Ce récit de vie qui se déroule sur 40 ans , à partir de la fin des années 1950 relate le passage des roulottes hippomobiles aux caravanes motorisées dans l'Angleterre de la deuxième moitié du XX ème siècle. L'auteur montre comment la liberté de circulation ancestrale a été anéantie par les règlements, l'action des propriétaires terriens et de la police. Il décrit la lutte des membres de sa communauté pour préserver leurs modes de vie et leurs activités économiques indépendantes. Dominic Reeves s'exprime à la façon d'un voyageur, avec une émotion intérieure. Son récit dénué de nostalgie romantique, est caractérisé par la générosité et l'optimisme.
Le titre de ce recueil "Beneath the Blue Sky " est emprunté a une chanson traditionnelles des Travellers . Ce récit fait suite de " Smoke in the Lane " du même auteur , qui est devenu un classique en Grande Bretagne.
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Evoking a world of smoking fires and muddy fields, peopled by a variety of finely drawn characters, Dominic Reeve chronicles the massive changes in British Traveller life from the mid-sixties to the early years of the new Millennium, caused by the replacement of horse-drawn vehicles with lorries, and the ever dwindling access to stopping places.
He magnificently evokes Stow Fair in 1959 where hawkers of cut glass vases, decorated tea sets, carpets, cushions, caged birds, puppies, and Crown Derby China compete with Gypsies exchanging wagons and horses. Suddenly jumping forward forty years to Stow Fair 1999, the author disdainfully dismisses the academics who have now moved onto Traveller territory, and their stalls of literature boasting titles like,"The Origins of Roms in Southern Bulgaria."
"It is very depressing to see the enforcement of these petty regulations in a so-called free society," he says, accusing council workers of allowing themselves "to be turned into inhuman monsters, wreaking havoc on men, woman, children, and their homes, purely at the whim of dark-suited bureaucrats", and is equally critical of council-run caravan sites, "mini reservations which are no place for a once-free people to live."
"The traveller's life-style has fulfilled my social, theatrical and material needs," writes Reeve, mourning the way things have changed "to an astonishing degree as travellers sacrificed their horses in breathtaking number; within just a few years a whole way of life virtually disappeared."
Yet he also rejoices in the resilience and adaptability of British Gypsies, a group who have survived and evolved, despite rules and regulations and attempts to drive them off the road.
In this fascinating and valuable book, Dominic Reeve once more offers an insight into the world of Travellers.
Janna Eliot |
