Tell them about the Roma Caravan.
OK. On Wednesday, as yer man tikay and I were slowly wending our way back to Brighton after spending the night at Heathrow, we found ourselves with time on our hands and adventure in out hearts.
To satisfy our lust for excitement, we left the main thoroughfare at regular intervals and braved the road less travelled. Our efforts did not go unrewarded.
As well as some beautiful iron railings, a school for the blind with an unfathomable glass annex, a miniature railway with a German name, and the lake with the aforementioned cormorant, we saw something else. Something so out of place that I had to stop and take a closer look.
Standing on the driveway of a small semi-detached house was a filthy, but perfectly sound Roma Caravan of the type made specifically for Gypsies. This particular model, the Roma Special (see link
http://www.roma-caravan.onestop.net/) was manufactured from about 1968 to 1989 and came as a basic van which was then fitted out and finished to the individual's own specification, so in reality, every one was unique. The one we were looking at was, I thought, quite an early model judging by the cut glass windows. The later ones had Perspex double-glazing.
I was filled with nostalgia. I raised a family in a caravan exactly like this, only ours was much plainer and hence more practical. I will try to scan a picture of ours into the computer so that I can post it on here. The one in the link picture is a "Flash" trailer. For instance, a basic Roma had one single length of beading running along the side to protect against accidental damage. This beading was called a rubbing strip.
Gypsies, like magpies, have always been attracted by something shiny to decorate their homes, even the old horse drawn wagons were adorned with gold leaf and brightly coloured paintwork. It's perhaps not surprising then that the single bright rubbing strip soon became two rubbing strips, then two became four and so on until the whole caravan was covered with them, even the roof.
The same went for the interior. The basic model was all Formica (Do any of you remember Formica?) very practical and almost indestructable, the "Flash" trailers had cut glass and mirrors on every available surface.
You would never see a gorger (non Gypsy) with this type of caravan, his car wouldn't tow it. They weighed several tons and had to be pulled by a lorry. Mrs Red bless her, towed ours hundreds of miles while I towed our other, lighter 'bedroom' caravan with the car.
So associated with Gypsies are these caravans, and so much did our son Tommy love to travel, that we had the image of one etched on to the back of his gravestone so that any Gypsy who passes by, be he literate or not, will know that one of his own kind lies here.
Of course, you do occasionally find the odd one that has been bought by a gorger for whatever reason, and in spite of the "Travellers Rest" nameplate on the house, and the plastic figure of a lurcher striking at a hare, I suspect that this was the case here. It just didn't feel like a Gypsy's place. We can usually sense each other's presence (On hearing this, some wag once told me it was the smell) I got no vibes here. I knocked on the door of the house but no one answered. (No dog barked either. Another clue?)
That aside, why would a proper Gypsy let a beautiful old caravan like this stand there covered in filth? It was sacrilege. You will never see a Gypsy with a dirty caravan unless it got dirty travelling and he hasn't had time to clean it yet.
It was a mystery. One of these days, I will go back and solve it.