This book didn't look like much when I picked it up but by the time I finished it I came to realise that I have met quite a few Gypsies over the years and hadn't cottoned on at the time.
Gypsy surnames include Boswell, Lee, Penfold, Locke and Midgely and they are likely to deal in scrap metal, scaffolding, road surfaces burger vans as well as the traditional fairground rides. When a group of workers came to do the block paving on our drive, I thought they had said they came from Romania but now I've read the book I realise they must have said they were Roma - Gypsies - and they were the hardest working men I have ever come across. They were all related and their name was one from the book.
Gypsies originally came from Egypt and spread upwards through Europe and on to the UK. They have always preferred to keep to themselves and still use the Romani language, partly to keep up the tradition and partly because the rest of us don't know what they are talking about.
The 'stopping places' from the title are places from Kent to the Isle of Skye in Scotland where the Gypsies could pull off the road. The Gypsy author, Damain Le Bas, made his journey using these places as overnight stops as a way to re-connect with his roots and find the places his grandparents knew well. He travelled in a modified transit van, not a horse-drawn caravan, so times have changed but many of the old traditions live on and he still makes a pot of Joey Grey (Romany soup) over an open fire as the sun goes down.
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