport, Ballyhaunis, Claremorris, Goodcady, Castlebar, Manerhamilton, Culshamock, Achill Island and The Sound.

County Mayo is the nearest thing to heaven. I never saw heaven, but I would swear if our Lord and His angels and His saints was ever changing their address they would stay in Achill, County Mayo, for evermore. The only thing they would have to do is put a pair of golden gates on the approach to the island and they could call it the New Irish Heaven on Earth. And what a grand place it would be. The birds whistling and singing and the salmon and trout showing off jumping in the river. Along the side of the roads, a good tinsmith hammering out a grand lively beat on his iron stake or anvil and a good musician playing an Irish lament. That’s what I would call heaven on earth:

Boys get together

In all kinds of weather,

Never show the white feather

Wherever you roam.

Be like a brother

And help one another

Like the true hearted men

From the County Mayo.

Yes, Mayo is heaven’s pastures on Ireland’s ground.

My Daddy made two wagons, one for Jim Delaney and the other for Johnny Connors, and two good barrel-top wagons they were. When he had finished he left Mayo and on to the County Cavan he went.

Times was very good. My Daddy was dealing in everything and anything, and he made a lot of three-legged tables, and he sold them like hot cakes. At this time we were buying all kinds of poultry, and at times we had as much as three thousand birds. Ducks, turkeys, hens, guinea hens, and bantams and chickens. We had a contract for them with a poultry and feather farm in Dublin. Anything a farmer wanted or any job he wanted mended, we would mend it, such as mowing machines, ploughs, hay-rakes and all farm implements.

My Daddy is also a great vet, and he could attend to any animal. So we were the jack-of-all-trades. Any kind of a job in the country we could do. We were builders, carpenters, dealers and iron workers, tinsmiths and horse dealers and breeders. We had the gift of the gum sha lack unick. Gum sha lack unick is an etc. etc. etc. Cross between a genius thing and a miracle. There is a song about the gum sha lack that I have written:

GUM SHA LACK

We are the travelling people like the Picts or beaker folk.

The bureaucrats thinks we are parasites, but Tinker is the word,

With our Gum Sha Lack alayro,

Move us on you boyos.

All the jobs in the world we have done from making Pharaoh’s coffins,

To building Birmingham,

With our Gum Sha Lack alayro,

Wallop it out me heroes.

`

We have mended pots and kettles and buckets for Lord Cornwall.

But before we could leave the house, me lads, we would mind the women and all,

With our Gum Sha Lack alayro.

Wallop it out me hero.

Well I have a little woman, a mother she is to be,

She gets her basket on her arm and mooches the hills for me,

With our Gum Sha Lack alayro.

Wallop it out me hero.

We have fought the Romans, the Spanish and the Danes,

We fought against the dirty Black and Tans and knocked Cromwell to his knees,

With our Gum Sha Lack alayro,

Wallop it out me heroes.

Well we are married this twenty years, nineteen children we have got,

One is hardly walking when there’s another one in the cot,

Over our Gum Sha Lack alayro,

Get out of that you boyos.

We have made cannon guns in Hungary, bronze cauldrons in the years BC,

We have fought and died for Ireland to make sure she was free,

With our Gum Sha Lack alayro,

Wallop it out me heroes.

We can sing a song or dance a reel, no matter where we roam,

We have learned the Roman Nero how to play the pipes way back in time of Rome,

With our Gum Sha Lack alayro,

Whack it if you can me boyos.

We left Cavan and we came on to my own home town, Dublin. Dublin the city of great fame. We camped at Dolkins Bran beside the canal, and there we met old McCann, Johnny Murphy, and the Camer Murphys. The Camer Murphys are my old Mammy’s people. We never call our grandmothers ‘grandmother’. We call them ‘old Mammy’ and our grandfathers ‘old Daddy’. The Murphys are great poets and ballad makers, and the McCanns are good music makers and they were also great leather makers. They made boots, shoes, harness, and all classes of leather goods. And they were good in the boxing booths and rings. They were real professional boxers. They also made iron and tinware and collected metal and smelted the metal at the roadsides in makeshift furnaces.

The wobs and nese stach mon’ya feins would evict us night and day. We would be shirted night and day along the roads so we could not go to school. The travelling children in my country could not read or write.

A well-known man said to me one day, ‘John, son, if you ever had to go to school just for a few years, there would be no man to touch you, you are a genius of your people.’

‘Sir,’ I said, ‘if I had to go to school, I would like it very much, but if I did, I would not know my people.’

Well, my mother was expecting my sister Catherine at the time and the very day and hour my sister Catherine was born my little sister Barbara died, God rest her little soul. This was a terrible shock to us all. And I will never forget that time, it very nearly killed my Mammy. She cried for a whole week till there was not a tear left in her body. Yes, my Mammy took it very bad. She was crying and she was really sad and lonely.

The tears were falling from her eyes. She called me, ‘Come here, Johnny, son.’

‘What do you want Mammy?’ I said.

‘Will you go down to the Convent, son, and ask the Nuns for a loan of a crucifix to put in the wagon. Because we are going to wake your little sister in the wagon.’

So I told my mother I would go to the Convent. My mother gave me two pennies for the bus fare.

At that time I was in my bare feet. I had a very big rip in the seat of my pants and the tail of my shirt was hanging and waggling from the hole in my pants. Like a tail it was. I was like a clown.

‘Galune,’ I said to myself, ‘I’ll be saulked.’ But somehow I was not arrested and I came to the door of the Convent.

I knocked on the door and I could hear footsteps coming towards the door. The door was opened by a little Nun. She was dressed in black robes with a white front on them. She had a beautiful and pitiful warm smile on her face.

‘God bless you, Sister,’ I said.

‘You too,’ said the little Nun.

‘My mother sent me down to ask you for a crucifix,’ says I. So I told the Nun the whole story of how my little sister had died with pneumonia. The little Nun said she was sorry to hear that. She was really sorry because I could see the pitiful expression on her face. Then the little Nun asked me to come in.

‘Thank you, Sister,’ I said.

As I walked down the big, long hallway the noise of my two bare feet was echoing all over the place. It was like the noise of a big heavy duck walking: clap, clap, clap, slap. Finally we came to a big room and the little Nun opened the two big swinging doors and straight in front of us in the room was a lot of Nuns sitting around a big Jacobite table. They all stared at me for a good while.

‘How the devil are you?’ says I.

They all blessed themselves. I knew I was after saying the wrong words, but there was nothing I could do about it. I tried to change the words to ‘God bless you, Sisters,’ but I was too embarrassed. I am sure you could boil a kettle on my face it was that red with shame.

‘It’s a grand morning,’ says I. In fact it was evening. I was all mixed up with shame.

The Reverend Mother got up from the table and she walked towards me. ‘What is your name?’ she said.

‘Oh, my name is John Connors,’ says I.

‘Where do you live?’ said the Reverend Mother.

‘I live in a caravan, Sister.’

‘What age are you, John?’

‘By Jaysus, to tell you the truth, Sister, I don’t know. I know one thing, Sister, I lost my teeth about eleven months ago.’

‘Can you read, John?’

‘No, Sister, I can’t.’

‘Do you know any letters, John?’

‘No, Sister.’

‘Do you know your prayers, John?’

‘Yes, Sister.’

‘What prayers do you know, John?’

‘I know about that many.’ I put up all my fingers.

‘So you know ten prayers, John.’

‘Yes, Sister.’

Then the other little Nun that opened the hall door for me came in and gave me a big mug of hot milk. The rest of the Nuns asked me questions. One Nun asked me, ‘How many horses have you got, John?’

‘We have a good few, Sister. We have the world of donkeys, and two caravans.’

Then another one of the Nuns asked me what I thought of Northern Ireland.

‘It’s a grand country, Sister,’ says I.

‘I am from Northern Ireland,’ said the Nun.

‘Yes, I know that, Sister. You are from Derry.’

The Nun was amazed. ‘How do you know that, John?’

‘Oh, I can tell by your accent,’ says I.

‘Where am I from, John?’

‘You are from County Cavan, Sister.’

The little Nun that opened the door for me was watching me the whole time, and she just asked me one question, ‘Have you ever been to school, John?’

‘No, Sister, I never went to school. But I would like to go to school only the police and corporation men won’t let us stay for long.’

‘Well, I will teach you, John. You come here next Monday at seven o’clock in the evening and I will see to it that you will know all your letters,’ said the little Nun.

‘Yes, Sister, I will come.’

It was time for me to go, and all the Nuns said good-bye to me.

‘Yous need not say good-bye to me. I will be back next Monday.’

As I walked to the door I looked back at the rest of the Nuns and I said, ‘Good luck to you all, Sisters.’

As I was going out the door I said, ‘Tell me, Sister, when will I know it’s seven o’clock? I can’t read or spell the time.’

‘Ask somebody the time and they will tell you,’ said the Nun.

I got on the bus and I went back with the crucifix. My mother was still crying when I arrived at the wagons. I handed the crucifix to my mother and she said, ‘God bless you, son.’

The next day my little sister Barbara was buried. Hundreds of Travellers were at the graveside, Johnny Clark and Izer Price, Willy Loveridge and some of the Grays were at the funeral, a lot of Irish Travellers. They had come to the funeral in lorries and motor vans, ponies and carts and so on. We were all very sad to see the little coffin going into the grave.

On the following Monday morning I awoke and I was in an awful hurry trying to get on my clothes. At this time I was well dressed. My shoes were polished and I put on my good pants and coat and shirt.

I rushed out of the wagon. There was an old conishfein passing. ‘What time is it, sir, please?’ said I.

‘It’s half past,’ said the old conishfein.

‘Half past what, sir?’

‘Half past eight,’ said the old conishfein.

‘When will it be full past, sir?’

The old conishfein looked at me. He got very upset and angry.

‘Listen, young man, what damn time do you want it to be?’

‘I would like it if it was seven o’clock,’ said I.

‘Well, do you want it to be seven o’clock in the morning or seven o’clock in the evening?’

‘Dark time,’ said I.

The old conishfein started to laugh. ‘You are a comical little boy,’ said he. ‘You have ten-and-a-half hours to wait for seven dark time, as you call it.’

‘Thank you, sir, and good luck to you,’ said I.

‘Dark time indeed. Ho, ho,’ said the old conishfein.

As I walked away I looked back at him and I said to

myself, a ruileahfein.

All day I was asking the time. I did not want to be late for school at the Convent. Then I got my other sister, Maggie, to ask the time. A woman was passing and Maggie asked the old ladog, ‘What time is it, Mrs, please?’

The old ladog said it was twenty to six.

‘What time did the woman say it was, Maggie?’ said I.

Maggie replied, ‘a whole load of minutes and a six.’

My Daddy told me it was half past six. So I washed myself and I got on the bus.

The conductor said, ‘Fares please.’

I gave him my penny. ‘What time is it, conductor,

please?’

‘Twenty to seven,’ said the conductor.

‘When will it be seven o’clock?’ said I.

Just then a gentleman got on the bus.

‘What time is it, sir?’

‘Wait a minute, sonny, and I will tell you.’

The gentleman took out a gold pocket-watch. ‘It’s ten minutes to seven o’clock,’ said the gentleman.

‘It is not,’ said the conductor, ‘it’s just turned twenty to seven.’

‘How dare you make so little of my watch,’ said the gentleman to the conductor.

The two of them were still arguing when I got off the bus. I knocked at the door of the Convent and the little Nun opened the door.

‘Come in, John.’

And that was the first time I ever was at school. One thing is sure, that one can teach oneself how to read but one cannot teach oneself how to write properly. I have never been to school since. But I can claim to be an overgraduate from Oxford, because I went to night-school at Oxford for eight hours. So, to be precise, I had seven weeks, eight hours at schooling in my whole lifetime.

About four weeks passed and I could write my name JOHN.

And nearly every minute during the day I would be saying, ‘ZABQAZXOUWZ. ACB792Y14MN2Q,’ and so on.

I would sing it all day, ‘ABCDEFG HIJKLMNO PQRST UVWXYZ.’

Six weeks had passed and I could tell the time of the clock myself.

That was six weeks at night-school. Then the Nun asked me, would I like to go to a real classroom with little girls, because it was a girls’ school. I said I would, so the next day for the first time in my life I was in a classroom. When the girls of the class saw me I could hear them whispering to one another, ‘He is a Gyppo.’

I was nearly mad. I shouted, ‘Ah, shut up your big mouths.’ I know it was wrong of me to treat young ladies that way, but they had started it.

After a while that day I got settled down to the class. And then I asked the teacher, ‘Could I go to the toilet?’

‘Yes, John, go right ahead out to the yard.’

I went into the toilet and I bolted one of the doors, and two girls came in.

It was a girls’ toilet I was in.

‘Hurry on, Mary, and pull your bloomers up when you leave.’

I made a burst for the door and my trousers tripped me up. I ran out the gate of the school. As I was going out I met the Reverend Mother.

‘What’s wrong, John?’ said the Reverend Mother.

‘Those girls followed me into the toilet, the dirty things. They should be ashamed of themselves.’

I could see a smile on the Reverend Mother’s face.

‘You go back to your class, John, and I will sort it all out.’

I was ashamed of my life. Then it was playtime and the girls became to like me. I would skip with them, play ball with them. They became great pals of mine. The big bully girls were afraid of me, because when the big bully girls would bully the little girls I would stop them.

There was one big girl: I christened her ‘Young Elephant’. She was a very fat girl and she would bump into the little girls and the little girls would fall flat on their faces. So one day she was bullying all the other little girls.

‘Hold on there, you overgrown young elephant, don’t be pushing any of the little girls.’

So from that day onwards she never pushed any of the little girls, and if she tried to the little girls would say, ‘I will get John to call you more names.’

After six weeks at school in the Convent, the little Nun said to me, ‘John, I want you to be here at the Convent tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. You will be making your first Holy Communion in a couple of days. And I will have a surprise for you tomorrow morning.’

So that evening I was ready at last. Nearly six weeks of hard work had made me a scholar, and this meant a lot to me, and it also made a queen of the little Nun. She had mastered a completely illiterate boy within six weeks, and it made a man out of me.

Before I left the Convent that night all the Nuns gave me money and sweets. The money amounted to five shillings and most of it was in pennies, halfpennies and threepenny bits.

I went to a shop in Francis Street and there were a lot of one-arm bandits and slot machines in the shop. I put a penny in one of the slots and I won fourpence. I put another penny in the slot and I won the jackpot. I thought I was a millionaire. I had won eight shillings and fourpence.

I changed the pennies with the woman behind the counter and she gave me silver money for the pennies. I then went across the road to the Tivoli Picture House. I paid the man at the door fourpence and I gave a penny for a big ice-cream. I saw a great funny picture of Bud Abbot and Lou Costello.

I went on to a little shop. I bought two dozen of little holy pictures at one shilling and sixpence a dozen.

‘How much do I owe you, Ma’am?’

‘Three shillings, son,’ said the old woman.

I gave her a half-crown and a sixpenny bit.

‘Thank you, Ma’am.’

‘Ah, you’re all right, son. Watch yourself of the motor-cars!’

‘I will, Ma’am.’

And off I went down along Merchant Quays in all the public houses, and I sold my little holy pictures at fourpence a piece.

I had about four little pictures left when I came to O’Connell’s Bridge, and I went into a big hotel. I think it was the Gresham Hotel. I was only in there for a few minutes when a big gentleman called me over to his table. He was an American and his name was Roy Rogers, the film star.

‘What are you selling, sonny?’

‘I am selling holy pictures, sir.’

‘How much do you sell them for?’

‘Fourpence, sir.’

‘Well, now, I must buy one of those.’

I could see the manager of the hotel was not very pleased with me. He had a dry laugh on his face and by his looks he would rather see me gone. I suppose I can’t blame him. But eventually he showed me to the door. He was very fair about it all and very polite.

When I got to the door, he said, ‘Please don’t come in again.’

‘I won’t, sir, and thank you very much.’

As I was walking away the manager called me back.

‘Here, come here. I might as well buy one of your little holy pictures.’

He put his hand in his pocket and gave me a two shilling piece. ‘And keep the change,’ he said.

That was seven shillings I got, and so I walked away from the hotel. The second time the manager smiled at me and winked his eyes.

I had two holy pictures left and I had a lucky night. I had about thirty shillings altogether in my pocket. It was 9.45 on the Lucky Coady clock facing the Bank of Ireland. I said to myself, ‘I will sell these two pictures I have left.’

So round the corner in a pub, I asked a man would he buy a holy picture.

‘How much are they?’ said the man.

‘Only fourpence, sir,’ said I.

‘Bedad, you are charging enough for them,’ said the man.

‘Oh, you bought a picture off me the other night, sir. And you were very drunk.’

‘I suppose so, son,’ said the man.

He bought the little picture. That man was the late Brendan Behan, one of Ireland’s greatest writers and play-writers, God rest his soul, Amen.

So I put the last picture in my pocket and I walked up to Christ Church, and at the corner of the Coombe and Patrick Street I got the last bus home. When I got to the wagon my Mammy said, ‘Where were you, Johnny?’

I told her about the night I had and I gave her the money I had collected. She gave me my supper.

‘Johnny, it would not surprise me if you will be a president when you grow up.’

I went to bed after my supper, and the next morning, about six o’clock, Spring came up in the wagon and he pulled the bedclothes off me, and he barked into my ears.

After my breakfast I harnessed the pony and yoked her under the first cart and I went out hawking, buying and collecting scrap metal. I bought a fair bit of scrap and rags and so on.

One gentleman said to me, ‘What kind of scrap are you collecting?’

‘All classes of scrap, sir. Such as old brass, copper, lead, batteries, machines and any class of scrap metal, or old, wet, dirty, dry or clean old rags. I would give you a good price for them.’

‘If you say that again,’ said the man, ‘I will look about the place and any scrap that’s here I will give to you.’

I did repeat the collecting words and the gentleman gave me a good pile of scrap and rags.

That evening I came back to camp and I sorted out the scrap and the rags and packed them, and I then went to the Convent.

On the way I thought to myself I should have been at the Convent that morning. I forgot blank about it. I said to myself, ‘What am I going to tell the Nun?’ I was going to make up an excuse, and then I thought it would not be lucky to tell the Nun a lie.

I knocked at the door of the Convent. The Nun came to the door. When she saw me she was not too pleased.

‘John, you know you should have been here this morning.’

‘Sister, I am very sorry, I forgot all about it till a few minutes ago. I am very sorry, Sister, and please forgive me. I know, Sister, what a disappointment it must have been for you. But honestly, Sister, I did forget.’

She smiled and said, ‘Well, I will forgive you for this time. But make sure you are here tomorrow morning.’

‘Yes, Sister, I will.’

The next morning I did go to the Convent, and I got my breakfast from the Nun. After my breakfast, myself and the little Nun went down the city to a big shop that sold all classes of clothes and she bought me a suit and a full rig-out of clothes. From there we went to Domicans of the Quays and the Nun bought me a Saint John Basco relic and a silver medallion. Myself and the Nun came back to the Convent and she told me to put the new clothes on to see how they fitted me. While I was fitting the clothes on me, the Nun went to the kitchen to make the tea. I was dressed when she saw me, she hardly could speak. She did not cry from her eyes, but in her heart she cried.

‘John, John, you look marvellous.’

‘Sister, if it was not for you I would not look marvellous.’

She pulled a hanky from the sleeve of her robe and she hurried out of the room.

The next morning I made my first Communion and, after, I received the sacrament. Myself and the Nuns left the chapel in Meath Street and we came back to the Convent.

My breakfast was laid out on the Jacobite table and myself and all the Nuns sat around it. There was all kinds of cakes and fruit and other different kinds of food on the table. It was a high-class reception I received. After myself and the Nuns got our breakfast the Reverend Mother asked me to sing a song.

‘Of course I will, Sister,’ I said. And the song I sang was ‘The Green Shades of Yon’:

Come on me jolly young fellows

A warning take by me.

Don’t you ever fall in love

With any young girl you see.

For they will leave you broken-hearted

Around the green shades of Yon.

Tomorrow is the Fair day,

We will all go to town.