I thought I'd mentioned this in here, but since I'm losing the place with everything

There's a small spot up past the Rest and be Thankful, where Gypsy Weddings were held, full story here:

http://www.secretscotland.org.uk/index.php/Secrets/GypsyWeddingPlace

I just thought I'd mention that we do sometime have someone read a page, and even get motivated enough to drop us a note (usually not even of complaint!) and the Wedding Place provided one, confirming that we weren't wrong about it either :

I first read about the Wedding Heart in 'The Lonely Lands', by Tom Atkinson, Luath Press Rev. Ed. 1997, and later climbed the gate to get a look at it - no pallets at the time, but no Highland Cattle either!  I'm a tourist guide and regularly ask my coach driver to pull over so that I can point it out.  Stopping is very inconvenient, but the visitors usually appreciate it, even though the view of it is poor.

If the writer happens to be looking in here - Thanks

I've travelled all over Scotland, at the grass roots level, so to speak, and never have i come across a Gypsy family. I have met and spoken with many tinkers, especially in Argyllshire, and know of two tinker camps there, but nary a Gypsy site. Interesting indeed. i wonder if this is something new stemming from the opening of European borders.

Thanks for the information Captain. No, wouldn't have considered the term "Tinker" as derogatory either... I see it in just the same light as "Gipsy". While the Tinkers  I knew were  "travelling folk" their travels were restricted to around Argyllshire, and I don't think they travelled as far afield as one might expect a Gipsy to do. They had for example, a "permanent" camp site on the sea-shore just round from Campebetown Loch, and they's disappear for weeks on end, but return according to the seasons for pick-up farm work.

They were terrible drinkers and forever fighting among themselves. The young men were conscripted into the army during the war. I recall seeing one of them, who was a Scots Guardsman, walking around with his family and drinking and fighting with them too. They'd meet all the boats coming in and play their bag pipes on the quay. They never bothered anyone and the police were very tolerant of them. Incidentally, some of them were very handsome people, both boys and girls: tall, slim, blonde hair, blue-eye types. The name of the main family around Campbeltown was "Townsley" I think.

The last Tinker I recall seeing was in the Tarbert Hotel pub. The pub was packed because there was a regatta and he was playing his pipes in the pub, much to the apparent annoyance of the proprietor, but he didn't throw him out... too good for business!

Seems Glasgow, indeed Europe, is changing.  Wow, an ISTANBUL TURKYIE juggernaut in Govan is something I just can't imagine, but if it can happen in Cumbernauld, then it can happen in Govan. Where I live now we get juggernauts form all over North America, our highways are full of them. I suppose this is really just what Europe is experiencing now...  distances would be about the same. The trucks are one thing, but Polish and Ukranian  being  the first language spoken by the majority, that's another! Progress or something, I suppose.

I don't know about the other end of the city, but the east of Glasgow used to be visited by Gypsies (and I use the terms generally, so am not picking on them), before my time, so I am relating family stories, but they were neither nice nor attractive. The tales are of wrinkled and dirty old women going from door to door, selling clothes-pegs or offering to tell fortunes. Unfortunately, if the options were turned down, the response was a torrent of abuse and curses. This was probably down to a troublesome few, but the result was apparently inevitable, community 'relationships' broke down, and the rising complaints meant the Polis eventually saw them all off, and I've never seen any travelling folk for years.

What we do have, is quite a lot of fairground people with fixed settlements around the place, and I suspect a lot of former travellers have settled on the same sites, turning in their caravans for bricks and mortar.

We have some high (very high for Glasgow) flats nearby, and as far as I can gather (and by visiting) the council uses them to house refugees (by whatever name) and it's unusual to pass a group from there that is conversing in English. Whatever the correct 'PC' term is I don't know, but you can also be pretty sure of meeting a non-European (Black-African-Negro?) family of colour, usually a mother with child in pram, again, non-English language would be the norm.

Incidentally, Tinkers are Irish Travellers, so named after their tinsmithing work on pots and pans, but the term 'tinker' was to become a derogatory generalisation for Travellers and Gypsies. Before this, Tinkler was also used, arising from the noise made from the cutlery they also worked on.

Quoted from Admin

it was only this evening a juggernaut passed me in Cumbernauld with ISTANBUL TURKYIE emblazoned on it.

Was it lost ?

I have ssen one of these here too and one from some obscure place in Denmark. They are usually taking salmon from the local fish farm.

I have yet to see one from Norbert Dentressangle here,  he is the French Eddie Stobart. Cracking name though.

Quoted from The Fox

I have yet to see one from Norbert Dentressangle here,  he is the French Eddie Stobart. Cracking name though.

I see lots of 'Eddies' running along railway lines and motorways these days. More emphasis on the rail and better than blocking the M6 ah'suppose. Another obvious rail carrier is called 'lessCo2' - which considering the similar blue colour scheme looks helluva' akin to TESCO.  


But I must be imagining thingz.

I never heard of the word "tinkler"! Isn't "Secret Scotland" a great place for learning things! Take as an example of what I'm talking about: I belong to a hiking club and last wednesday while on a hike i had the occasion to chat with a fellow , an electrical engineer ( a UK-ster) , who had just returned from a trip through the Panama Canal. While in conversation with him he mentioned a fellow by the name of "Telford" who had been involved in canal building in the U.K. Now when i informed him that we had just, a few days ago, past the 250th  anniversary of his birthday (Geez, it was his birthday, wasn't it?), he was really impressed... he knew all about Telford, while I was still labouring with the problem of whether it was "Telford" or "Telfor"... one spelling or the other, the point is I learned about this great Scottish engineer on "Hidden Scotland"! A bit of a digression, but I just thought I'd mention this.

And Dugald wins this week's...



Even he did get slightly confuddled about which site he was on

Quoted from Admin

And Dugald wins this week's...



Even he did get slightly confuddled about which site he was on

The Little Tinkler !!  

Quoted from Admin

And Dugald wins this week's...



Even he did get slightly confuddled about which site he was on

Thank you Apollo, and Daggy, I'll consider myself hugged (but definitely in the Putin/Gorabchev manner!). What's with the,   "Even he did get slightly confuddled about which site he was on"?

I used "Hidden Scotland", dressed in quotes, since I got it from the opening page where we're informed that by 'Secret ' Scotland, we're really just referring to anything that might be described as lost etc. Ach you know what I mean!

Quoted from mikeberry1962

Ia fellow by the name of "Telford" who had been involved in canal building in the U.K. he knew all about Telford, while I was still labouring with the problem of whether it was "Telford" or "Telfor"... .

Thomas Telford, he built a bridge half a mile (as the Crow or Raven flies) from where I was born - carrying the Glasgow Carlisle turnpike road over a river. A Scotsman of course.

Tam Telford