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Category: Heritage, History and Culture
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Smoke Beyond the Moor: Heathcliff’s Lost Heritage
Author’s note This expanded reimagining grew from my earlier piece, Smoke Beyond the Moor — Heathcliff. The original remains on the site as it was written. This version keeps the same premise, but gives Heathcliff more room to think, remember and discover what may have been hidden from him. This is not presented as Emily…
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No Monuments, No Anthem, No Book? Who Gets to Decide What Counts as Gypsy History?
I came across a quote that I haven’t been able to leave alone. its one of those that keeps swirling around in my head It is from Isabel Fonseca, whose Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey was published in the mid-1990s. She writes: “The Gypsies have no heroes. There are no myths of…
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Running Away, Walking Off and the Marriage the State Could See
Who decided what was the “real” Gypsy way to get married? Many debates happen online about Gypsy and Traveller culture. And when they do, differences of opinion can become very strong, very quickly. I found the whole “if you use a mop to clean your floors, you’re not a real Gypsy or Traveller” debate fascinating.…
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Gypsy and Traveller History: Slavery, Persecution and Survival
I am currently working through the Proud Gypsy Traveller website, page by page, reviewing what we have written and deciding what needs updating. When I reached our original timeline, I realised how much has changed—not only in the evidence now available, but in my own ability to research it. I now know how to follow…
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The Tinker Experiment: Why Did It Happen, What Happened—and Why Should We All Know About It?
For generations, Scottish Gypsy Travellers were pushed from the road, separated from their children and placed in isolated, substandard settlements. This is not only a story about the past. Its consequences are still being lived today. By Violet Cannon, Proud Gypsy Traveller CIC A man appeared to have wandered into the exhibition almost by accident.…
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An Apology Is Just the First Step
What happens after Scotland says sorry for the Tinker Experiment? The Nackens Now and Then event took place almost exactly one year after the Scottish Government formally apologised for the policies and practices commonly referred to as the Tinker Experiment. Professor Ali Watson OBE, Director of the Third Generation Project at the University of St Andrews and…
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Nackens Now and Then: The History Scotland Tried to Hide
Art, archives, war heroes and a family refusing to be forgotten On Friday 26 June, I attended Nackens Now and Then at Killiecrankie Village Hall, near Pitlochry. David McPhee, a member of Perth and Kinross Council staff—and, as far as we are aware, no direct relation to Shamus and Roseanna McPhee—opened the event to a standing-room-only audience.…
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The Forgotten Slave Girls
We want to thank Dr Lynne Tammi-Connelly, for giving us permission to share this slice of history. We are humbled by the work carried out to bring this and other atrocities in Scotland to light! As tomorrow sees the start of GRTHM I am sharing a personal story of one of the girls from my…
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This Was Never Just a Scottish Problem, was it?
I’ve been sitting with this for a while now. Like a lot of us, I was brought up hearing bits of things — never the full story. Things half said. Things you don’t ask too many questions about. Things that sit in families but don’t get written down. I’m Romani Gypsy, with Scottish Gypsy ancestry…
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She Who Holds the Crown
A storytelling session for International Women’s Day This International Women’s Day, audiences were invited into a powerful and deeply personal storytelling experience: “She Who Holds the Crown.” The session explored the strength, humour, resilience and quiet authority of Romany Gypsy women — the women who have carried culture, memory and survival through centuries of change,…