The Gypsy wedding that changed my life
As told to Angela WigglesworthJohn Lee’s mother was a Gypsy but his father was not – a pairing so forbidden he was raised by his grandparents. He was snubbed by his community – until he was made an unusal proposal
The event that had the most effect on my life happened the moment I was conceived. My family were Romany Gypsies but my father was not. He was a French salesman, and when my mother told my grandma she was pregnant, that was taboo.
“You know what you’ve done to your baby,” she told my mother. “You’ve cut his bloodline in half and he’s going to have a terrible life. He won’t be able to marry into a Gypsy family or live on a Romany Gypsy site.”
My father left before I was born and he was never spoken about. Nor was my mother. When I was 10 weeks old, my grandma told her to leave me and go, which she did. My grandparents brought me up.
I was never curious about my father, not really. And I never held it against my mother. But my grandparents, proper Romanies, were affected: she had done a terrible thing to them. They had been highly respected people, but she had so disgraced them that they were made to feel like outcasts, and they held it against her all of their lives.
My grandfather shook it off a bit – he was often away and did his own thing. But my grandma didn’t say anything about the attitude of the other Gypsies, but I knew she could feel it. For Romanies, their bloodline is everything and it has to be absolutely pure. My grandfather was Hungarian, a bare-knuckle fighter and horse doctor, an expert with a big, long bullwhip. If you had enough courage to stand with a cigar in your mouth, he would whip it out from 20 yards away. He was a big, strong man; his wrists were like two of mine put together and his fingers were enormous. He always wore a suit with a stiff fly-away collar, braces and a belt, with a gold watch on a chain.
I played with other boys until word got around that I wasn’t a Gypsy, and then they weren’t allowed to mix with meMy grandma was Italian, a lovely lady with a beautiful face, brown eyes and jet-black hair. She used to wear a dress with a smock, petticoat and a pinny and the Gypsy children loved her. They’d come round to our vada (caravan) and ask her to tell them a story and then they would sing her a Gypsy song.
When I was a child, I played with other boys until word got around that I wasn’t a proper Gypsy, and then they weren’t allowed to mix with me. “You’re only a Pikey boy,” (the Gypsy word for a non-Gypsy) they’d tell me. I’d fight them with my bare hands, me against two or three, and I’d go straight in. My grandfather had taught me how to fight. He used to say, “Stand up for yourself, boy, and if you have to hit anyone, hit them as hard as you can on the nose.”
I got used to being on my own. I’d play near my grandma when she was caning chairs and well, when you’re seven or eight, you’re going to wander off a bit, aren’t you? And then she’d give me a wallop and say, “Come here, boy, stand and watch. I’m teaching you how to get a living.” I was caning chairs when I was 11. I was probably the only kid doing this at that age.
When I was young, I used to think my grandfather was a very hard man – it took me a long time to get close to him. But when I did, I realised he was teaching me what life was going to be like for me when they were no longer there. They told me there was no way I could marry a Gypsy woman and have children, because I would have brought the same shame on them that my mother had put on me. “You can be a Traveller and things like that,” they told me. “But you won’t be able to live as a Gypsy on a Gypsy site.”
I didn’t really believe them and thought I’d be able to do what I wanted. I was wrong. Except, it turns out, I did end up having a Gypsy wedding, of a sort, after all. One day, when I was about 23, one of the elders on the site came to see me and told me his daughter, Ruth, hadn’t got long to live. She had always wanted a Gypsy wedding, and he knew of my situation and that I had always wanted one, too.
Ruth, who could hardly walk and was very frail, told me she didn’t want me to do this for her, but I told her she was doing it for me. I never thought marrying Ruth would get me accepted, but I agreed to do it for her sake as well as mine. As you can imagine, there was a bit of an uproar about our wedding – and, of course, we couldn’t do it the traditional way.
The traditions of Gypsy weddings go back a long way. When a young couple fall in love, there’s no such thing as an engagement. The man goes to the girl’s family and tells the father they would like to get married. The father tells him they must go and see the elder who tells them they will be given a year’s courtship and be chaperoned everywhere. Even if they go out for a walk, they must have one of the family with them.
After a year, the couple go in front of the Gypsy council and are asked how they are getting on. If all is well, the man is told he has to start putting money aside to buy a vada to live in. At the end of the second year, the elder tells them they must make up their minds because once they are married they can never leave each other. After the third year, they make a date for the wedding. The elder will be there with his great book, which lists all the marriages with names and dates. The couple don’t live together until they are married, and it is taboo for them to sleep together until then. But the two families travel together for the young couple to get to know each other. When they have decided to get married, they let their relations know and they all come to the piece of ground where they are staying and have what they call The Wedding over the Broomsticks.
All of this was out of the question for me and Ruth, but her father explained the situation to the others and told them that there was no possibility of there being any children, so there was no bloodline lost.
“John is giving my daughter something she’s always wanted,” was his attitide. So we got married – she got what she wanted, and so did I.
I’ve been too much of a loner and I sometimes think these days I feel more comfortable with animals than peopleWe danced around a fire with five broomsticks, there was music and lots to eat: dishes of stewed rabbit, squirrel and hedgehog. We ate off slates, which are very popular in trendy restaurants these days – back then we used them because you could clean them, they didn’t carry diseases and if one cracked, you just threw it away. For pudding, we had lots of pies, baked apple, apple and raspberry, cream and custard, with cider to drink.
One of the elders wrote our names down in the large book, which would be there for ever. Ruth went to her vada and I went to mine. She died a few months later in my arms.
I’m not one who lives in the past – I live for what I’m going to do tomorrow and try to make it the way I want it to be. I’m 86 now, I’ve had a good life, I’ve enjoyed myself and always stayed close to my Romany traditions. But I don’t think I could handle living on a Gypsy site now. I’ve been too much of a loner all my life and I sometimes think these days I feel more comfortable with animals than people. They’re independent and can fend for themselves, which is what I’ve had to do all my life.
I probably haven’t given anyone a chance to become a friend. I don’t know why. It’s not that I mistrust people, well … yes, I do. Perhaps this is why I’ve never come out of my shell properly. Not completely. There’s something inside me that tells me not to.
The Chair Man, the life and times of Romany Gypsy John Lee as told to Angela Wigglesworth, is published by New Generation Publishing, £6.99.
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