Thought Pat' Had Gone All 'Gypsy' On Us ....!

 I was up at Pat's farm yard, a few days ago now. Up there most days, actually. Gives me something to do, away from this thing / place and a bit of exercise just walking up there.

 Anyway, point is; As I've glanced over towards his bungalow, to see if his van's there, I've seen The Most incongruous thing! A fucking PortaLoo!!!

 Straight up! He's got this twin + sized fucking PortaLoo, parked right outside the bung'!

 I'm like; " WTF?! Is Pat' taking the ~ very expensive ~ piss here? Is he trying to make some statement about my own, lavatorial, leanings? "

 Nothing wrong in a man refusing to shit inside his own home, of course. God knows, I whole heartedly applaud it! But, what's suddenly shown him the light?

 And then, I never saw Pat' for days. Till I was up there the other evening, to order a bale of hay. Pat' was working with cement, in his front porch. As he worked and we chewed the fat, I was aware of this god awful noise occasionally emanating from within.

 Upon asking, Pat' explained it was " The Plumber. ". Fine. Brain thinks of man who fits water pipes in houses. Sorted. End of. On with general conversation.

 Some time later, Pat' wanted to show me something round the side of the house. And there he asked me if I wanted a shower tray. Ceramic one. I said I already had one. Fully installed shower system, in fact.

 He said he'd be skipping his old one then. The one leaned against the bath there. To which I strongly replied that he'd be fucking mad! Skip That lot? 

 " Listen, mate ..... " I said. " Get a fuckin' lump hammer first and knock those taps off! They'll be brass! And that rail, look. And those taps. And the handle on that loo there .....

 Put it all in a bucket and bury it away in ye small shed. Chuck any more ye get in there, as time goes on. "

 Then I told him a quick story about my old friend, Ron Lee. 'Ron and the Engine' we could call it. Ron taught me well. I taught Pat'. Then, I fucked off home. Having completely forgotten to ask him about that PortaLoo.

 Thought of it the next day though. Asked him if he was turning Gypsy. If not, why was he shitting outside of his living space. Of course, the answer would be obvious to you lot. But, it had escaped me completely!

 That Plumber was ripping out and installing an entire new 'bathroom suite' inside the bungalow. Then the whole family could get back to hunching down to drop their loads, just feet from where their food was prepared and eaten. Sharing the same air movement.

 I shook my head. And you people Blithely talk of " Dirty Gypsys " and " Ditch Shitters " ....? Shaking my head again, here. Can't comprehend it.

 Each to their own, I s'pose.
 
    

Here's Some People I'd Like Ye To Meet .....

  The first is a guy by the name of Vince Smith. I've spoken to Vince, on line, and share forum space with him.

 I can assure ye that he's every bit as nice a bloke as he appears in this short clip. Extremely friendly, good natured and ever willing to help anyone out, if he can.

 I'd also like to point out that his Romanes pronunciation is every bit as dire as his 'taste' in jackets! LMFAO! Love ye to bits, Vince; Now knock 'em dead .....

    The next chap here? I haven't got a clue who or where he is. I just came across this little 'Documentary' on You Tube at: Born A Gypsy  The guy's an absolute ringer for my cousin. But, never mind that. 

 While I'd Hope ye'll watch the whole little film, I can only ask that ye look at the bit where he's just amongst his horses. About  1.25 -1.40. Ask yeself; 'Are they his pride and joy? Does he Love those creatures?' I think his face tells us.

 Finally; I'd ask ye to do one more thing. Next time ye read the Daily Mail, or one of ye work or drinking mates starts foaming at the mouth and ranting on about " Fucking Gypo's / Pikeys "? Ask yeself which one ye'd rather ye kids took their cues from.

 Thank you.

 

" I Know You're No One ..... "

Someone said that to me, tonight, in e mail. The person saying it was Rosie Smith. She's a daughter of Levi Smith ~ as in ' The Levi Smith '. I don't expect that name means jack to most of you? Probably not. But I've known of the man most of my life. And, earlier tonight, I exchanged a few words with his girl.

Rosie and I both inhabit a Gypsy forum, see? And she got wind of this place and badgered me into telling her where it is. Then, having come here and seen how I go on, she got to thinking I might be one or another other characters she's 'met' on line.

That's how come she threw a couple of suggestions at me, as to my, suspected, 'other' identities. I, of course, disavowed her. Hence the come back titling this post;

" I know you're no one ..... " ('I know, and thought ye might have been, but .....').

But, that got me thinking. Especially as I'd received a fresh batch of Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates in the post today. I was actually sat here, transcribing all the new data onto my Family Tree site when Rosie popped up. Thus I couldn't help but wryly think to myself; " I'm someone, alright. And I'm getting a pretty good idea who too! "

Now, Rosie will 'know who she is'. She can probably reel off both sides of her own family line, by rote. Aunts and Uncles. Who married whom. All their first names. The lot. That's the way with Romanies (Oh. Sorry. Had I not pointed out that Rosie is a full blooded Romany? Well, she very much is) and the Romany people, very much like the Irish, are very much into family lineage.

I am. Only there's barely any bugger left alive who I can ask any more now. So I've had to largely dig back myself. Using various 'pay per view' sites, to access historical records. Then I've spent thousands of pounds ~ quite literally ~ on buying up BMD Certificates, to help me get one parent further back on my own 'Dead Rellies'. It's become, rather ironically, a complete 'Way of Life' with me.

And how about you? Do ye even know ye own Grand Parents first names? Do ye care what Gran'Dad did for a living? What about Gran'Ma's people? What were they like? What did they do? Where did they live? Do these questions make ye shrug and think of going and reading something more interesting and relevant to you?

Funny; Some people are more concerned with the 'Pedigree' of their latest Dog than what they have in their own blood. Where they got it from. How it maybe makes them even do the things they do today.

Oh well. I'm not here to lecture or proselytise about anything. Only, I Do always ~ within reason ~ encourage others to start finding out and getting it down. Even just the generation before you holds So Much.

It's a bastard, when ye turn around to ask them and they're gone.

Poggered!

I am. By that lot. I just Double handed a good two thirds of that shit. Now I'm about as poggered as I honestly remember ever feeling.

Some explanations are due, yeah? Ok. I'll try to take ye through this. Only my mind's about closing down with sheer exhaustion here. I'm physically, thus mentally, about fucked. Just thought I'd tell ye about this little episode.

" Poggered " ? It's a Gypsy word. Part of what we call " Poggardi jib ". What academics would refer to as " Anglo Romanes ". That vestige of the fuller Romani Gypsy language still retained by english Gypsys. Frankly, little more than a form of slang, these days. 'Pidgin Romanes', one might say? We've lost all inflection and the vast majority of words.

To explain That? (Tricky, actually. Because I have to dredge up what little inflection I've picked up through the academic study of the truer language!) Ok. A Gypsy mate of mine once asked me to demonstrate the purer, inflected, language to him. I asked him what he'd like me to say ~ ye know how it's always murder trying to think of an example of talk.

He said; " Say; ' Here comes the big, black cat '. " So I said, " Avella o boro, kalo matchka. " He was impressed. So was I! I was so into it, in them days, I didn't even need to think about it. Just came out with it. Say that shit to any english Gypsy today? He'd likely say; " Do what, mate?! "

But, it'd be the " Avella " that'd most likely throw him. The rest he should know. Only, he'd only know to say something like; " Acai av's ..... (the big, black cat) ". See? We've lost the forms of shit like I do. They do. We do. He does. Etc.

The fuck was I talking about? The fuck Am I talking about?! Why am I talking about this shit?! Fuck knows. Maybe I've knackered myself so badly I'm going to die as a result of it? Is this the last stage of Ditch Shitters brain switching off and going bye, byes? Am I exhibiting the truth behind the thing about ones life flashing before one ~ witnessing one last time the stuff I knew as a little child? Or is it just the stout and whiskey, on an empty stomach? I'm honestly too fucked to cook my own dinner.

Anyway, trying to drag some sembelance of sense out of all this: I'm poggered. I poggered myself shifting that shit in the photo. That's Turf. What most of ye would probably know of as " Peat ". Only, you put it on ye gardens. We put it on our fires. And the photo's decieving. Let me tell ye; The average length of turf brick in that shot is a foot long. Each bit is about three inches thick. Look again. That fucking pile filled a high sided truck which can hold over a hundred bails of hay! LOT of fucking turf! And I've just shifted most of it. Twice.

" Poggerdom man kedivvus! ". That'd be the proper, old way of saying; ' I fucked myself today! '. Not literally. I'm not out to teach any of you bastards to swear in Gypsy! But, in context, it works. I'm Fucked!

Doesn't the above, rambling, confused and confusing diatribe just about prove it?

Fuck this. I'm off!

Notes To Self .....

This really is a memo to me. Writing that last one distracted me. Now I'm just dashing down what I want to tell ye about next:

Gypsys / Romanys. Exercise carts / Pot Carts. Fences. Local Politicians. James Bond. Fora. Dogs. Builders / DIY. Hearing Aids. Taxi Drivers.

Right. Ok. That little lot should serve to remind me of so many anecdotes and talking points, ye'd never believe it. Probably keep me going for a week or two alone.

Please don't be put off, should it seem like I'm going to talk about things which do absolutely nothing for ye. Those are just mental prompts, for me. Wait till ye see where each one takes me.

Rosie; About Time I Introduced Her ....!

Here she is.This is my " Rosie ". The most gorgeous Cob mare in all Eire ~ and to hell with anyone who tries to argue against that fact! She's absolutely fucking beautiful, and that's all there is to it. Even if she was in foal, wearing her winter coat, had been having a roll in the mud and her mane needed a fucking good brushing ..... But, that's how ye seeing her here. I, of course, see so much more of her.

I see her with her coat brushed and shining. Her mane brushed till my arms are dropping off. Clean and spruced and, most of all; Moving! (Click photo to see rest of her. Fuck knows why it does this?!)




People; Ye'd better believe me when I say that seeing Rose move is enough to damn near stop ye heart! I've had her since November now and I still can't get over just seeing her move. It tightens my chest and catches in my throat every time. So Much beautiful horse, gliding along. All flowing, white mane, feathered feet and black and white ..... Movement! It's just breath taking!





Here's the other side of her, just so ye know. It's not right to hide either side of a horse like this. My Rosie has nothing to hide. She's gorgeous all round. I'd show ye a shot of her bum; But That would just over whelm ye and have ye sliding out of ye chairs in a swoon. Ye think I'd shit ye about a thing like this ....?

When I had the vet' out, to micro chip and draw up Rose's 'Passport', She was so taken, she simply had to exclaim, " Oh! What a Beautiful Bum! ". Telling ye; This mare Is a fucking show stopper!

Anyway, I can already see this becoming a Loooooong one. So I'd better kick off with the story right now. Obviously, I intend to break it down and come back to it over time. Just look on each post about her as being a new Chapter. Here's the first one:

I was born and raised in Portsmouth. That's a shitty little city right down at the arse end of england. Dockyard town. Seemed like 1/4 of the population worked in the Dockyard. Probably another 1/4, or more, of us were settled Gypsys. And almost a 1/4 of the place was still 'Bomb Sites'. There were spaces, amongst the houses, where no one had yet thought to build flats. Or drive a fucking great road through. Horses and carts, even then, were nothing to to think twice about.

And so it was, at age thirteen, I'd started developing this notion of getting the fuck out. I figured the best way of doing this was the only way I knew how. And, being a recently made Fatherless kid? I knew Fuck. Obviously. But I still had my natural instincts. That which was simply born with me. In my blood. And something in those instincts beckoned me to get out on the road. Turn the clock back and return to my roots.

Hell of a fucking idea, eh? Get myself a horse and vardo. Head off over the bridge out of Pompey and, somehow, just get on with it. Hey ho.

And now, a word about " Vardo ". It's the Romani Gypsy word for what You might term a " Gypsy Caravan ". Ye know the old horse drawn ones? They're actually known as a vardo. Gypsys, in england, still retain remnents of what was once a full language. Only, these days, we struggle to express ourselves to each other through a handfull of mutually remembered and understood words.

The pronunciation is a bitch too. In writing, that is. But, it just fucks me off to think ye might all end up reading what I'm saying, in ye heads, with the wrong sound. So, I'll try to explain things to ye:

" Vardo " may, equelly well be spelled as " Varda ". It's the end bit that's most important here. Just like the " Dicklo " I have, tied round my neck as I write this ~ and should sincerely hope to have, as I get popped into the burning box.

My mate, " Moucher ", I have seen spelling " Dicklo " as " Dickler ". It's all down to any given persons effort to express word sounds not normally encountered. Probably a bit like the 'Perfect Grammer' French, I imagine, they teach in schools. Bit different, I dare say, to what ye might hear on the streets of a provincial, French town?

So, anyway; Vardo is pronounced, as best I can explain it, with the VAR like in Reg Varney. Or VARnish. The last bit is 'Throw away'. It's Not " Doe ", or " Da " or " Der ". It's more like " D ", followed by a sound ye've lost all interest in. As I about have in trying to teach you bastards a 'foreign' language that likely means fuck all to ye any way. Just read it how ever ye want. Like my " Ye ".

Now, where the fuck was I ....? That's right: So, I'm stood there, leaning on an inner city stable door. We still had bits of open ground then. Local (settled) Gypsys tethered their horses there. Some had houses with garages out back, opening onto small roads. They made those (back) into stables. But this was an original stable yard. Just off the main road. Dealer boots, a dicklo and the right parantage were the passwords into that place.

And I'm stood there, having expressed my ideas to some guy I found there. (Oh; And he wore the right sort of hat too. Cross between a Trilby and a Fedora. In case any film production sort wankers ever read this. Get it right, FFS!) And ~ Finally getting round to my point here! ~ This guy's saying to me:

" Want a vardo, son? Nice little Open Lot, or Bow Top would do ye. And ye'd want something like This to pull it ..... " And, with that, he nodded. I looked. And there before me, in a heavenly, fresh hay scented stall, stood The Most fucking gorgeous, black and white bum. (Piebald, to give it its correct, not Gypsy but simply proper english, term) " Nice, quiet Cob mare. About 13.5 Hands. Not too big. But strong built. Good legs. She'd pull a vardo for ye. "

I decided, there and then; I was gonna get me some of That!

" The Place Had Been Well Gypo'd "

If I had a pound for every time I saw that comment, on " Derelict Places ", I'd have even more money in my damn bank account. Never, since I left THL forum, have I encountered such endemic, open and sanctioned Racism. Some of those idiots were foaming at the mouth so badly they seemed to be saying " Fikies ".

Ok, so apart from the usual use of quite disgustingly derogatory terms in general, in this respect, I saw these idiots pointing out that a site they'd explored had been " Gypo'd ". As in, someone ~ person or persons unknown ~ had obviously entered and, at the very least, removed " Scrap Metal ". Be this the lead off a church roof or, one might imagine, the brass door handles of an abandoned cinema.

For a start then, let's look at the termenology. " Gypo'd ". We all know who they're refering to. " Gypsys ". " Pikeys ". " Travellers ". But look at the tense. " Gypo'd ". Past Tense. Historical. It'd already been done.

And these incandescent dinelos Always appear to be mentioning how they come upon the signs of this historical theft and criminal damage. Not one, that I saw, actually mentions finding any Gypsys on site, in the act. And yet they state, perfectly catagorically, that 'Pikies did it!'. They never saw fuck all. They actually know fuck all. But they Know, in their own fevered little minds; It was Gypsys.

And that's why I invited ye all to take a look over the photo's I took when Dean O' and I visited an abandoned stone quarry last week end. See; Some of us can fairly well examine the remains of a predated creature and have a fair idea what predator killed it. Foot tracks to bite marks. Even manner of eating. Lots of minutiae adds up to give us a fair impression of what probably went on there.

But, who better to spot the clues of a fox kill than a fox? " Takes one to know one ". And I wonder how You compared; looking through my photo's, to what I was able to see, as I took them?

I never pointed out any particular shots. I wanted ye to enter that site, just as we had. The shots were, and are, simply uploaded by numerical order. Just as I took them. You saw what I saw. Did ye feel that place had been " Gypo'd " ?

Either way, now I'll explain ~ with a few pictures:

The Site

Lovely place, isn't it? I just wanted to earth us both by showing that one. Plenty more on the " DitchShitter " PhotoBucket. Album, " Explore 11 ".

But here's the shots I conciously took, with a post such as this already formulating in my mind .....

" Gypo'd " ?

Well? Any 'Experts' Reading ?

Ye see, pretty much coming from 'Derelict Places' forum to this Explore, I was still very much tuned in to the biggoted drivel I'd seen voiced by so many idiots there. And so, at first, as I wandered around the old quarry, I was quietly thinking to myself; " Hmm. Wonder what They'd make of this? "

But, towards the end of our tour of exploration ~ we must've actually spent well over an hour or two in this relatively small area ~ the whole notion of how tunnel visioned, jack booted 'Daily Mail' / 'Sun' readers would have percieved and then reported this site was fucking me Right off.

Dean O' got it first hand. I normally only utter expletives of delight and amazement, during Explores. I may question what we're finding. But, last week end? I found myself more and more drawn into pretty much ranting and raving, as I pointed out the - to me - patently obvious .....

The last shot there ~ to those who Know ~ says it all. There's # 1 staring ye in the face. A good six foot or so more is out of shot. All hand strippable. There's Braziary staring ye in the face. And, though covered in lime dust, in the shot, a blind imbecile would realise that there's a fuck off great motor tucked in behind there. All wound up in a lump of #2. And let's, for gods sake, not forget the fucking great Brass nut on the left! Few turns of a wrench and the lot would be in the back of the truck in minutes.

" Gypo'd " ?! Pida tu mui! If ye thought that? Ye don't have a clue what the fuck ye Think ye thinking of. Go get a fucking life!


Minutes later, as we were walking back to the motor, me Still bending Dean O's ear about the wankers who want to blame all that's fucked up in their country on the bogey men they most love to hate, I paused. " Fucking Look at This! ", I cried.

" This "

Lifting and dropping it. A six foot length of Aluminium sheet, just laying there beside the main track?! FFS!

This site has been " Gypo'd " by a bloke who simply decided the best, and most obvious, stuff was simply too good to leave to waste. Probably the Owner himself, or a former worker? But they made a piss poor job of it and likely left as much as they even knew to salvage. Complete amateurs. Chancers. Just grabbing a bit of pin money.

No self respecting Gypsy would have gone to the trouble of removing the scrap, yet leaving so much. What we see there is the work of a Gaujo. Snatching and grabbing. And why not? Anyone else ever sees the results of their handywork? They'll just pin the blame straight onto Gypsys anyway!

As I said to Dean O', as we left it all behind us and clamboured over the gate; " There's only One fucking 'Gypo' ever entered this place, mate. And all he's taken was pictures! ".