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Family anecdotes about yokels threatening Travellers; moral...

Date 18 November 1981
Track ID 49865
Part 1

Track Information

Original Track ID

SA1981.86.A1

Original Tape ID

SA1981.086

Summary

Family anecdotes about yokels threatening Travellers; moral values.

The contributor reads a poem about happy memories of Travellers camping. She talks about her grandfather, who ran away from a well-to-do home and joined a circus. He married a Traveller, but then persuaded his wife to settle in a house, apart from a few months of the year. Once when they were camping, they were attacked by yokels, and he threatened them in his cultured English accent, pretending to have a gun in his pocket. The contributor's father's grandfather and Old Jenny the Devil once armed themselves with jockies and fought off a mob to defend the young girls.

Chastity was important to the Travellers. If a girl went with a man, that was them married. In Scottish law a formal marriage wasn't required. She recalls an occasion when her father defended the honour of men against a woman who said men would go with any girl. Breastfeeding was done openly amongst the Travellers. Discussion of the importance of high moral standards in a camp situation, and also of combining for safety.

Item Notes

Marriage by cohabitation with habit and repute, i.e. being known as Mr and Mrs X, was recognised in Scots law until 2006.

With 'jockie', which appears to be a tent-peg, cf. 'jock' n.3 (various types of pronged rods) in 'The Scottish National Dictionary' (available online [[http://www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl/]], accessed 9 June 2009).

Recording Location

County - Kincardineshire

Parish - Fetteresso

Village/Place - Stonehaven

Language

English

Collection

SoSS

Source Type

Reel to reel

Audio Quality

Good