JANET KEET-BLACK: He used to come to Brighton a lot. Before

he and his wife, Emma Lee, or Emma James, because she had two

names, had their first child, they were up on the race course.

He had Coconut Shys up there and he said that while he was up

there he lost everything he owned on the turn of a

two-headed coin.

HELEN ANTROBUS: Have you ever imagined being a fly on the wall

of history? Join me for an inside view of the stories of

people, places and moments that made us.

I'm historian Helen Antrobus. Lean in for a tale from time,

Back When.

Today's story is being told by Josie Jeffery, part of the team

at the South Downs, celebrating the history and the heritage of

Gypsy and Traveller Communities, and a member of the new

Traveller Community herself.

JOSIE JEFFERY: Travelling communities have been a part of

Britain's cultural fabric for centuries, but it's often a

story that's left untold. A rich and vibrant history is ours to

tell, and that starts here.

Some of the first records of Travellers in Britain go back as

far as the 1500s, around the same time as the Tudors and

Henry VIII, with some records hinting at their arrival long

before then.

Britain's history and identity has always been a big melting

pot of people and cultures from all over the planet, from the

Romans to the Celts, from the Saxons to the Vikings. Our

history is one of the richest in the world.

Gypsy and travelling communities have many subcultures within.

JANET KEET-BLACK: Gypsy has become a catch-all, the name

Gypsy-

Anyone who travels, people think they're Gypsies.

Gypsy comes from the word Egyptian, which people thought

Romani people were Egyptians when they arrived here.

JOSIE JEFFERY: This is Janet Keet-Black, a Romany historian

and author of The Gypsies of Britain.

JANET KEET-BLACK: So Romany people originate from India and

your ancestors have to have come from India to be a Romany. But

they themselves claim to have come from Little Egypt, so

that's where the confusion arose.

JOSIE JEFFERY: Like many ethnic groups, depending on which

lineage you look at, different parts of history and heritage

pop up to paint their own story.

Romani people originated from North India, or Little Egypt, an

area located in the south of modern Greece.

The UK is home to Romani, Irish Travellers, Scottish and Welsh

Travellers, Show People, boat people, Roma and new Travellers,

and many more that are not defined by ethnicity. Simply

put, the history and heritage of all of these communities is far

and reaching.

JANET KEET-BLACK: Egyptian became Gyptian, became Gypsy.

Anyone who is of North Indian descent, which I am, travelling

traditionally for generations, we're the Romani people.

Irish Travellers are a recognised ethnic minority, so

just different. There has been some intermarriage, of course

there is, I mean, that's what happens.

Same as in Brighton, there's a lot of Romani blood in this town

because Travellers have been coming here for hundreds of

years and they been making relationships and settling down

with local girls as my Dad did.

JOSIE JEFFERY: Gypsy And Traveller Communities each have

their own unique story to tell.

Today, Janet is taking us to explore Brighton and some of the

areas in the South Downs, heading over to Lewes town,

where Travellers have been passing, trading and settling

for hundreds of years.

We met Janet outside of the bus garage on the Lewes Road in

Brighton, once a stopping place for Traveller families in the

yard next to the Bear Inn.

JANET KEET-BLACK: A long time ago, before that garage was

built, the trams were there first and then the garage. So

we're talking about pre-1930.

That was part of the yard of the Bear Inn, which is there and

they used to-

Travellers used to come with their caravans and stop in

there. I mean, people think that Travellers are a new thing in

Brighton or they haven't been coming here for very long, but

in fact they've been coming here since the 1700s. Not necessarily

stopping in there, but they were certainly there in the 1800s.

You need to imagine what Brighton was like before 1890 or

even 1953. Those are just the road that goes up alongside that

leads up Hollingdean Road. If you imagine it's going up there,

there.

There's a railway bridge for those who don't know Brighton.

Go under that railway bridge and before 1953, there was nothing

but downland and farmland, that's as recent as that.

So you could get from here, work your way up to Ditchling, across

the Downs to the Devil's Dyke, you could get almost anywhere on

foot.

JOSIE JEFFERY: Travellers are people that often follow a

nomadic way of life. Some will go from town to town in

vehicles, caravans or tents, while others live in bricks and

mortar, housing that they either rent or own.

Historically they would travel along established routes

stopping to work in occupations like agriculture or fairs,

helping local businesses or selling and trading items to the

people that they met along the way.

JANET KEET-BLACK: Travellers used to come into most towns and

villages to winter up. They'd fetch up after the hop picking

and the fruit picking and then they'd stay there until they

left again for the hop tying or hop planting.

Other opportunities for work and sometimes if they couldn't get

into a yard or they didn't have a wagon they would stop in

lodgings.

JOSIE JEFFERY: Some Travellers varied their work throughout the

year whilst others stuck to a particular skill and at times

would be known purely by their trade. These included fishing,

hop, fruit and veg picking, Show People, farming, blacksmiths and

more.

And throughout history Gypsies and Travellers have provided

essential services wherever there was a need.

Some Travellers would move throughout the year and some

would lay down roots and take up more permanent roles within the

wider community.

Around the bus garage and the former site of the tram yard

behind the Bear Inn, Janet recalls a family from more

modern times but one that has been stopping and trading in the

area for centuries.

JANET KEET-BLACK: Caleb Smith was the main man who used to

come and stop here and I remember them.

They used to have a horse and cart and they used to come out

of the yard at the back and it was before all the gyratory

system was built and they used to come out and they didn't even

look at the traffic.

They used to come out, one would stick his crop out, not look at

the traffic and go straight out, ignoring the traffic. All the

traffic had to stop. I mean it wasn't like this. And they were

very, very well known around the town and a lovely family.

JOSIE JEFFERY: Some families would travel alone and others

with another family or close friends and some would settle

near each other.

The Smith family of Brighton had the Coopers as their neighbours

and Matthias Cooper, known affectionately as Matty, had a

rather peculiar job and one that he landed after befriending not

just any royal but Queen Victoria herself.

JANET KEET-BLACK: In 1891 and I think 1881 on the census, two of

these houses were occupied by Travellers.

In one of them was Caleb Smith again, he pops up and his

family. There was another chap called Matty Cooper known as the

Royal Rat-Catcher.

Cooper was born, he said, at Stonehenge. He used to come to

Brighton a lot. Before he and his wife, Emma Lee, or Emma

James, because she had two names, had their first child,

they were up on the race course and he had coconut shys up

there.

And he said that while he was up there, he lost everything he

owned on the turn of a two-headed coin. Everything,

even his dog.

But it didn't stop him coming back. Later on, he was recorded

by Queen Victoria in her diaries because they were stopping

opposite the gates of Claremont Park..

And she came out and saw them and she got to know them really

really well and they had their first child there and Victoria's

mother sent out clothes and food for the family and they were

there for a few weeks and she painted them too.

Watercolours, there are watercolours of Matty Cooper and

his family, of his mother, his sister, his wife.

JOSIE JEFFERY: Queen Victoria's affection with the Coopers is

documented in the Royal Archives, with her noting, "I

must say that through what I've seen of their characters, they

are a superior set of Gypsies, full of respect, quiet

discerning and full of affection for one another."

Matty went on to be employed by the Royal Family as one of

several rat catchers at that time, a job that he may have

landed due to a colourful appearance.

JANET KEET-BLACK: So he used to run alongside Queen Victoria's

carriage wearing a yellow suit and apparently she had yellow

flowers put on his grave when he died.

This is all'family say' but we don't know but there's often an

element of truth. It might be exaggerated but there's often an

element of truth in'family say' so.

JOSIE JEFFERY: Away from Matty's royal duties his family also

found work of their own. With his sister providing

entertainment for Victorian day trippers at a fairground

overlooking the Devil's Dyke on the South Downs.

JANET KEET-BLACK: But he stopped here and the reason why he came

to Brighton initially is because his sister used to tell fortunes

up on the Devil's Dyke. She was one of the Devil's Dyke fortune

tellers and she was Genti Cooper.

JOSIE JEFFERY: Genti would have been part of a number of

attractions at the fairground, most of which would have been

owned and operated by Gypsy and Traveller people, known as Show

People.

This lifestyle became hugely popular in the Victorian period,

and is still largely followed today. My own family used to own

and operate a set of swing boats at festivals and fairs across

the country.

Further along the route, Janet points out drove-ways,

hollow-ways and other paths that would have been used heavily to

build communities and not just by Gypsies and Travellers. These

were often trade routes used by all workers to service many

industries.

JANET KEET-BLACK: Where people used to drive their livestock

either to grazing or to market.

JOSIE JEFFERY: Some of the people using these droveways

would travel from place to place in wagons or Vardos, settling

from time to time as they plied their trades while others camped

out in tents.

JANET KEET-BLACK: Not all of them had wagons. I mean some of

them would find it difficult down the jugs road when you get

into Kingston but a lot of them just pushed hand carts, they

walked, they carried what they could on their backs.

Most of them, although some of them had wagons, were in bender

tents and they used to move those on flat carts, maybe

driven by- pulled by a donkey or pony or just pushed.

I know my great-great-grandfather pushed

his handcart. So it's important to remember that it is not only

Gypsies and Travellers who used the South Downs. It's all other

communities that relied on getting from place to place in

order to earn a crust.

JOSIE JEFFERY: A bender tent was often an indication of Gypsies

or Travellers working in a particular trade or as part of

the armed forces.

Janet explained their construction as we walked along

the droveway. Now a popular bike path and bridleway.

Janet told us how any or all spare materials could be used

from workplaces to make these shelters.

JANET KEET-BLACK: Bender tents, some people call them rod tents.

They used to bend the rods over, stick one end in the ground and

then they'd either tie them up where they meet, then put a

ridge pole across and tie that.

So you end up with a tunnel. So that's a bender tent. They

covered it with whatever they could lay their hands on. So it

could be army blankets, because they were oiled.

Tarpaulin in later days. Sacking. You often see pictures

of bender tents with hop sacks on them, which tells a story.

They've been hop picking and they've got the sacks.

JOSIE JEFFERY: Aside from working at local businesses,

some Gypsies and Travellers would also make work for

themselves, something that in modern times is still extremely

common, with over a quarter of all people in the workforce

identifying as self-employed.

Historically on the South Downs, this self-employment would have

included anything from gardening to furniture builders, while

others focused on selling goods or hawking.

JANET KEET-BLACK: They were very enterprising because some of

them went up to the Midlands and bought carpet and curtai- the

netting curtains, and then go round town selling them. Not all

of them did it. They made baskets, they made bee skeps out

of materials that they got from the hedgerows. So that's how

they earnt a living.

JOSIE JEFFERY: Today, Gypsies and Travellers work in a huge

number of roles. Some still preserve their traditional

crafts and occupations and some in regular jobs like office

workers, the NHS, schools and universities and more.

Over 71,000 people identified themselves as being from Gypsy

or Traveller heritage on the 2021 census. Although the true

number is expected to be much higher, as a large proportion of

people in the UK will not know how far back their own family

tree goes beyond a couple of generations.

Part of the reason many will not know is due to this rich history

remaining unseen.

Romany journalist and blacksmith Jake Bowers. Is hoping to change

that by creating sculptures forged from steel to become

iconic symbols across the UK's landscape.

JAKE BOWERS: Being part of the Gypsy community is absolutely

everything to me. It's where my ancestors come from. It's where

my kids are going. It's a massive part of my history and

heritage. It's something I'm enormously proud of.

Our ancestors were musicians and blacksmiths and animal trainers

and they serviced the needs of the armies for over a thousand

years. They never started a war, died in many and we've been kind

of rendered invisible in modern life.

JOSIE JEFFERY: For Jake, the connection that he feels deep

within the landscape and in his soul roots him to his heritage

and has become a central thought in deciding where his pieces of

art should stand proud.

JAKE BOWERS: There are Stopping Places right the way through the

South Downs. Places where our ancestors stopped, where our

people are buried and where our people were born. And they're

invisible. They've been rendered invisible by technological

change and by legislation.

Gypsy people don't stop there anymore.

Let's celebrate that. Let's remember that. And we don't have

to do it with a caravan. We don't have to be stereotypical.

But let's do it with a symbol of something that hopefully

everybody can recognise as being beautiful, which is a horse.

You know, Britain is a nation of animal lovers, with some of the

best equestrians in the world.

There are many horse cultures. You know, you've got the

badminton horse trials, but you've also got the Gypsy horse

fairs, which are where horses are still bought and sold, all

the way from Appleby in Cumbria to Stowe-on-the-Wold in

Gloucestershire. Let's celebrate a Gypsy Cob and put it back in

the landscape.

For Gypsy people, the image and the symbol of a horse is really,

really important because it shows our history as being

nomadic people, even if we're not able to be nomadic nowadays,

and it shows the animal that is closest to us.

It's emotionally intelligent, it's highly beautiful, it's

prized by many, and the Gypsy Cob in particular was a horse

breed that was bred to pull Gypsy wagons across Britain.

JOSIE JEFFERY: A Gypsy Cob is a breed of horse synonymous with

Traveller communities. A strong and hardy horse with

characteristic feather-like hair growing around their lower leg

and hoof, and a patchwork of piebald or solid colour

markings.

But the horse is not the only piece of symbolism connecting

the art with the communities. The practice of making it from

steel also speaks to a long line of tradition.

JAKE BOWERS: To make a Gypsy horse out of a kind of a

technique that is as old as our community is and weaving it

together like a basket, which our ancestors also did, is

really important.

So it kind of weaves together both the techniques and the

imagery and the symbolism of our history into something that we

can all be proud of.

Bertolt Brecht is one of my favourite artists.

He said,'Art is not a mirror to reflect the world, it is a

hammer with which to shape it.'

And they're meant to ask questions, these sculptures.

They're meant to pose a challenge to people who see

them.

And hopefully what comes out of it is a meaningful resolution

that actually we need to be more inclusive in terms of our view

of who belongs in the British countryside.

And every British county has a Gypsy history. So that's why

we're making 12, because there are hundreds of places which are

important for Gypsy heritage which are invisible and we're

making 12 for some of the most well-known ones but also some of

the ones that aren't known about.

The one thing I would want people to know is that we for

500 years have been part of Britain's past and we have every

determination to be part of its future as well and we need to be

accepted, we need to be celebrated and we need to be

included in the places that we helped to build and were always

part of.

JOSIE JEFFERY: Nearing the end of the Stopping Places walk,

there is time to celebrate the final piece of heritage and one

of the strongest and long-lasting pieces of legacy

from the Gypsy And Traveller Communities, the influence on

music and dance.

One which has been preserved and contributed to by Travellers as

part of their oral history, as well as being big advocates for

step dancing.

JANET KEET-BLACK: My friend Vanslow, when he was a young

man, used to stop down there. When he was very young, with his

family, extended family. And he told me all about how they used

to step dance down there and sing and play different musical

instruments. And he told me about what they made. And they

played just about every musical instrument.

They played fiddles and they played melodians and accordions.

It's not just travelers that used to step dance. It was

usually working people. And they wore hobnail boots.

And there was usually a fiddler in every village and every town

and if you walked into a pub back in the day, there'd be

flagstones on the floor, mainly, or wooden.

Now, when you step with hobnail boots across flagstones, you get

a sound. If you've got somebody playing the fiddle, what do your

feet do?

They start tapping, don't they? They start tapping. And then if

you shuffle around it makes some noise and then it was just

organic the way I believe the way step dancing grew out of

hobnail boots and flagstones.

I've seen step dancing done to people clapping just getting the

rhythm from chopping, whistling if nobody's there to play a

fiddle or anything else. Tambourine, just about anything.

Tin whistle, step dancing. You've got to want to do it.

And it's the most natural thing to do. You don't have to look at

babies. As soon as they pull themselves up onto a chair and

music comes on, they're going. They're going, yeah, exactly.

They're going or they're stepping from-

You know, it's the most natural thing to do is dance. And all

you need is a pair of hard-soled shoes.

JOSIE JEFFERY: Thank you for listening to this episode of

Back When. Be the first to hear new stories by following us on

your favourite podcast app and don't forget to join in with the

episode by leaving a comment or sending us a message.

All of the details can be found in our episode show notes and

while you're there, you can also find lots more deeper dives into

the Gypsy and Traveller history, along with a Spotify playlist of

Gypsy folk songs that we found in the archives. Join us again

next time for more tales from time Back When.