The true story of a Romany childhood...Gypsy Princess is a searingly honest account of what life is really like for travelling communities, for girls in particular, and captures a way of life that is slowly fading away. If you enjoyed the memoirs of Mikey Walsh and Jess Smith, you'll be enthralled by Violet Cannon's biography.'A fascinating and enjoyable insight into Gypsy life' - CloserA true blooded Gypsy, Violet...

For Romany Eva Petulengro, marrying outside her culture was a big step to take. And now she had to adapt to living with a gorger - and her husband had to adapt to living with her! In this charming sequel to The Girl in the Painted Caravan, she describes their first eventful years of married life in Brighton, and the birth of their four childrenShe also reveals how she became famous as a clairvoyant, the advice her clients needed, and the attack from an enraged wif...

This is the incredible story of a boy who escaped from a secret world.Mikey is a Romany Gypsy and grew up living in a caravan on sites across the UK. He adored his family and the rich and vibrant Romany culture he'd inherited. Eventually though he was forced to make a heartbreaking decision - to stay and keep secrets, or escape and find somewhere to finally belong.But Mikey quickly discovers that life in the outside world isn't all he expected. After learning his father had...

A life lived on the road and a heart that will always belong thereImagine being born into a world where communities are constantly on the move, but freedom is not a birthright. Rosie grew up travelling all over England and Ireland in her family's caravan. She had an idyllic childhood roaming fields and meadows with her younger brothers and sisters - free from the trappings of modern life, but restricted by the expectations of her culture.When Rosie was 14, the family's happ...

'I felt like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and all the other fairy-tale princesses, and Pat was my Prince Charming.'Sam Skye Lee had often thought about getting married, but never imagined that her dress would be bright pink with flashing lights and weigh a staggering 20-stone. But then she didn't count on having a gypsy wedding...It's rare for a 'gorger', or non-traveller, to marry into the gypsy community. But after a shocking childhood tragedy, Sam fou...

Born into a Romany gypsy family in 1939, Eva Petulengro’s childhood seemed to her to be idyllic in every way. She would travel the country with her family in their painted caravan and spend evenings by the fire as they sang and told stories of their past. She didn’t go to school or visit a doctor when she was unwell. Instead her family would gather wild herbs to make traditional remedies, hunt game and rabbits, and while the men tended horses to make a living, the young girls would join th...

In the 1950s the Romani people lived on the brink of great change. In their bright wooden wagons they journeyed between horse-fairs and traditional stopping places - stoic, humorous and wild, often poverty-stricken but protective of their freedom - on the fringes of a society that was soon to close around them. Dominic Reeve describes his life among the Gypsies: the feuds and fairs, the joyful muddy squalor of an outdoor existence. He evokes an unforgettable cast of fireside characters - b...

Born on a Somerset pea-field in 1941, the second of eight children in a Romani family, Maggie Smith-Bendell has lived through the years of greatest change in the travelling community's long history. As a child, Maggie rode and slept in a horse-drawn wagon, picked hops and flowers, and sat beside her father's campfire on ancient verges, poor but free to roam. As the twentieth century progressed, common land was fenced off and the traditional ways disappeared. Eventually Maggie married a hou...

'I fight hard and love strong. I'm a traveller.'Paddy Doherty loves his life as an Irish traveller, but as a child he felt like an outsider. He was different to his siblings. On the rare occasions he went to school, he was bullied for being a gypsy boy. And beyond the gates of the camp he found nothing but hostility.Slowly, Paddy's hurt turned into anger and by the age of 11 he had started out on an illustrious career in bare-knuckle fighting. This earned him a pos...

A "remarkable" account of a family's years wandering Scotland and England in a bus, living the traditional life of their people ( Caledonia).From the ages of five to fifteen, Jess Smith lived with her parents and sisters and a mongrel dog in an old blue bus. They traveled the length and breadth of Scotland, and much of England too, stopping here and there until they were moved on by the local authorities or driven by their own instinctive need to travel. B...

**SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH**'It was a revelation. Moving, terrifying, funny and brilliant. I shall never forget it - an amazing achievement' STEPHEN FRY'Brash and frightening and funny' NEW YORK TIMES* * * * * *The Sunday Times bestselling Gypsy Boy was the first commercial memoir written by someone on...

Bernadette was just ten years old when her father packed her off to a convent school in Dublin. Seven gruelling years later, she returned home to Liverpool at the start of the swinging sixties. Bernadette had dreamed of being a teacher ever since she was a little girl so she promptly began a course at teacher training college, determined to give children the sort of education she wished she'd had. Bernadette got her first job at 21, teaching five to seven year olds in a school in one of Li...