The Girl in the Painted Caravan (21 page)

That was the first of many boxing matches that Ronnie and Nathan had, and it was also the beginning of a firm friendship.

One evening the Collins family had a party in their wagon – a birthday party, I think. Mrs Collins came in with a tray of homemade iced lollipops. ‘Gin lollies, dear,’ she said
to me conspiratorially. We all tucked in enthusiastically. It only took one lolly to convince me I was drunk. I was giggling and up for anything. So when one of the boys caught sight of the figure
of eight roller coaster close by and suggested we should see who could climb the highest, I not only agreed but declared I’d go first!

Clutching a bottle of nail polish belonging to Mrs Collins, I climbed my way up the wooden and metal struts. When my arms and legs were aching so much I couldn’t go on, I painted my
initial as proof of where I’d got to. Beat that, I thought smugly and, ready to descend, I glanced down.

Oh my God, I was high! Below me, the amusement park stretched away to the sands and the partygoers cheering me on looked tiny. I froze with fear. My arms were wrapped round a strut, clinging on
for dear life.

‘Come down, Eva,’ they were shouting.

‘I can’t!’

When they realised I wasn’t moving, they went for help. Some showmen with ladders had to rescue me. When I tried to explain to my unhappy parents what had happened, blaming it on Mrs
Collins’ alcoholic lolly, Mummy said witheringly, ‘Gin doesn’t freeze.’

I had been high on no more than adrenalin! At least I didn’t have a hangover the next day.

I got into trouble another time for taking action against a very annoying couple in a stall near to ours. As a favour, I used to boil the kettle for them (as we had an electricity supply) and
make them tea. It started to feel as if they were constantly badgering me and they almost always asked when I had a big queue waiting for candy floss.

‘Another cup of tea, dear?’ they chorused one day, for what felt like the tenth time.

‘Can’t you see I’ve got six people waiting?’ I snapped. As I made their tea, I felt very put upon. Nathan was there, and I knew he had a supply of stink bombs. I took one
and, walking past their stall, I let it off. The smell was disgusting, and the crowd in front of their stall immediately dispersed, gagging and holding their noses. I hadn’t covered my tracks
very well and they were furious. Of course, they complained to my parents and I was grounded for a week.

I grew out of my tomboy stage eventually and Margaret, June and I became virtually inseparable. We all liked the same film stars and Pat Boone, who sang ‘Love Letters in the Sand’.
We also loved Elvis Presley, whose record ‘Teddy Bear’ was being played everywhere.

One day we heard that two older travelling girls from the park were going to take a bus into Hartlepool to visit the local dance hall for an evening of live music and dancing. I had never been
to a dance hall and neither had Margaret or June, so we were desperate to go along.

When she heard that some of the older travelling boys were going to chaperone us, my mother agreed to let me go. She took me out and bought me the most beautiful gold and honey-coloured taffeta
dress, held in at the waist by a gold belt, as well as some gold sandals with a small heel. I knew there was no way I would be able to jive all night in my new shoes, but I didn’t care as
they made me feel more grown up and elegant than I’d ever felt before. I was sixteen and my embarrassingly skinny figure was now becoming something of an asset rather than a setback. I was so
excited. The day after my mother had come out of prison, she had taken me to buy my first bra. Now she was stuffing it full of cotton wool for me!

We had a wonderful time and danced so much that I was aching all over by the time we left! On the way home, one of June’s brothers, Anthony, was making overtures to a gorger girl from
Seaton Carew and he said to her, not knowing any better, ‘I think you’re class with a capital K.’ The whole bus started laughing. Spelling was never my strong point, but even I
knew that one! We had all had so much fun that evening that a trip to the dance hall became a regular Saturday night out.

A few days later we learned of a place called Joff’s, which was a dance studio above an orange warehouse. The smell was wonderful! Here you could learn all the latest jive steps. The
ambience was like an adrenalin shot and it was always too soon to leave. One boy at Joff’s was brilliant at jiving, so much so that every time we went we’d say, ‘I hope the boy in
the white shirt is there.’ I’m not sure we ever found out his name, but he did come wandering through the park one day, and Margaret grabbed him and pulled him over to me at my
father’s candy floss stand. I was so excited to see him, I took him to see Mummy.

‘This is the boy from Joff’s, Mummy, the one who can really jive!’

Mummy looked him up and down as he stood there self-consciously. ‘Go away!’ she said. He rushed off as quickly as he could while I stood there mortified. I now realise that she was
worried I was interested in him, but there was no chance of that – he was a fantastic dancer but a bit of an ugly bugger!

The last thing she wanted was for me to be showing interest in a gorger boy. By now, the local boys were dressing like Teddy Boys. They would strut through the park with their duck’s arse
haircuts, so called as that’s exactly what it looked like they had on their heads. They would mostly wear black drainpipe trousers, jackets of various colours that hung below the knee, and
bootlace ties. And their shoes were something else, with rubber soles about an inch or two thick which made them bounce when they walked. They were full of confidence and all the gorger girls used
to go crazy for them. But as they walked past we would hum the theme tune from
The Munsters,
to imply they were walking like Herman Munster!

In the evenings, after the park had closed down, all the travellers would go to the park’s coffee bar, where we would sit and talk and laugh about the things that had happened, the sights
we’d seen. Having friends outside of my family and spending the evening doing the things I chose to do gave me my first real taste of independence and made me feel I was living my own life
for the very first time.

The Saturday after we had first gone to the dance hall, we found ourselves back there again, filled with just as much excitement. Seven or eight of us were sitting in a booth shaped like a
horseshoe, with a table in the middle. We were good girls, sitting there drinking our Coca-Colas. We weren’t going to do anything to risk our parents stopping us from attending these dances
and didn’t need alcohol to fuel our excitement and fun.

Suddenly I heard one of the girls say, ‘Oh my God.’ Our heads snapped up and we all turned to look in the direction she was looking in. Walking across the room was one of the most
handsome guys we had ever seen off the screen. He had the build and features of Rock Hudson, with jet-black hair, and was wearing a black suit, white shirt and a dicky bow, something you
didn’t see at the dances. We all drew a deep breath and then continued talking excitedly.

We were deep in conversation when, all of a sudden, I became aware of someone standing in front of me and I looked up to see it was the Rock Hudson lookalike. He smiled politely at the girls
before turning to me and saying, ‘Will you have this dance with me?’ I immediately looked at the other girls, who were looking back at me with a mixture of excitement and envy. We never
danced with gorger boys, but this one was worth breaking the rule for. As I stood up, I gave my girlfriends a naughty wink. We danced two or three slow dances but didn’t speak, and then I sat
back down. He seemed to disappear and I didn’t mind. I felt great that he had chosen me out of our group, but thought that was the end of it.

Then, just before the last dance, he came and stood in front of me again. ‘What are you doing tomorrow night?’ he asked.

‘I’m babysitting,’ I quickly replied.

One of the other girls looked at him and said, ‘Tomorrow night from seven thirty we’ll all be in Toni’s Coffee Bar in Seaton.’ He thanked her, said goodnight to us and
left.

The next night, the girls all arrived at my caravan and said, ‘Come on, we’re going to the coffee bar. Quick, Eva!’ They were going to make sure that I turned up. Reluctantly,
I agreed to go with them. I knew the other girls went on dates, but it wasn’t something I’d ever done or felt comfortable with.

As we approached the coffee bar, I stopped. I must have had a feeling. I said to the girls, ‘Go and look through the window and see if he’s there.’ Two of them casually
sauntered past the window, then turned round and walked back again discreetly. They came and stood at my side with wide eyes and said, ‘Oh, Eva, go and have a look.’

I had to see what they looked so wide-eyed about, so I walked over to the window. There he was in all his finery: a green Teddy Boy jacket, complete with bootlace tie. I went back to the group
laughing. ‘I’m going home, girls, he’s all yours.’ I was relieved, to be honest.

The summer was now drawing to a close and we decided to stay in Seaton Carew for Christmas rather than go away and come back again next season. By this point we had all made friends there,
including my mother, who had become close to Ivy, June and Ronnie’s mother, and Bella, who was Margaret and George’s mum.

The Christmas of 1955 holds some odd memories for me and is definitely one I shall never forget! We had been in Nottingham a few months earlier for the Goose Fair, and while we were there Mummy
decided she was so fed up with watching me struggling with my hair, she would take me to what she had heard was the best salon in town. So we duly arrived at what looked like a very expensive hair
salon, in the centre of Nottingham. Mummy asked the receptionist, ‘Who is your very top stylist?’

A very dapper man glided into the salon and lisped, ‘I’m Mr Christian.’ After fingering my hair for a while, Mr Christian asked, ‘How would you like it styled?’

My mother said, ‘You seem to know what you’re about. Do what you like. I leave it entirely to you. Just make my daughter happy.’ And with that, she gave me a peck on the cheek
and left us to it.

As it was my first experience in a salon, every time he asked me something, I didn’t know what to say and just nodded nervously. I was excited and desperate to see what he would come up
with for me.

Within three hours, the dark hair had gone and a peroxide blonde emerged, with a French plait. Nowadays the blonde is gone and I have returned to my dark-brown colour, but the French plait
remains. Like many women of my age and era, it quickly became my trademark look.

A few months later, as Christmas was fast approaching, my father and I popped out one cold December afternoon to buy a few Christmas presents for the rest of the family. My father still had his
Studebaker, a big, black, shiny monster which ate petrol but which he loved, as it was very powerful and good for towing our vardo. I think the main reason he loved it was that it was equipped with
all sorts of luxuries which you just didn’t get in British cars and it was, of course, flamboyant. So there I was, sitting alongside him, with my new hairstyle and hair colour, courtesy of Mr
Christian.

What we didn’t know when we set out was that witnesses to a £75,000 bank robbery, which took place in Nottingham that same day, had described the robbers as being a tall,
good-looking man with curly hair and a moustache – my father, to a T – and a young blonde who was described as looking just like me! Added to which, they had escaped in a big, black
American car.

My father had left the car in the car park, unlocked, with the logbook in the glove box, also unlocked. Obviously a spot check was being carried out on all American cars and a quick glance at
the logbook showed that the Studebaker had last been taxed in Nottingham. We were visiting a few shops nearby, knowing nothing of all this, and when we returned to the car after only ten minutes or
so we were suddenly surrounded by uniformed police and detectives.

An important-looking policeman with pips, a peaked cap and a triumphant look on his face yanked open the driver’s door and barked at us, ‘We’ve got you!’

‘What? What are you talking about?’ my father cried. ‘We haven’t done anything wrong!’

We were so startled by it all that we probably looked like we were guilty. The police wouldn’t listen to us, but bundled us into their car and took us to the station. I couldn’t help
laughing as it was so ridiculous, but I was very scared too. After all, look at Mummy, who had been perfectly innocent but had still been locked up. Would that happen to me too?

Gradually, as various reports came in, the man in the peaked cap began to look less puffed out with pride and the brightness in his eyes dimmed. It took about an hour to prove that we
couldn’t have been the bank robbers they were after and then, without a word of apology from old PC Plod, we were allowed to go. That was a relief, but it taught me one thing: I would hate to
be a thief. The whole scenario had frightened me even though I knew I was innocent – I can’t imagine what it would feel like to know you were guilty. But at least it gave me a good
story to tell. That will forever be the Christmas I was arrested for a bank robbery!

I cannot claim that a good relationship exists between Romanies and the law. We never think of policemen as being our friends and seldom expect to be protected by them. That just seems to be the
way things are and the way they have always been.

In olden days, if a child disappeared, it would be said that he was stolen by the gypsies, although I would have thought that Romanies had enough children of their own to worry about without
going around trying to steal more! More recently, if anything was stolen and gypsies were in the area, they’d be the first to get blamed. Granny always taught her daughters to be careful when
doing readings in someone’s home – ‘Don’t allow yourself to be left alone in a room, in case something goes missing later and you are accused.’ Some people say that
gypsies have a persecution complex, and maybe they have, but that’s because they are always being persecuted. I know that is a strong word, but it is a feeling common among us.