The Girl in the Painted Caravan (20 page)

My father had a bag full of pennies and halfpennies which he used for change on the stall he ran. One day he complained that the bag was getting lighter and he asked my mother and I if we had
taken any. All of a sudden, I realised what had happened and immediately ran next door to the penny arcade. Sure enough, there stood Eddie and Anne, feeding the penny slots with our pennies! My
father moved the bag and kept a closer eye on it after that.

We didn’t really have to worry about them at the amusement park, as all the travelling people kept an eye on each other’s kids; only when it was really busy did we have to ground
them. Eddie loved to fiddle with things like broken clocks, which he could take to pieces and then put back together again. Anne was a dolly girl; I used to knit little dolls for her to play
with.

One morning, when packing the beds away, I found a dirty, wet dwile (cloth) that we used for washing the mud from outside the vardo and cleaning the floor wrapped around one of Anne’s
dolls. She had obviously been using the dwile as a blanket for her doll, so I decided to make her some nicer ones. I embroidered flowers on them and they looked very pretty, yet Anne still
preferred the dwile!

Nathan would do his share of babysitting, and when it wasn’t very busy he would put the twins on the tram that he drove around the park, on the seat behind him. They would love this for an
hour or so, but when they were fed up, they would shout for me. When they were discontented, I would take them into the vardo and we would make cakes; they would be allowed to put the jam on the
tarts or the cream in the sponge. They loved jelly – so much so that they wouldn’t let it set, but would attack it with soup spoons, slurping it up.

I arrived home about four o’clock one day, in time to get the tea ready, to find everyone singing Nathan’s praises. Apparently, as he was driving the tram, which was full of young
children, towards the powerhouse, he saw lots of smoke coming out of it. The powerhouse supplied all the electricity for the rides and shows in the amusement park, including the tram. Nathan put
the brakes on and ran to the powerhouse door. Despite all the smoke and fumes, he managed to turn everything off. Suddenly all the music died, as did all the rides. He backed out of the powerhouse,
rubbing his eyes, which were full of smoke, to be faced by Mr Twigdon and several other men.

When Mr Twigdon saw him, he shouted, ‘What the hell have you been doing?’, thinking that Nathan had caused the chaos. But once Nathan had explained what had happened, everyone
realised he’d saved the day and he became a local hero.

Meanwhile, the Twigdon boys were having great fun teasing me. John Twigdon, who was twenty-two, upset me more than anything. John was a very large fellow and used to find it amusing to
wolf-whistle at me when he saw me. I was tall and very skinny and was embarrassed about my figure. John had a dog called Major and, one day, Major decided to chase after me. ‘Come back,
Major,’ called out John. ‘It’s not a bone!’

I was horrified and would go out of my way to avoid John and Major. This certainly didn’t do my confidence any good, as I was already more than a little self-conscious.

Mr Twigdon not only ran an amusement park, but also owned a garage built alongside it. He knocked on our vardo door one day and asked me if I could spare an hour or two to work
at the garage.

‘Your dad said to ask you,’ he went on. ‘My lad hasn’t turned up today and I’m stuck.’

‘Give me ten minutes,’ I replied. With that, I took the twins to my father’s stall and lifted them over the front.

‘OK, they’re all yours,’ I said briskly.

‘Hang on a minute . . .’ he started.

‘But you’ve told Mr Twigdon I’d help him,’ I pointed out and strode off. That will teach him, I thought.

My two hours at the garage turned into two weeks, from ten until four, and then I’d pick up the twins from my father and take them back to the vardo to feed them, and it was back to the
usual routine.

One evening a week I’d go to the cinema with Rose, a travelling girl two years older than me. I didn’t really have any other friends there, so was happy to go with her. She’d
drag to me to a café for coffee after the film – but it wasn’t coffee she wanted. Rose was hunting for a man and would always start up conversations with boys. I didn’t
approve, and one night I told her so. That ended my weekly trip to the flicks!

So the season drew on and, as autumn came, it began to slow down. My mother decided that she and I could take half a day off and go to the market, where she bought new outfits for the twins, all
the incidentals and food. As we were leaving the market, she spotted a stall that was selling coats. Mummy fancied a red mac that was hanging there and she asked how much it was.

‘It’s four quid, love,’ said the stallholder.

My mother looked in her bag and said to the man, ‘Can you keep it for me until next Saturday? I seem to have run out of money; I’ve only got ten shillings left.’

With that, it started to rain and the man on the stall laughed and said, ‘You need it now, love!’

Mummy laughed with him and asked if she could take the coat and come back the next week with the rest of the money. Surprisingly, the man readily agreed. She asked him for a receipt for the ten
shillings and also told him where we were staying.

The following Saturday it was peeing down. We agreed that we couldn’t possibly go out in that weather and that we’d go to the market the following week. However, on the following
Thursday, a police car pulled up. Two gavengros (policemen) got out of the car. After speaking to Mummy very briefly, they put her in their car, but not before they’d told her it was about
the red mac. She quickly called out for my father to go and find the receipt and told him where it was before she was driven off in the car.

Daddy went into the caravan, searched it for about an hour and came out, worriedly scratching his head, saying, ‘It’s not there. I can’t find it.’

He went down to the police station and managed to talk to my mother, telling her he couldn’t find the receipt she needed for her freedom. She glared at him. ‘Go and look
again,’ she demanded.

One of the policemen told my mother that if she signed a confession, nothing bad would happen to her. ‘You’ll probably just get a telling off by the judge. It won’t go to
court.’ Not knowing about these things and wanting to get back to her family as quickly as possible, my mother readily signed a confession.

It did go to court. They must have kept her in the cells, rather than give her bail, as she didn’t come back to the vardo. My father called my aunts – the family always had the
number of a nearby pub or garage where everyone could be reached – and Adeline and Vera drove through the night to get to Rhyl. They wanted to get a lawyer, but my father refused and insisted
that he could speak for his wife.

He couldn’t find the receipt, though, and whatever he may have said did not persuade the magistrate. My mother was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment in Winson Green Prison in
Birmingham. It was another black mark against my father, as far as my family was concerned, and created a scandal that was talked about for years.

I was devastated for my mother and couldn’t believe what was happening. I was a witness and knew the truth, but no one wanted to listen to me.

Knowing nothing could be done about it, I told my father he’d have to look after the twins, as I was going to have to open the palmistry booth to put some food on the table. A lot of
people were asking for readings.

I always looked younger than my age, so in order to do something about it, I asked some of the travelling people in the park for help. One of the girls made me up and did my hair. She told me
that my clothes were too young and lent me some which made me look a bit older. I was ready for work.

I was already well trained in the art of palm-reading, but there’s no doubt that the experience I had during those six weeks really helped me to gain confidence in my trade. Talk about
being thrown in at the deep end! I’d never done readings on my own before – previously Mummy had picked the right clients for me and always listened in. It was exciting, though, and I
loved it. My father stopped a few clients after they left the booth and asked, ‘Was she any good?’ According to him, they all said yes. He may have just wanted to boost my confidence,
but I didn’t have any complaints.

If the clients got into a subject that was a bit too grown up for me, I’d say that they really needed to talk to my mother and they could have a free reading if they came back. It
didn’t happen too often though – in spite of the make-up, they could see I was quite young.

Mummy served six weeks of her sentence. It felt more like six years and time dragged tremendously for all of us. I can’t imagine how she must have been feeling, locked up in a tiny cell,
treated like a criminal. She never discussed it, apart from once telling me she’d got a job in the kitchen, so at least she never wanted for food.

Finally she was released and arrived back in a taxi, obviously furious. She marched into the caravan and went straight to the top cupboard, opened the door and pulled out the missing receipt. I
felt sick with guilt on seeing that the receipt had been there all along and I hadn’t looked for it myself, just trusted that my father would have found it if it had been there.

She placed it in my father’s hand, but the only words she said were: ‘Tomorrow you take me and my children to my family in Whaplode.’

She snatched the receipt out of his hand and walked back to the taxi, shouting to me, ‘Av akai with mandi’ (‘Come with me’).

‘Look after the twins,’ she barked at my father.

We drove straight to the police station and told the cab to wait for us. We marched in there and it shook me when I heard my mother say, ‘The bastard who intimidated me into signing a
confession, I want to see him now.’

He came out from a back room and she shoved the receipt in his face. ‘See what you did?’ she said. ‘See what you did?’ The silly man was trying to apologise.
‘You’re six weeks too late,’ snapped my mother. ‘Just be sure of your facts before you do this to anyone else.’

I was never so proud of her as I was at that moment.

With that, we jumped back into the cab and went home. She gave the driver a very nice tip, I remember. Back in the vardo, she did not look at or speak to my father. She just dressed the twins in
their best, told Nathan and me to get changed and said, ‘Come with me.’ She took us to a lovely restaurant where we had a meal and all the ice cream the twins could eat and we stayed
there until very, very late.

When we arrived back that night, she told me to tell my father to be ready to drive us home to Lincolnshire the very next morning.

Without saying a word, my father did indeed drive us the next morning, but not in the direction my mother had instructed. Before we knew it, we were heading not towards Lincolnshire, but to
Seaton Carew in County Durham.

TWENTY-ONE

My mother and I were not happy. No one was speaking. My mother wouldn’t talk to my father and he was too scared to talk to her. She told me that if she could drive, she
would have driven us to Lincolnshire herself. He complained that she was like a firework waiting to explode, and he was right. How he had the audacity to drive her to Seaton Carew instead of home,
I’ll never know. The only thing I can think is that he was too afraid of what her family would do to him.

As for my mother, she felt deeply ashamed that she did not have control over her life. She knew that my father would indeed have got the beating of a lifetime if he’d taken us back to
Lincolnshire, but as far as she was concerned a few bruises on him would be worth it for the happiness and stability our family would get from being back among our kind. Instead, here we were in
Seaton Carew, next to the town of Hartlepool. It had Victorian houses and hotels, built in its heyday, golden sandy beaches and a promenade with beach huts lined along it.

It also had Collins’ Amusement Park, owned by a well-known travelling family. Most of the men in the family were called Pat or John. It had been like this for generations, and it was no
different for the current Mr John Collins. He’d taken over the park a few years earlier, and had added a figure of eight roller coaster and a Ferris wheel, amongst other attractions.

Across the road from the amusement park was a hotel and a lot of travelling people were staying on its grounds – as were we. So we only had to walk across the road to get to work. Once
again, my mother was given a palmistry booth.

Although I hadn’t wanted to go to Seaton Carew, when I realised there was a Romany family on the stopping ground and lots of travelling families with girls my own age, I felt like I was in
heaven!

The season hadn’t yet started, which gave us time to get the palmistry place fitted out, and my father also bought a candy floss stall and a rollertina. This is a round stall that has ten
miniature horses with riders on them. Each person playing the game has a wheel in front of them and the number of their horse, and when a button is pressed they have to start winding the wheel
around. The first person past the winning post hears a bell and knows they’ve won.

I quickly made friends with the other travellers. There was Margaret Newsome, who was my age, and her brother George, who was Nathan’s age, so we were well palled up from the beginning. We
hadn’t been there very long before the Langton family arrived. June was also my age and there was another boy of Nathan’s age, Ronnie.

Nathan didn’t meet Ronnie in the best circumstances, though. The day Ronnie arrived, Nathan went to the tap in the yard to fill up our water can. As he walked towards it, he spotted Ronnie
doing the same thing and both boys began to speed up, to see who could get to the tap first. They both arrived at the same time and began fighting to get control of the tap. Before we knew it, they
were punching each other and rolling around wrestling on the muddy ground.

Ronnie’s father spotted them and grabbed them both by the scruffs of their necks, dragging them back to his caravan. ‘Don’t you dare move,’ he growled at them. He went
into his caravan and returned with two pairs of boxing gloves, which he threw at them. ‘If you want to fight, at least do it properly.’