Rabbit Stew and a Penny or Two cover art

Rabbit Stew and a Penny or Two

A Gypsy Family’s Hard and Happy Times on the Road in the 1950s

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Rabbit Stew and a Penny or Two

By: Maggie Smith-Bendell
Narrated by: Patience Tomlinson
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About this listen

Born on a Somerset pea-field in 1941, the second of eight children in a Romani family, Maggie Smith-Bendell has lived through the years of greatest change in the travelling community's long history. As a child, Maggie rode and slept in a horse-drawn wagon, picked hops and flowers, and sat beside her father's campfire on ancient verges, poor but free to roam. As the twentieth century progressed, common land was fenced off and the traditional ways disappeared.

Eventually Maggie married a house-dweller and tried to settle for bricks and mortar, but she never lost the restless spirit, the deep love of the land and the gift for storytelling that were her Romani inheritance.

©2009 Maggie Smith-Bendell (P)2010 Isis Publishing Ltd Cultural & Regional Feel-Good

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All stars
Most relevant
A very well written and documented story of the gypsy and traveler communities and their struggles with local authority’s who don’t want them in their communities. I have worked with and for gypsy’s / travellers and never had anything but admiration for them. I would stand up for them against a lot of so called Christian community’s.

Moving story of travellers and their struggles

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A marvellous tale of family life on the road and the struggles due to the social changes after the war.
Having one side of the family being new forest gypsys way back, it was marvellous to read how valued they were in the static community but sad to realise that this changed during the war period and after and how received they were when advised to invest land to settle on once the century old stops were blocked or built up.
The tale doesn't sound romanticized, instead just a fireside tale of old ways now lost.
definatley a favorite for me

loved it

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I love to hear all the old story's of the good old days . I really enjoyed this book... I love the honest

love this book

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Thoroughly enjoyed listening to Maggie reliving her life and telling it how it was through the hard and the good of a Romany travellers bygone way of life. Sad that those traditions and cultural ways will be lost due to ignorance and modern ideals. Lovely that Maggie has chose to share those memories so we can have an idea of what it was like to be a true Romany traveller .

bygone times

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This was so enjoyable and interesting! Completely bought this way of life alive for me. I feel like I went on the journey with her and I never knew what was coming next. Was not expecting it to be as good as it was, I read and listen to a lot of memoirs, this one was fantastic.

Really enjoyable, I really recommend this!

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