19 July 2008 Register  -  Login
  Search
Current Articles
Library

Members Review

published Saturday, June 02, 2007   771 Views :: 2 Comments
by Janna:

"BENEATH THE BLUE SKY"
Dominic Reeve, like a favourite, cantankerous uncle, sits by a smoking fire in a muddy field, relating stories from the past, in a narrative filled with repetitions, digressions, contradictions, prejudices and political asides. With irony and charm, he complains about noisy neighbours, unfriendly pub landlords, Irish Travellers, Gaudji academics, Born Again Christians, and New Age Travellers with their "trinketty colourful and casual living conditions." Characters like Old Louie and Mosey, red-faced Cockeyed Jim, the extraordinary retired surgeon who buys twenty bags of compost, and the brothers Do-shit and Don't-shit spring into life. And there's the tale of Lily who almost drowned in manure, and the Gypsy who carried tarmac in the boot of his brand-new Rolls Royce. Reeve vividly depicts the Fairs which mark the Travellers' calendar, beginning with Derby Week at Epsom in the 1960s with its gambling, bare knuckle fights, step dancing and singing. Romani women in long skirts carry baskets of lace and trinkets round town, while men in red or yellow boots and old-fashioned jackets and trousers admire each other's lorries. With customary wit he describes the red carpet in a trailer as of "a lively design, which would not have looked out of place in the foyer of any suburban Odeon Cinema." He also mocks the academics who have since moved onto Traveller territory with their stalls of books boasting titles like,"The Origins of Roms in Southern Bulgaria." One of the highlights of the book shows the solidarity of the encampment, when rich and poor, Irish Traveller and British Gypsy, faced with eviction, take desperate methods to stop their trailers being towed away. He notes that many of the "poorer classes of travellers" have allowed themselves to be manipulated into council-houses, falling into a world that is neither Traveller or Gaujo. As one unwillingly settled Romani lady tells him, "You'm like the birds in the sky, young man. You goes where you likes, but we're stuck here ... an' cain't go nowheres." "The traveller's life-style has fulfilled my social, theatrical and material needs," writes Reeve, mourning the way things have changed in the last forty years, "to an astonishing degree as travellers sacrificed their horses in breathtaking number; within just a few years a whole way of life virtually disappeared." Yet he also rejoices in the resilience and adaptability of British Gypsies, a group who have survived and evolved, despite rules and regulations and attempts to drive them off the road. In this fascinating and valuable book, Dominic Reeve once more offers an insight into the world of Travellers. A silent shadow sits by his shoulder, puffing on a swigler - the ghost of the past. It's perhaps inevitable that the shadowy echo of SMOKE IN THE LANES, Reeve's most acclaimed book, resonates through his latest, long-awaited work.  

© 2008 Journey Folki Interzoic Media  -  ThinkofDesign Terms Of Use     Privacy Statement