Wagons 2

EARLY MEMORIES

From John Pockett

I have been interested and involved with Gypsies and Travelling people for most of my life. My first memories are of War time, possibly 1943, when I was evacuated with my mother as a baby, from South London to Somerset, near Weston-super-Mare. My mother told me most of this early encounter as, of course, I was too young to remember much of it.

We stayed in a farm-worker’s cottage, he was a carter on the farm. The cottage was at the top of a dead-end lane and I would be pushed in the pram around these lanes in what was then a very rural area. Now half-way down this dead-end lane there were some Travellers, they were pretty raggle-taggle, and all I can remember is all those dark faces looking into the pram. My mother and father lived in London and mother was dressed in the height of fashion at the time, quite an unusual sight in rural Somerset!

Further down, at the end of the lane, there was another encampment and this consisted of a large bender tent and one wagon. The wagon was shut up and not used as the mother of the family had died. So all that lived there was a brother and sister whose surname was Jowles. They were the descendents of the once famous Isaac Jowels, a well-known grinder who had featured in the Journals of the Gypsy Lore Society.

My mother told me that the brother was a little “unusual” as he would ride about on a white horse, peering over the hedges at my mother. Dressed in knee-breeches and very old-fashioned clothes, with buckles on his shoes, my mother found him a little disturbing at the time. The Travellers would come up to the cottage to get water from the well, and the farm-worker’s wife would offer them eggs because it was War time and as there was rationing, she was concerned that they might not have enough to eat. But they would always refuse them, because the chickens had been fed on the scraps from the table.

Many years later in 1974, I was involved in a large painting job, restoring old fairground artefacts for a permanent exhibition at Madam Taussards at Wookey Hole in Somerset. I was working on this job with a friend, and while there I thought I would retrace my steps to where I was evacuated. Finding the cottage at the top of the lane, I drove on and half-way-down, found a number of very Traveller-type bungalows, which had been built where I had been gazed at in my pram. Those Travellers had very much come up in the world! As I reached the bottom of the lane, which was very overgrown with young trees and brambles, I couldn’t believe my eyes, for in all the brambles where it was almost impossible to penetrate, was the original old Jowles wagon, still locked up and very much the worse for wear!

It was a very early Reading-type wagon with spindle-work round the front porch. Then close-by, even more overgrown, was another wagon. Its wheels were embedded into the ground up to its hubs, but a little muddy path was worn away to the door. This wagon was of a much more simple build, more like a road-workers van. I told my friend that I thought someone could be living in the wagon and, being very inquisitive, I got up onto the front board and peered inside. It was very dark, but I could make out an old bicycle and a bed long-ways to the side, with many old overcoats on it. I must have disturbed the occupant, because suddenly a very old man with a large white beard, reared himself out of the bed and started hollering blue-murder at me and my friend. We had a camera with us and he threatened to smash it, so we decided to retreat and leave the man to his privacy.

Just as we were leaving, in the next field there was a tractor, so we had a talk to the driver who said that the man was old Walter Jowels and we were able to gather that the powers-that-be, were trying to get the old boy in a home and he wanted none of it. We also found out later that his sister had married a farmer.

I went back once again some years later, but couldn’t find the spot – only a new motorway that wound its way through that part of the country. Some time later, I did however, find out from some friends who had a small Gypsy museum and workshop in the area, that in the end the wagons were broken up and burnt in true Romany tradition.

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From this article we learn that John Pockett's life-long interest in Gypsies developed at an early age. After leaving school, he worked on farms in Surrey and Sussex, and bought his first wagon there in 1959, which he lived in until he moved to Esher where he started up a business restoring carts and wagons. John married into a Romany family and has one son.

While living in various counties throughout England, John continued with his career, perfected his art and has many admirers who value the quality of his work. During that time, by combining his vast knowledge and expertise, John has acquired a reputation as a master of his craft and is acknowledged as one of this country’s finest wagon restorers

  The overgrown wagon belonging to Walter Jowles