Story Telling Today

Any Traveller can tell you a story, from the biggest to the littlest. It's how we get our point across.

I'm sure I could rustle up a few tales about why I haven't written a blog for a few weeks. But since it's the summer holidays I'll let myself off.

Stories are how we learn about our past, and they give us the tools we need for our future. Young Gypsies grow up constantly hearing about how their relations and ancestors faced up to challenges and hardship.

They hear about how times used to be, and about Travellers who have done well for themselves. It's an education none of us would be without.

How do you earn bread out of tin cans and willow? What do you eat when there are no shops to buy food, or no money to buy it with?

The ability to make something out of nothing is what's gotten us through the past, and what'll see us through the future.

We also love to talk about how times were different. Even the very young know times aren't the same as they used to be. Not many of us live in tents any more but we're proud of our family who did.

A Gypsy who has never been on the road will have strong feelings about it, be it a sense of regret at being tied down, or relief to have security and running water.

But some people don't want to call it change: they insist our culture is dying out. Some people would have you think it was more or less finished.

I missed out on Appleby this year but I was there last year and what I saw was communities going strong.

Things might have changed but there aren't many places where you can't get down the road for all the feathered cobs standing about, and men in the road heading 2ps for a bet.

Then there are all the writers love to talk about how the English Romani language has died out. And how tragic it is that it's happened.

I've got no time for them.

I'd like those same people to go to Horsemonden Fair in Paddock Wood and listen to modern Romani being spoken. Can they pretend it's the same as English?

If they can claim that with a straight face, the drinks are on me. Them's okkabins chavvi. Mandi a ker tuti a bori drop a piyabin ander the gatter kenner for dikkin les an kakker laughin, chavi.

A few weeks ago I was in Devon on a writing course with the Romany Theatre Company, an award winning organisation set up by Dan Allum, a Romany writer from Cambridgeshire.

It was a brilliant experience. Gypsy men and women and people with Romany roots got to work and stay with professional writers.

It was a reminder that our culture is respected by the right kinds of people, and that there are places up and down the country waiting to hear our stories.

And the tatcho Romani jib's kakker mullered off yet.

 If you've got a talent for acting, writing or performing, then send me an email: danes.lebas@gmail.com There's kushti mushes and mollishers akai who koms Needis and kers buti with us for wonga.