Smith - Tales from the Tent: Jessies Journey Continues

T ALES FROM THE T ENT

J ESS S MITH

was raised in a large family of Scottish travellers. This is the second book in her bestselling autobiographical trilogy. Her story begins with Jessies Journey: Autobiography of a Traveller Girl and concludes with Tears for a Tinker: Jessies Journey Concludes. She has also written a novel, Bruars Rest. As a traditional storyteller, she is in great demand for live performances throughout Scotland.

This eBook edition first published in 2012
First published in 2003 by Mercat Press Ltd
Reprinted in 2003 and 2005
New edition published 2008 and reprinted 2012 by

Birlinn Limited
West Newington House
10 Newington Road
Edinburgh
EH9 1QS

www.birlinn.co.uk

Copyright Jess Smith 2003, 2008

The moral right of Jess Smith to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-85790-179-8

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Version 1.0

I LLUSTRATIONS

A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There is a countless army who inspired, prodded, encouraged, laughed and cried with me whilst I was writing this bookmany thanks for staying the course.

Dave the rock; Daddy and Mammynever far away; Bonnie, Rosie, Rebecca, Meghan, Nicole, Jason; The Golden Girls; wee palcousin Anna; Janet Keet Black; Mamie for Keiths poem; David Cowan; Glen neighbours; David Campbell the book man; Portsoy Peter (deceased).

A special thanks to Robert Dawson (my radgy gadgie); John Beaton; Catherine; Tom and Sen.

And a great big thanks to Michael G Kidd who wrote Where do I Belong? especially for me.

I am eternally grateful to the Scottish Arts Council, who through a fine grant allowed me the freedom to research further than I could otherwise have done.

I dedicate this book to Mac, of the old tattered journal

INTRODUCTION

T hose of you who came with me on Jessies Journey, when I told you about my life in our blue Bedford bus with Mammy, Daddy, seven sisters and Tiny, the wee fox terrier that could run rings round rats, will have an idea where we are going. To those who did not, then let me take you through the Scottish travellers life, a life of folklore, murder and mystery. Humour jumps on board too, folks!

Will you believe my tales? Perhaps aye, or maybe not. For what is fact and fiction in life when a falling snowflake can lead a young mother to trek upon a treacherous mountain in a blizzard perilously putting her two little boys in danger?

Would you like to hear of the threesome who dared to bury a Royal Duke in the wee coastal graveyard filled to capacity with tramps, vagabonds and tinkers? More to the pointwas there room for him?

Those hounds of Harrys, were they really dead? Did he survive because it wasnt his time?

Deep beneath gorse bush and thistle, were those the fingers of a dead man? Or something even more sinister?

She killed her daughter! Didnt she?

Well now, are you with me? Are you coming, reader, into my world, the travellers world, where children learn about Bonnie Princess Charlotte, and her evil quest to unite the clans? Think you can handle that? More to the point, will historians of Jacobitism accept it?

What a strange night old lovelorn Peter had when the mistletoe seller came a-calling...

Do you know there are creatures of the night that come within a moor wind? I hope you never have the misfortune to meet one! Perhaps a wee early warning never to unlawfully enter a place of the dead might help.

In Jessies Journey I told you of life in the bus. What I failed to divulge was, as death claimed night, that there sometimes came the Tall Man. Why?

I bet youd love to hear Macs story. I can say with hand on heart youll never hear of another such start to a new life.

Why was Wullie Two so called? Laugh with me on this one, folks.

I have many, many tales and stories to share with you. Get the cup, boil a kettle, comfort the bonesoh, and dont forget to lock the doors, because you never know, now, do you?

So, reader, are you coming with me on the road?

You are!

Great!

Who needs sanity anyway?

BACK ON THE GREEN

M y bus home of ten previous summers was gone and everyone told me to stop greeting about its demise and get on with life. Sister Shirley reminded me daily that I was fifteen years old, with a whole life spread out before me. A world of wonder waiting to be explored, so get on with it.

But how could I? The neat bedroom she prepared for me with girlie curtains and bedspread to match stank of scaldy (settled) life and made me puke. I wished I was a road tramp with skin as brown as toads, eating out of deerskin lunzies and laying my filthy body down to sleep behind bumpy-stoned dykes, with a star-encrusted heaven as my roof. But a fifteen-year-old female wouldnt last long. On the other hand I knew survival wasnt impossible, not with the knowledge Id accumulated on the road. We travellers are born survivors.

Shirley was kindness itself and tried her best to make me feel at home. So I bit my lip and said nothing about my true feelings.

The women at Fettykil Paper Mill in neighbouring Leslie, where CarlShirleys then husbandfound me a job, mothered the life from me. They recognised how unhappy I was. One of them called Stella was from travelling stock and she said she knew how I felt. At break there would be a fairy cake or half a Mars Bar and sometimes a wee drink of ginger (lemonade) propped against the paper-bag-holer machine I used. I knew it was Stella who left those treats because once I had told her how my Mammy did things like that in the bus. Whenever the old tonsillitis left me with a vile taste in my mouth shed put sweets and tit-bits under my pillow or in my sock, anywhere Id perk up on finding them.

Still, all the kindness in the wide world failed to remove my misery, and one day round about three on a Friday afternoon I collapsed at the paper-bag-holer machine. Not before plunging its giant needle straight through the index finger of my right hand, may I add. The factory doctor asked me if a period was the reason. Embarrassment turned me pure red in the face and silent. So he diagnosed period pains, even though it wasnt anything to do with that. The nurse was a wee bit more concerned and asked if there was a problem. I dont know if it was her gentle voice or the way she tilted her head as she bandaged that throbbing bleeding finger, but it opened the flood gates and I told her of my yearning to be home on the road with my own folks. Lassie, she whispered, away you go, pack your bits and pieces, and whatever you do dont come back here on Monday. If Id been offered a free dip at the contents of Fort Knox Id not have been happier than when I left the high-walled paper mill as soon as I did.