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Scottish
Tinkers
 The
Summer Walkers: Travelling People... The Summer Walkers
is the name the crofters of Scotland's north-west Highlands
gave the Travelling People, the itinerant tinsmiths, horse-dealers,
hawkers and pearl fishers who made their living 'on the road'.
They are not gypsies, but are indigenous Gaelic-speaking Scots,
who, to this day, remain heirs of a vital and ancient culture.
The Summer Walkers documents an archetypal and vanishing way
of life.
 The
Horsieman: Memories of a Traveller... With ten books to
his name and storytelling visits to far-flung places, Williamson
is widely known and much lauded for his storytelling. This autobiography
tells of his life's work as a traveller, hawking his wares,
collecting stories, and now as an international storyteller,
the mouthpiece for his nomadic forbears. Son, grandson and great-grandson
of nomadic tin-smiths, basket-makers, pipers and storytellers,
Duncan Williamson describes his travelling life. The narrative
takes him from a childhood on the shores of Loch Fyne, to work
on the small hill farms in summer, walking with barrows and
prams, and later with horse and cart the length and breadth
of Scotland. He recalls camping with hundreds of traveller families
from the 1940s to the 1960s, his marriage to cousin Jeannie
Townsley and all the various traditional skills and arts which
must be perfected for a man to maintain his family adequately.
The narrative, based on 30 hours of taped recordings, tells
of the traveller trades, construction of tents, maps of routes
travelled, traditional camping sites, stories, songs, music
and cures which have been the express knowledge of the travelling
people of Scotland, and a keystone in their survival down through
the ages. Local legends, traveller's beliefs and customs are
all narrated in a perfectly natural context, within the traveller
"horseman's" experiences - portraying the character
and strength of Scotland's most distinctive race. Scottish
Tinkers.
 Tales
from the Tent: Jessie's Journey... Tales from the Tent continues
Jess Smith’s story. Jess left school, and after a miserable
spell working in a paper-mill, she abandoned the settled life
and took to the roads once more. The old bus had gone, to be
replaced by a caravan and campsites. Times were changing, and
it was becoming harder and harder for travellers to make a living
by doing the rounds of seasonal jobs like the berry-picking.
Conscious that the old way of life was disappearing before her
eyes, Jess stored up as much as she could gather from the rich
folklore of the travellers’ world. Now she retells some
of the many stories and songs she heard by the campfire or at
the tent’s mouth. Interwoven with these tales is the story
of Jess and her life on the road, her first loves, her friendships,
her days at the hawking and berry-picking, the exploits of her
lovable but infuriating family, the unforgettable characters
she meets. Scottish
Tinkers.
 Tears
for a Tinker In the third and final book of Jess Smith’s
autobiographical trilogy, Jess traces her eventful life with
Dave and their three children, from their earliest years together.
Their adventures and achievements are interspersed with stories
of her parents’ childhood, her father’s ‘tall
tales’ and the eerie echoes of ghosts and hauntings that
she has heard from gypsies and travellers over many years. Fans
of Jess Smith will not be disappointed with her latest memoir,
full of more unforgettable characters and insight into the travellers’
way of life, a tradition that stretches back more than 2000
years and survives in the rich oral tradition of its people.
Scottish
Tinkers.
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