My Passions: Sailing boats and Music. By Bob Lovell, 2024

Romany Gypsy Bob Lovell on his Welsh Kale roots, his life in New Zealand and beyond, his love for music and sailing, and his campaigning for his people’s rights – oh and one reason why Romany Gypsies are called ‘God’s Own People’!

I was born in New Zealand, first of my lot to be born here in 1949. My father was born in a Romany stopping place in Wales in 1925 when the family travelled and earned a living the ’Old Romany’ way: horses & vardos.

So of course, the horse was very much part of my early life, helping my father who used horsepower when cutting and stacking hay for farmers.

Also our holidays as such were horse racing tracks in the north Island of NZ. It was hoped by Father I would be a Jocky (being of small build), but as much as I loved horses my passion was boats / ships, sailing ones, and my guitar.

I would draw sailing ships as a very young boy (where this passion came from?) as no one else in the family in NZ or back in Wales shared my love of sailing boats & ships.

My father would say we don’t get into sailing boats Boyo - didn’t stop me though! I built canoes out of corrugated iron using tar off the boat to seal any holes and around the bow & stern. Us kids had much fun in them.

Then I made a sail for one canoe dreaming of one day having my own proper yacht.

As a teenager in the little village we lived in I, along with my brother, would get the blame for any stealing going on, like stolen cars etc. The police often knocked on our door looking for me and my brother.

But most times we had nothing to do with the current stealing (not saying we were perfect, we did get into trouble from time to time), in fact I got in with older lads and we broke into a village shop one night.

We were caught, well I wasn’t, I outran the police who were outside the shop that night and had trapped us lads inside.

At this time, I was also in a band, I played bass guitar, we did covers like ‘The Beatles’ songs and the like and played at local dances etc.

After being caught breaking into the village shop, the court said due to my age I’d be better off going into the Royal NZ Navy (then part of the RN) - I was lucky really.

Below: Bob Lovell, on a rare visit to visit his cousin Allison Hulmes in Swansea, Wales, in the Autumn of 2022, plays his song ‘I will go a-poaching’. Video by Mike Doherty:

I entered The Royal New Zealand Navy as a boy entry, just as I turned 16, and I found it very hard at first as I’d never really been outside of my large extended family.

I found things like my level of education was lacking but I still did well, in my seaman & gunnery classes I always came near the top out of 20 other trainees.

I went to sea in 1966 on a training ship HMNZS Kaima – an ex Mine sweeper.

I learned how to steer a ship and loads of things a naval seaman must know. We were in a bad storm that year off the coast of NZ when we received a distress may day from a coastal ship carrying coal from South Island to North Island, this ship was the MV Kaitawa. The whole 29 crew died that night when this ship hit Pandora Bank off the north west coast of NZ. This was serious stuff for a young sailor like me.

The following year I became Ships Company on the Frigate HMNZS Blackpool. My career was going well and I learned plenty about gunnery at sea as we took part in multi national naval exercises at sea. I was even chosen to become a Sea Cat missile aimer, this would have meant being in England at an RN training centre for a year or so, but this was not to be!

Our ship was due to sail to the Far East station for 18 months so I was given a weeks leave to go home to my parents place down country.

On my last night of leave I rode my 350cc Triumph motorbike around the countryside to say bye to family and friends, and while riding my motorbike on a country road a car came from a side lane with no lights on driven by a drunk driver who hit me on my bike (I never saw him).

This man tried to leave me on the roadside, I was seriously injured and going from being unconscious to being conscious for a few seconds.

After nearly an hour some people driving home from the pictures saw this man’s car broken down so they stopped – they found me and they saved my life, as doctors said later another half hour I would have died from internal bleeding and shock.

I was in hospital then rehab for most of 1968. On return to the naval hospital in Auckland, I was invalided out of the Navy as my injurys were life long.

Thus began a very difficult time for me I could not walk unaided and I was suffering from PTSD which back then wasn’t talked about, and I had flash backs to the accident, and my family thought I was mentally disturbed.

I was lonely, very much so, and had a break down, but then I found my guitar and was playing the guitar much of the time - it seemed to calm me down. Then songs started coming into my head, so I began writing my own songs with my own tunes - I had never been taught how to play the guitar, I just taught myself.

There were some painful years of more hospitals and surgery which helped my mobility.

After some years I had a window cleaning round and I could work my own hours, so I rented a farmhouse with a barn and after I’d finished my window cleaning round I would go home, and I built my first yacht - I didn’t know how so learned as I went.

My father on hearing I was building a small yacht said, “boyo you have to be a boat builder to build a boat!”

After many months he & my mum came to visit. On opening the barn door my dad nearly fell over, he was amazed at the little yacht I had built on my own.

I never looked back after this and over the years have built other yachts and rebuilt a number of yachts that were derelict which I got for nixxi (nothing).

My Guitar playing and songs were coming along too and in the mid 1980s I was asked to sing at a folk music club in Auckland.

I had never been in a folk club before and found it rather daunting as the audience were sitting so close to you singing - much different than playing in a band at dances or in pubs.

But I kept singing my own songs, and at NZ’s biggest folk music festival in Auckland in 1992 I took part in a singer / songwriter competition – I won and was awarded a recording contract. So I recorded my first CD of 12 songs (all my own) called ‘Ballad of a Plastic Man’ and all the CDs sold quickly!

I then did guest spots in folk clubs and the songs were coming thick and fast.

Someone said to me, “Bob, what about Romany Gypsy songs?  – You must know some?” I said, “Yes I do but haven’t sung any in folk clubs as I’m not sure how the songs would be received.”  - but with some pushing, I did.

Often I would get silly remarks made to me like, ‘didn’t know Gypo’s could write their own songs’ – stupid things like that would be said to me, but I got more positive feedback as well.

So I’d been in the UK for months in 1999, my wife & I brought a van and lived in it as we travelled the UK seeing family in Wales and other Romany cousins & friends through out the country.

I found most Romany and Traveller folk were singing popular pop songs or country and western songs and the only Gypsy type songs were old traditional songs like ‘The Romany Rye’ etc.

Nothing wrong with that, but I felt the younger folk might become song writers them selves with some encouragement. So on returning to NZ I recorded the CD ‘Talking The Songs - Rokkraben O Gillia’, 12 songs, some mine, some traditional based, and the others were from stories written by Romany cousins like my pral Gary Small in Cornwall. Us Lovells and Smalls are very close - my great gran was Rosie Small (I wrote a song about her and her mother & siblings being jailed in Bodman Jail just for sleeping in tents), cousin Gary is now a popular artist in Cornwall.

Below: Bob Lovell on a rare visit to visit his cousin Allison Hulmes in Swansea, Wales, in the Autumn of 2022, plays his own song about his Dadus and the old travelling way of life. Video by Mike Doherty:

Back in NZ I was sailing my own yachts (not big flash things but proper little wooden yachts that I built or rebuilt ) plus I was singing in the folk music scene doing guest spots, but sadly I found due to old injuries from the horrific accident in 1968 my singing and guitar playing was suffering as I had a tremor that was getting worse by the year making performing in public hard work, plus my arms and hands were not working proper.

I visited the UK again in 2007 and my wife & I again brought a van to live in for just on 9 months covering thousands of miles between England & Wales. I sang live on Jake Bowers’ Rokka Radio (very proud to do so) and I was interviewed by Andy Roberts at Newport BBC studio, who also introduced me to folk clubs there, where I sang and was immediately offered a guest appearance if I wished to do one, unfortunately I didn’t get time.

I sang at a Romany Traveller gathering at Singleton as we went there with my Penfold cousins from West Sussex. Chris Penfold Brown is a well known and published Romany poet (very proud of Chris).

While gathered at Chris’s kenna I met young ones from her extended family and I recall one young mush asking me, ‘did I think he could learn Guitar’ – I said, “yes of course if you really want something you can do it.” I hear he is in a very popular band now, really Kushti, as my whole aim has been to encourage our younger Romany folk to play their own music & songs (there has been a number of young folkie now who heard me singing my songs and have gone on to do their own music & songs, that makes me very glad.

After my 2007 travelling the UK I returned to NZ and still sailed my yacht and kept playing & singing on the folk music scene, until an ongoing spinal nerve problem made it too painful and hard work to keep performing in public.

These things happen and whilst sad, we must take the good from life and move on.

Now i am very involved in work For Romany (Gypsy) ethnic rights as in stopping appropriation of our culture and imagery by non Romany for the purpose of making money, such as in business - loads of businesses use the term ‘Gypsy’ in trade names etc. and I feel this is wrong as they are making money out of the term ‘Gypsy’, whilst real Gypsies worldwide are still treated as 3rd class citizens.

So I also did a lot of work reviving our Welsh Romany Chib (language) as my father taught me in the oral tradition back in the 1950s. I realized some years ago that our Chib was being lost, so in 2022 I was invited to South Wales to present my work on our language to the Welsh Government but sadly the Queen died and all Governments went into mourning, thus the meeting did not happen.

While I was with family in South Wales one young cousin handed me his guitar (I had not played guitar for a couple of years or more) but to my amazement I found I could play the guitar again, so away I went, and I recorded a song while in Wales for the folk fighting for Romany & Traveller rights and I also sang at a family gathering which was just Kushti.

Plus Andy Roberts invited me to do a live interview on Cardiff Radio where I also sang a couple of songs, thanks Andy pral.

Below: Bob Lovell on a rare visit to visit his cousin Allison Hulmes in Swansea, Wales, in the Autumn of 2022, plays one of his folk songs. Video by Mike Doherty:

Since I have been back in NZ I have recorded a few video clips of me singing some of my songs, before it’s too late, as the spinal problem comes and goes and can’t be fixed, so I have hung up my guitar.

I have recently rebuilt a sailing canoe with outriggers, which I capsized on first sail!!  My wife and family don’t want me doing this as i’m just on 75 years of age.

I admit they are right, so I chopp’d (swapped) the canoe for a lovely wooden Heron sailing dinghy (much more user friendly). So haaa I have not finshed yet, just slowed up.

My whole story here is as a young Rom brought up knowing who I was and who from.  Also going forward to my music and songs and boats. I laugh as some Romany back in the old country (we call UK that) said to me, “Bob, we don’t go on the sea – Gypsies never do!!”, I replied, “Oh, what did our ancestors do then, back when they left India and spread around the World? They had to cross oceans then, no Aeroplanes then!! Or is that why we are called ‘Gods Own People’? ‘cause we must be like Jesus, and be able to walk on Pani! (water) haaa”

With love and luck,

Bob Lovell, May 2024

Note, my CD Talking The Songs (Rokkraben O Gillia) can be up loaded free from Sound Cloud (so I’m told it is still on there)

My other CDs are all gone, some I believe can be heard on FB Romany / Traveller Groups.

There may be a new album soon however.

Watch this space!

Don’t let anyone tell you, you cannot do something you would like to do – just do it!