Mike Woodhouse - The Gypsy Code: The true story of hide-and-seek in a violent underworld

Mike Woodhouse was born in 1970 in a Norfolk village. His childhood was taken up by rugby and camping holidays, disappearing onto the Broads for weeks at a time with a tent and a canoe. He followed his father into engineering and set up his own company, travelling the world and winning an award for innovation in the halal industry.

He now serves real ale and paints portraits. The Gypsy Code is his first book.

For Jo C, empathy personified, with endless thanks for your endless patience, and
Steve R, for breaking your moral code to help a friend in need, thank you

I opened my eyes to the pitch black of the caravan. It was the day of the funeral. Time to get up.

The bed filled the room completely, touching all four walls. To get out meant an awkward shuffle down and across to where I knew the door was. I paused for a moment, listening to Rhoda breathing beside me. Soft and gentle. An almost inaudible sighing. I moved carefully towards the door, trying not to wake her. She had a tough day ahead, we both did, and a few more moments of rest could only help.

Her grandfather, Riley, had been Gypsy royalty, and this afternoon we were going to bury him in a lavish Romany ceremony. Travellers from across the country would be joining his family at the graveside. As if paying respects to her grandfather wasnt enough, we had to cope with the fact that Id be the lone gorgia, the Gypsy word for a non-Gypsy, in attendance. And I was a wanted man in some corners of the Traveller community, not that Rhoda knew it. But today was a day for grieving, not fighting. I hoped.

I popped the bedroom door open, off its magnetic catches, and the cold dawn light flooded in. Those flimsy trailer doors always felt like kitchen cupboards. Still, it was home. For now. And for Alfie, too, my great mass of loyal dog, standing there with his tail wagging back and forth.

I pushed open the door and he bounded off, scaring pigeons into the sky and pausing halfway down the plot to lift a leg. I always pissed in the hedge: no water supply meant the less we used the toilet inside the better. I tried not to think too hard about where I was living, on a patch of land next to a care home, and why I was there. A few years ago Id had everything: a successful business, a Range Rover, a boat, and a wonderful home. I was a law-abiding and respected member of my community. Now I was living in a trailer on Gypsy land, and it would be cold in the caravan this winter.

Although the October dawn was beautiful, there was already a crispness to the air. And I felt sick with nerves about the funeral. When I heard the distant wail of a siren on its way to help some poor sod, I became very aware of the day ahead, and the nauseating taste of iron filled my mouth. I headed back inside.

We had a large commercial gas oven, more suited to a hotel kitchen than a trailer, and I lit three of the hobs to take off the morning chill.

Whats the time? Rhoda called from the bedroom.

Half six, I replied, filling the kettle. How are you feeling?

Im okay, I heard, over the roaring gas rings.

When I poked my head into our bedroom all I could see was a dark mass of hair spread on the pillow.

Fancy a cup of tea?

She slid across the bed, bringing the duvet with her. I kissed her cheek, knowing the day of mourning would be hard for both of us. Rhoda had been Rileys favourite grandchild. Since wed been in Essex hed been over to visit us more than any other member of his large Gypsy family. He liked the way we were living in the trailer, no water, no electricity, a basic lifestyle he felt connected to and admired. Despite his age, hed been a powerful presence, with lump-hammer hands that hed used to fight anyone and anything his whole life. His affection for Rhoda was obvious, drawing inevitable friction with her cousins, who were jealous of his attention.

That was just one cause of our anxiety. Rhoda was fresh out of hospital the day before: shed discharged herself, determined to attend her grandfathers funeral. Everybody knew of the special relationship theyd shared, and shed be a focus of attention throughout the proceedings. Having a gorgia as a partner was yet another thing for her to deal with. Hundreds of travelling folk would be there from all over the east of England, and Id stick out like a sore thumb.

I passed her the cup as she sat down, wrapping her dressing-gown tighter around herself. Shed been crying, I could see that, but she still had her natural beauty. Despite our ups and downs, she was always the woman whod walked into a bar and entranced me from the moment Id seen her.

Her perfect nails drummed an anxious beat on the cup. We sat and drank our tea. Alfie was barking at some birds that had landed on the trailer roof, their clawed feet hopping about on the thin aluminium. It had become a morning ritual, Alfie loudly announcing his freedom from the trailer, while the birds taunted him, safely out of reach.

What do you want from the container? I asked. Most of our clothes were in the forty-foot shipping container beside the trailer.

Anything Karen Millen, came the expected response. And black, obviously.

I went back outside. The container hinges groaned as I swung open the heavy steel doors. Inside was all of my furniture from my house in Derbyshire. The pain had never healed from my forced departure. Every time I looked at a lifetime of possessions stacked in there because they wouldnt fit in the caravan, Id think, how did it come to this?

Dawn. The alarm jackhammered through my head. I should be moving.

It was early November 2001. Even though I was the wrong side of thirty years old I still felt fit, despite the aches and pains from rugby training the night before. The autumn air had been cold, with clouds of exhaled breath from the players glowing in the floodlights and floating above the sodden training ground. Id got through the practice fine but Id stayed at the clubhouse for a few pints with the lads. After a hard session on the pitch wed recovered with a harder one at the bar. Those beers had felt good last night, but less so the next morning.

A swift cuppa later I was in the car and heading for the yard. I was working for a small engineering company, and had recently progressed from the business end of a welder into sales. I loved it. I liked the guys I worked with, and I believed in the product. Id started my working life as an engineer but left when I was offered a well-paid residency as a DJ in a new Norwich nightclub. I spent years in the vacuous nightlife industry, as a DJ or running one of the busiest bars in the city, and my return to engineering was a real tonic. The contrast was stark yet welcome. Working in bars had been fun while it lasted, but it felt like hedonistic fooling around rather than investing time and effort in a serious career.

Now I was back in a real job, as my father would emphatically say. The company serviced the food industry, mostly chicken-processing plants. My working week had gone from twenty-five hours to sixty, and instead of chatting up girls, boozing, and entertaining crowds of drunken teens and twenty-somethings at a noise level that would damage my hearing, I was crawling through roof voids and under conveyor-belts. Thankfully my body clock had adjusted to getting up for work at the same ungodly hour Id previously gone to bed.