Melissa Kite Melissa Kite

I’m gypsy and proud

My Romany roots explain my natural affinity to the travelling community

My great-grandfather George’s mother was a gypsy [Amoret Tanner/Alamy Stock Photo]

Exciting news from my father’s cousin in Canada. ‘You asked about our grandfather, there is much to tell,’ he writes.

‘You may be surprised to know that George’s mother was a gypsy. So it seems that we have some gypsy blood coursing through our veins.’

As I read the email, which my father had forwarded to me, I shouted at the builder boyfriend: ‘I knew it! You’re not the only gypsy in this household!’

He was outside checking the oil in my car, and shouted back to say he didn’t know what I was on about this time. But when he came back in wiping the oil from his hands and read the email, he admitted that it was an amazing coincidence. His father’s mother was a French-born Romany gypsy and medium of some repute.

So we both have a bit of gypsy on our father’s side. And not only that, we are both a bit Italian on the other side. Both our mothers had Italian fathers, although while my mother’s father grew up on a mountainside in the Abruzzo, the builder b’s Italian grandfather lived in a huge house in Naples. He might sound like a geezer but it always amuses him to tease me that of the two of us, he is the one with the class and breeding.

Both the builder boyfriend and I have a bit of gypsy blood on our father’s side

I suppose he’s going to lord it over me about which of us has the best gypsy bloodlines now.

It seems my great-grandfather George’s mother was from the fairground ‘Barkers’. Born in Lichfield in 1882, George worked as a ‘journeyman leather worker’ as a young man. There was an army barracks in Lichfield and he and a friend decided it would be a good idea to join up.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in