Sara Wheeler

Are you going to Appleby Fair?

While visiting the ‘stopping places’ of his gypsy forebears, Damian Le Bas describes the dead cold of a wagon in winter and the insults he endured as a child

issue 09 June 2018

Damian Le Bas is of Gypsy stock (he insists on the upper case throughout his book). His beloved great-grandmother told him stories in the Romani tongue of atchin tans, ‘the stopping places’ where families would put up for the night in wagons and hazel-rib tents. Le Bas makes a year-long journey round Britain, exploring these places and the lore behind them.

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