The Girl in the Painted Caravan (5 page)

That evening there was a commotion amongst the dogs and horses outside the vardos. ‘Who’s there?’ shouted Naughty. As quick as a flash, he was up on his feet. It was
Alice’s pony that was making the biggest fuss, bucking all over the place. Afraid that he might damage her trap, Naughty headed towards the pony, rolling up his sleeves. He listened for the
noise that had disturbed the animals. Naughty was always ready for the unexpected and never afraid of anyone or anything. As the purr of a car in the distance grew louder, followed by the beeping
of a horn, Naughty relaxed and Alice’s face lit up.

‘Girls,’ she beamed. ‘Stand up and make yourselves look presentable. It’s clothes time.’

The driver of the car stepped out. ‘Hello, Mrs Petulengro, how are you?’

‘Joseph,’ Alice said. ‘How’s that lovely wife of yours keeping?’ Joseph was Sir Archibald and Lady Weigall’s chauffeur and he and Alice had known each other
for years now. Joseph walked round to the back of the car and, with a deft flick of his finger, opened the boot. The girls rushed round and saw several bags, which they couldn’t wait to get
their hands on. Grabbing the bags and taking them into the vardo, they couldn’t stop giggling with excitement. They immediately opened the bags and stroked the fabrics – silks, satins
and pure wool – as one would a newborn baby. One bag contained hats and shoes, some adult clothes and also, to the girls’ delight, some children’s clothes and two beautiful lace
tablecloths. Tonight they would be dining well and dressing well!

Alice always made sure her children were well dressed, at least when they left the vardo. One day Mummy and Vera were walking down a lane on their way to the birthday party of a farmer’s
child, a family they had known for years. They were both wearing beautiful white dresses given to them by a doctor’s wife who used to pass all her children’s clothes to them. They came
to two black poles in the lane and Vera ran to one, deciding to swing around it. What she didn’t realise was that the poles had just been painted and suddenly Vera’s hands, her legs and
her beautiful white dress were all covered in thick black paint. Picturing her horrified face many years later, Granny would still cry with laughter.

When the vardos were rested at night on the verges of the country lanes through which they travelled, Naughty would build a fire outside and then push a stake into the ground,
which would hold an iron stew pot. Alice would cook delicious recipes handed down through the generations, flavoured with fresh herbs picked from the fields.

Naughty had three greyhounds, two lurchers and a little terrier, which were useful for following a rabbit or hare down a hole and bringing it out. Although many people choose to course for fun,
for Naughty and the rest of my family it was the only way to put food on the table. People often think it’s awful that we hunt our own meat. We, on the other hand, find it far more comforting
to know that the animal was killed as quickly and humanely as possible. When hunting, the men would rely on their instincts – a kind of clairvoyance, if you like – to know in which
direction to go to find food.

Many of the dishes that Alice prepared were the same as those prepared and eaten by gorgers, but they also ate Romany-style. They often dined on freshly picked mushrooms, which tasted
unbelievably good. Moorhen, partridge and wild duck were all regularly on the menu. Pheasants are in season around Christmas time and one of Alice’s favourite recipes was to quarter an apple
and put it inside the bird, then squeeze half a lemon over the breast. On top of that went some bacon and then Alice would line a dish with bread and place the bird onto it. While it was cooking,
the juices from the bird would soak into the bread and, together with the fat from the bacon, it made it a dish fit to set before a king.

There is another dish called Joey Grey which was a family favourite. Joey Grey, a traveller who lived many years before my grandparents, is supposed to have concocted it when he fell on hard
times. Funny to think, then, that years later we all considered it a real treat. Alice would fry onions, to which water and salt and pepper would be added. She would then throw some sliced potatoes
into the frying pan, until the water was just covering them, and simmer them until the potatoes were cooked. A gravy flavouring would then be added and, when it was ready, thick bread and butter
would be dipped into it. Delicious and warming, it would set them up ready for a hard day’s toil. Today, most Romany families make it with Oxo and Bisto and may add some steak or sausage to
give the meal more substance. I don’t think old Joey Grey ever realised how famous he would become for his pauper’s dish and that people would go on to enjoy the meal which was named
after him even into the twenty-first century.

My family would also pick nettles to make tea (which was meant to be good for the liver) and the men would make beer from them, using the nettle tops. I never drank it as I was growing up, but
I’ve been told that it tastes remarkably like Champagne!

When the boys were not around, Mummy and her sisters would apply Fuller’s earth, mixed into a paste with some lemon juice and water, to their skin as a face pack. They would clean the skin
with witch hazel and apply the paste, leaving it on until it dried like mud, and then use witch hazel again to clean it off.

For their hair, they would use a couple of ounces of rosemary spikes, a couple of ounces of a herb called southernwood, the same of red sage and an ounce of bay leaves, all soaked in boiling
water and mixed together. The water was then massaged into the scalp morning and night for thick, full hair.

All these treatments were passed down through the generations, and continue to be now, and I remember one particularly unusual one for warts. They would steal a bit of meat from the Sunday joint
and rub it on the wart, after which they would bury the meat in the ground. The idea was that as the meat rotted, the wart would drop off. I’ve got no idea how this works, but I can assure
you it does!

Romanies have always been known for their ability to cure all ills using concoctions made only from what nature has to offer, and through the ages gorgers have turned to us for help with curing
all sorts of problems. But one evening when Naughty was in the pub and had been getting sick of the locals asking him for advice for their ailments when he just wanted to have a relaxing drink
after a long day on the road, one of the regulars approached him, complaining about his problem with baldness.

‘I’ll tell you the real secret to growing your hair back,’ Naughty said with a wry smile. ‘Fresh cow dung, strained off. Why don’t you get some for yourself and rub
it into your hair every morning?’

With this, Naughty downed the rest of his drink, turned on his heels and walked back to his vardo to try to find a bit of peace and quiet. He didn’t think much about the incident and
didn’t have a chance to go back to the pub until three months later, when the family returned from more travels.

He decided to give the public house another try and, to his annoyance, the same man came up to him again, only this time he looked slightly different.

‘Do you mind if I join you?’ he said. ‘I just wanted to thank you. My wife, especially.’

On closer inspection, Naughty realised that this man actually had a new growth of hair on the top of his head. ‘Er, you’re welcome,’ Naughty said. He laughed all the way back
to the vardo, whereupon he told Alice the story.

Alice was in stitches. ‘Well, manure does make things grow, doesn’t it, Naughty? All sorts of things by the sound of it!’ Granny told me that they were still laughing about it
days later.

FIVE

It was early 1927 and the family were on their way from Sleaford to Woodhall Spa, a village between Lincoln and Skegness near to the home of Sir Archibald and Lady Weigall,
when they had an encounter that would change their lives.

A car came towards them from the other direction and pulled up at the side of the lane, about a hundred yards in front of them. A young man jumped out of the car and waved, having recognised the
wagons. The family pulled the vardos into a handy field entrance.

‘Naughty,’ the man said. ‘Good to see you again. I’ve been hoping I’d run into you.’ The two men clasped each other’s hands with a firm shake and patted
each other on the back.

‘Get some tea on, girls,’ Naughty shouted. They sat down together on the verge while Nathan and Alger set about making up a fire.

‘It must be fate that I’ve run into you, Naughty,’ the man said. ‘I’m building an amusement park in these parts, which would be perfect for Alice and the girls to
set up business at.’

‘What, settle down in one place?’ asked Naughty.

‘It’s only for six months of the year, and I have a feeling my new venture is really going to take off,’ retorted the young man.

‘Where is this place anyway?’ asked Naughty.

‘It’s in Skegness, and I’m hoping you’ll predict it will be a great success,’ he replied with a smile. ‘I’m off to London now to tie up a few loose
ends, but I’ll be back in Skeggy in a day or so. Come and have a look and see what you think.’ Without waiting for his tea, he jumped back in his car and drove off.

‘It can’t do any harm, I suppose, just to have a look,’ Alice said, with curiosity in her voice. ‘He’s always been ambitious and a hard worker. I’m sure
it’ll be an adventure to see the amusement park, if nothing else.’ Despite her words, at that moment in time, Alice had a gut feeling that it would be more than a little interesting to
her and her family.

The young man’s name was Billy Butlin.

Billy was the son of Bertha Hill, who was from a very well-known and respected fairground travelling family. The Hills, Butlins and Petulengros had known each other for years and were good
friends.

Although not well educated, young Billy had a sharp business instinct. Having worked for a couple of years at the Hills Travelling Fair, he saw that there was money to be made in setting up his
own amusement park in Skegness. Ordinary people were getting annual holidays now and choosing to go to the seaside, only to be kicked out of their bed and breakfast accommodation every morning. He
knew that if he could keep them entertained in his park, they would spend their money with him, rather than with the other traders. He’d leased some land from the Earl of Scarborough and, as
well as the usual attractions like the roller coaster, was looking for novelties and thought Alice’s palm-reading would offer something different. In any event, the family had some beautiful
daughters and Billy was a sucker for a pretty face, as are most men. When Billy suggested to Alice that she open a palmistry booth, Alice felt it was an answer to her prayers. A six-month season
without travelling. No more knocking on strangers’ doors, but letting the people come to you instead. Recently, Alice and Naughty had been starting to find that they were not as welcomed by
strangers as they had been and, as a result, money was harder to make. They didn’t want to see their children left behind by the times, unable to make a living. All of the children were
teenagers by now apart from Shunty, who was not yet born, and for the first time in their lives the Petulengro young men and women would be mixing with non-Romany people.

The family knew Mr Henshall, who owned the Royal Oak public house in the village of Ingoldmells near Skegness, a stone’s throw from the amusement park, behind which he had a caravan site.
He agreed to rent it to them for the season, which lasted from Easter to after the August bank holiday.

The month they had to wait for the park to open seemed like a year. The night before opening day, they were all full of anticipation. The girls were planning what they would wear and doing their
beauty preparations and they hardly slept a wink.

The big day arrived. Adeline had bought new court shoes, but found they pinched her toes, so Lena suggested she poured boiling water into them, left them for five minutes and then put them on
the wrong feet, which was common practice for stretching suede or leather. She breathed a sigh of relief when she tried them on and they fitted better so she wouldn’t have to worry about not
being able to walk all day!

Just inside the park was a roller coaster and underneath it, at street level, was a little parade of sites, created to look like caves hewn out of the rocky face of a cliff, but actually made
from plaster. Alice’s first booth at Skegness was one of these caves. There was a brightly coloured velvet curtain just inside the mouth of the cave, its wide hem filled with sand to weigh it
down and stop the sea breeze blowing it up and revealing who was inside. Once through the curtain, the inside was a kind of dome with uneven walls, which had the exact appearance of damp rock.
Alice also took another site at the other end of the amusement park and planned to run the businesses with her daughters.

Alice had ordered signs for the palmistry places, which were to be fixed outside on the walls. When they arrived at the site, she was horrified, for the signs read: ‘Madam Eva, Romany
Palmist and Clairvoyant. Patronised by Royalty’. Glaringly, the name Petulengro was omitted. Apparently, the sign writer didn’t know how to spell it! Thereafter, she was known as Madam
Eva all over Lincolnshire.

Soon queues began to form outside both the palmistry places. It cost two and sixpence to have one hand read and five shillings for both, so the money began to flood in.

Alice had taught her daughters how to greet and speak to the clients, how not to let the clients tell them anything and to keep them quiet while the reading was in progress. When clients did not
have anything interesting in their hands, or had short lifelines, the girls would watch as their mother expertly found something positive to say. We are there, after all, to make the client feel
safe and secure about their future, not petrified of it. Sometimes we play the role of counsellor, sometimes of priest. Many of our clients see us as a friend, but one they can tell their secrets
to, unlike their real friends, who they’re frightened will judge them. The eldest girls, Cissie, Lena and Adeline, were the first of the sisters to start giving readings on their own at the
park, while Mummy and Vera continued to watch and learn the trade.