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IIn May earlier this year, Roma gypsy Wendy Smith went to the High Court and successfully challenged a new law that effectively criminalized the itinerant lifestyle. Even among the many Roma Gypsies and Travelers who have settled and no longer travel, the victory is seen as symbolic because the journey is part of their heritage.
As a Roma photojournalist who was born in Hungary, where we have no surviving cultural heritage of nomadism, I was intrigued by how the traveling lifestyle is still so important to Roma Gypsies and Travelers in the UK, even if they no longer travel themselves. I’ve been covering the Gypsy and Traveler community in the UK for two years now for Travellers’ Times and it’s become clear that travel is expensive because it’s part of their cultural heritage.
During my work it became clear that the most important and recognizable symbol of this heritage is the brightly painted wagon or vardo. Every year at the Appleby Fair in early June, hundreds of families and their horse-drawn carriages line up outside the fairgrounds waiting for the gates to open to the many camping sites. The fair officially opens on Thursday morning, but it is tradition for the horse-drawn carts to be released first on Wednesday evening to Fair Hill, which is the original site of the official Appleby Fair, before all other campsites are eventually opened by local farmers and landowners eager to profit as the fair grew and grew over the decades.
For this Appleby, I wanted to track and document the final journey to Appleby fair by a Roma family, drawn by horses. I met the Blanksleys the previous Tuesday afternoon. Carl and his four children came from Houghton-le-Spring, traveling 10 days with their horse named Lucifer. They arrived at Melmerby on Monday and on Wednesday Carl, his little son Teddy and I arrived at Applebys Fair Hill with their vardo and Lucifer.
Karl went back to the rest of the family and then arrived around 11pm on Wednesday evening with the caravan. It was the first time Karl – who identifies as a Roma gypsy – had come to the fair without his wife Joan, who owns her own flower shop and had to stay behind to run the business.
On Thursday, although the weather was favorable, the family spent the day resting. In the afternoon, Joan arrived to spend some time with family and friends and celebrate her daughter Teigen’s 11th birthday.
On Friday, the weather turned cooler, but the family’s eldest daughter, Sinead, bathed Lucifer in the River Eden. Carl proudly watched his daughter with his other children on the river bank. Karl plans to stay until Tuesday, then rest a bit at home before heading to a smaller fair in Scotland, where he will take the children again.
Standing at the gates of Fair Hill to meet the wagons is Billy Welch, Shera Rom – or Gypsy Elder. Every year Mr Welch hires Fair Hill from Appleby Borough Council and is responsible for keeping it clean and returning it to the council in the same condition as he found it – which is immaculate.
As well as selling horses and other goods, the century-old Appleby Fair is a place where traditions come alive. Young people find partners, bonds are formed and long-lost family members and friends are greeted again in the town, on the campsites, in the market field and on Flashing Lane – where horses are put through the paces in front of hundreds of onlookers.
The fair has also become a tourist attraction: an estimated 30,000-50,000 people – most of whom are not travelers – now visit the fair each year to experience what it’s like to live in a 19th-century wagon or to be part of a massive A tourist camp, temporarily the largest in Europe, full of vans, trailers, wagons, carts, campers, horse boxes and hundreds of tethered horses.
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