'we have to cut the harmful people out of our lives and then we can fly'

Rebekah, who goes under the name Romany Star, talks to the Traveller’s Times about finding her roots and reconnecting with her Romany dad after being brought up by gorjas, about her past experience of domestic abuse and how she now lives a life free from that – and her calling as a dukkerer.

My name is Romany Star, I was born in the heatwave of 1976 to a 19-year-old lady of Latvian-Scandinavian heritage and a bare-knuckle fighting Romani father who was already married to somebody else, (a lovely part- Irish lady).

After the affair was discovered, all hell broke loose, and I spent my first couple of months in a mother and baby home as I was due to be adopted. My birth mother decided to keep me, with support from a church family, and she lived with them for a year before being given a furnished flat. 

My mother met and very quickly married a man, and he was allowed to adopt me, although this was more about control than any kind of love and care, he ruled the house like you’d rule the army and hated the fact my mother had me. 

I knew I was different and I saw my first spirit aged around 11 years old in my bedroom, and was predicting things that happened soon after. Sometimes I could tell people’s names by looking at them. 

I’ve always been darker than my birth mother’s family, many who are fair skinned, and I had an avid interest in tarot and any form of dukkering, (which was banned at home due to their obsession with the Anglican Church). 

As an escape from neglect and a very unhappy home life I started offering readings at school and immediately found I could read peoples palms like a book. Sometimes I read in exchange for chocolate or sweets as I was usually hungry.

I ran away at 16 as I just couldn’t cope anymore, and was on the police missing persons list, before settling miles from home, briefly on a caravan site (part traveller, part gorja) where I did a few readings sometimes. At that site, an elderly lady told me I had Romani in me. Due to my birth mother’s and her husband being racist, they hadn’t told me I was part Gypsy, (she has since said she didn’t know, yet they laughed when my younger half-brother referred to my beautiful children as ‘the gyppos’.)

The mistakes I made in life - and it’s always women who get blamed - are that I entered abusive relationships because I had no self-worth or confidence . I wasn’t attracted to the men, they were attracted to me, and they started out okay and I just wanted to be loved. 

You believe what men say in the beginning because you want it to be true. I’ve suffered for that, I’ve also lost a baby at the age of 20 but wasn’t allowed to talk about it. The police were very corrupt at the time, the mid 1990s - especially in the small town I lived in - and my ex was treated as a victim, although I did receive an informal apology in the end and a police constable received words of advice, not that they take any notice. The police were absolutely vile to me. 

My children have been moved from pillar to post and changed schools a few times as I have never learnt to drive, I have dyscalculia - known as number dyslexia - and it can make driving harder.
It hardens you; I think our souls can only take so much trauma. I was diagnosed with post traumatic distress disorder, but I work on healing myself and we have to cut the negative harmful people out of our lives and only then can we fly.  

Dukkering for people has helped me as much as it helps them, I’ve never advertised and I don’t see it as work but as a calling. It’s a gift I’m grateful for, inherited from my great granny Gentina who was born in a vardo in Sussex - one of around ten children - and I think her mother and sisters read palms too. I believe either you have a gift, or you haven’t, but most people have it in them somehow, it just needs to be developed; I don’t like to see all the fakes charging the earth, that’s not how it’s meant to be.  I use the crystal ball mainly now. 

I have five children now, three boys and two girls. Three of them are grown up and I hope my daughters know that it’s better to come home divorced than in a coffin. I cut myself off from my birth mother and her family around seven years ago and immediately the negative energy went away, and now we all feel free. I feel sorry for her but she’s made her bed and can lie in it and I have no intention of ending up in a controlled bullying relationship like her, people have to help themselves.

I have a good relationship with my Romany dad, he’s shown me old family photos and told me lots of stories of what he used to get up to (none of which I’ll repeat here haha) and he remembers Gentina. I’ve also met my lovely half-brother (my dad’s son) who I never knew existed. 

I’ve now featured as a fortune teller in several magazines, and I was asked to appear on Sky TV some years ago, but I declined. I had children at home and couldn’t keep going to London to film, children always come first over everything. 
I feel so proud to carry on the tradition! 

I don’t do a lot of readings as I’m so busy with my two youngest children. We live in a static caravan through the year and a house in winter, but I’ll be settling down this autumn as they’ll both go to school, so that’ll be a new chapter.

I am not looking forward to summers in a house, but we will see how that goes because nothing has to be forever!

By Romany Star for TT Features

(All photos courtesy of Romany Star. Lead photograph: Romany Star at Kenilworth Fair a few years ago)