Listen free for 30 days
-
The Stopping Places
- Narrated by: Damian Le Bas
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Cultural, Ethnic & Regional
People who bought this also bought...
-
Rabbit Stew and a Penny or Two
- A Gypsy Family’s Hard and Happy Times on the Road in the 1950s
- By: Maggie Smith-Bendell
- Narrated by: Patience Tomlinson
- Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Cushty
- By Westley on 25-02-18
-
A Field Full of Butterflies
- Memories of a Romany Childhood
- By: Rosemary Penfold
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rosemary Penfold's beautiful and evocative memoir of her life growing up in the fields of the English countryside is a moving testament to a forgotten world and a disappearing and misunderstood people. Born in 1938 in a traditional Gypsy wagon, surrounded by the love of her parents and extended family in a small but close-knit community, Rosemary paints a vivid and touching portrait of a way of life that no longer exits.
-
-
again
- By Anonymous User on 26-12-20
-
The Book of Trespass
- Crossing the Lines That Divide Us
- By: Nick Hayes
- Narrated by: Nick Hayes
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The vast majority of our country is entirely unknown to us because we are banned from setting foot on it. By law of trespass, we are excluded from 92 percent of the land and 97 percent of its waterways, blocked by walls whose legitimacy is rarely questioned. But behind them lies a story of enclosure, exploitation and dispossession of public rights whose effects last to this day. The Book of Trespass takes us on a journey over the walls of England, into the thousands of square miles of rivers, woodland, lakes and meadows that are blocked from public access.
-
-
Great book terrible audio
- By David Bramwell on 01-01-21
-
Afloat
- A Memoir
- By: Danie Couchman
- Narrated by: Danie Couchman
- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Danie Couchman grew up on the move, her family never staying still long enough for her to say where she's from. At 25, and living in her 17th home, she finds herself drowning in the rush of London life and makes an impulsive decision: to buy a narrowboat and make it her home. Surrounded by an eclectic and itinerant community in the uncharted territory of the capital's urban wilderness, Danie becomes fully immersed in this hidden world. Each day on board her boat, Genesis, is an adventure full of disaster and magic.
-
-
Amazing real life adventure
- By Anonymous User on 18-04-19
-
Homesick
- Why I Live in a Shed
- By: Catrina Davies
- Narrated by: Catrina Davies
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of a personal housing crisis that led to a discovery of the true value of home. Aged 31, Catrina Davies was renting a box-room in a house in Bristol, which she shared with four other adults and a child. Working several jobs and never knowing if she could make the rent, she felt like she was breaking apart. Homesick for the landscape of her childhood, in the far west of Cornwall, Catrina decides to give up the box-room and face her demons. As a child, she saw her family and their security torn apart; now, she resolves to make a tiny, dilapidated shed a home of her own.
-
-
Very interesting
- By Mr Chops on 03-10-19
-
Little Gypsy
- A Life of Freedom, A Time of Secrets
- By: Roxy Freeman
- Narrated by: Susie Riddell
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in 1979, Roxy Freeman grew up travelling around Ireland and England in a traditional horse-drawn wagon with her mother and father and five siblings. Life was harsh but it was a childhood of freedom spent in harmony with nature. Roxy didn’t know her times-tables but she could milk a goat, ride a horse and cook dinner for the whole family on an open fire before she was ten.
-
-
unbelievable
- By Debra Durrant on 09-11-20
-
Rabbit Stew and a Penny or Two
- A Gypsy Family’s Hard and Happy Times on the Road in the 1950s
- By: Maggie Smith-Bendell
- Narrated by: Patience Tomlinson
- Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Cushty
- By Westley on 25-02-18
-
A Field Full of Butterflies
- Memories of a Romany Childhood
- By: Rosemary Penfold
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rosemary Penfold's beautiful and evocative memoir of her life growing up in the fields of the English countryside is a moving testament to a forgotten world and a disappearing and misunderstood people. Born in 1938 in a traditional Gypsy wagon, surrounded by the love of her parents and extended family in a small but close-knit community, Rosemary paints a vivid and touching portrait of a way of life that no longer exits.
-
-
again
- By Anonymous User on 26-12-20
-
The Book of Trespass
- Crossing the Lines That Divide Us
- By: Nick Hayes
- Narrated by: Nick Hayes
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The vast majority of our country is entirely unknown to us because we are banned from setting foot on it. By law of trespass, we are excluded from 92 percent of the land and 97 percent of its waterways, blocked by walls whose legitimacy is rarely questioned. But behind them lies a story of enclosure, exploitation and dispossession of public rights whose effects last to this day. The Book of Trespass takes us on a journey over the walls of England, into the thousands of square miles of rivers, woodland, lakes and meadows that are blocked from public access.
-
-
Great book terrible audio
- By David Bramwell on 01-01-21
-
Afloat
- A Memoir
- By: Danie Couchman
- Narrated by: Danie Couchman
- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Danie Couchman grew up on the move, her family never staying still long enough for her to say where she's from. At 25, and living in her 17th home, she finds herself drowning in the rush of London life and makes an impulsive decision: to buy a narrowboat and make it her home. Surrounded by an eclectic and itinerant community in the uncharted territory of the capital's urban wilderness, Danie becomes fully immersed in this hidden world. Each day on board her boat, Genesis, is an adventure full of disaster and magic.
-
-
Amazing real life adventure
- By Anonymous User on 18-04-19
-
Homesick
- Why I Live in a Shed
- By: Catrina Davies
- Narrated by: Catrina Davies
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of a personal housing crisis that led to a discovery of the true value of home. Aged 31, Catrina Davies was renting a box-room in a house in Bristol, which she shared with four other adults and a child. Working several jobs and never knowing if she could make the rent, she felt like she was breaking apart. Homesick for the landscape of her childhood, in the far west of Cornwall, Catrina decides to give up the box-room and face her demons. As a child, she saw her family and their security torn apart; now, she resolves to make a tiny, dilapidated shed a home of her own.
-
-
Very interesting
- By Mr Chops on 03-10-19
-
Little Gypsy
- A Life of Freedom, A Time of Secrets
- By: Roxy Freeman
- Narrated by: Susie Riddell
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in 1979, Roxy Freeman grew up travelling around Ireland and England in a traditional horse-drawn wagon with her mother and father and five siblings. Life was harsh but it was a childhood of freedom spent in harmony with nature. Roxy didn’t know her times-tables but she could milk a goat, ride a horse and cook dinner for the whole family on an open fire before she was ten.
-
-
unbelievable
- By Debra Durrant on 09-11-20
-
Wildwood
- A Journey Through Trees
- By: Roger Deakin
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A much-loved classic of nature writing from environmentalist and the author of Waterlog, Roger Deakin, Wildwood is an exploration of the element wood in nature, our culture and our lives. From the walnut tree at his Suffolk home, he embarks upon a quest that takes him through Britain, across Europe, to Central Asia and Australia, in search of what lies behind man's profound and enduring connection with wood and trees.
-
Seashaken Houses
- A Lighthouse History from Eddystone to Fastnet
- By: Tom Nancollas
- Narrated by: David Monteath
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lighthouses are striking totems of our relationship to the sea. For many, they encapsulate a romantic vision of solitary homes amongst the waves, but their original purpose is much more utilitarian than that. Still today we depend upon their guiding lights for the safe passage of ships. Nowhere is this truer than in the rock lighthouses of Great Britain and Ireland, a ring of 19 towers built between 1811-1905, so called because they were constructed on desolate rock formations in the middle of the sea, and made of granite to withstand the power of its waves.
-
-
A light in the Dark.
- By Jack Harrison on 07-07-19
-
Gypsy Boy
- By: Mikey Walsh
- Narrated by: Mikey Walsh
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mikey's family were Gypsies. They live in a closed community and little is known about their way of life. As he didn't go to school, the caravan became his world. But although Mikey inherited a vibrant culture, his family had a dark hidden history. Eventually Mikey was forced to make a decision – to stay and keep secrets, or escape and find somewhere to belong.
-
-
A really inspirational book
- By Marilyn on 20-07-10
-
The Way Home
- Tales from a Life Without Technology
- By: Mark Boyle
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No running water, no car, no electricity or any of the things it powers: the internet, phone, washing machine, radio, or light bulb. Just a wooden cabin, on a smallholding, by the edge of a stand of spruce. The Way Home is a modern-day Walden - an honest and lyrical account of a remarkable life lived in nature without modern technology. Mark Boyle, author of The Moneyless Man, explores the hard-won joys of building a home with his bare hands, learning to make fire, collecting water from the stream, foraging, and fishing.
-
-
Life changing!
- By Kindle Customer on 22-08-19
-
Courting the Wild Twin
- By: Martin Shaw
- Narrated by: Martin Shaw
- Length: 3 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Myth is our wild way of telling the truth, of sharing stories that have our living earth speaking through them. There is an old insistence that we each have a twin we know nothing about. A wild, curious twin that was thrown out the window the night we were born, taking much of our energy with them. This story is a quest to find and court our wild twin, for they have something important to tell us. If there was something we were here to do in our few, brief years, we can be sure that the wild twin is holding the key.
-
-
Five stars for Dr. Shaw
- By Martin P on 29-04-20
-
A Farmer's Diary
- A Year at High House Farm
- By: Sally Urwin
- Narrated by: Janine Birkett
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sally Urwin and her husband, Steve, own High House Farm in Northumberland, which they share with Mavis the sheepdog, one very fat pony and many, many sheep. Set in beautiful, wild landscape, and in use for generations, it's the perfect setting for Sally's (sometimes brutally) honest and charming account of farming life. From stock sales to lambing sheds, and out in the fields in snow and on hot summer days, A Farmer's Diary reveals the highs, lows and hard work involved in making a living from the land.
-
-
Wonderfully written, charming, funny and real
- By English Country Life on 29-07-19
-
Gypsy Boy on the Run
- By: Mikey Walsh
- Narrated by: Mikey Walsh
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mikey is a Romany Gypsy and grew up living in a caravan on sites across the UK. He adored his family and the rich and vibrant Romany culture he'd inherited. Eventually though he was forced to make a heartbreaking decision - to stay and keep secrets, or escape and find somewhere to finally belong. But Mikey quickly discovers that life in the outside world isn't all he expected.
-
-
Inspiring and moving read
- By Danielle on 23-06-13
-
Mudlarking
- By: Lara Maiklem
- Narrated by: Lara Maiklem
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lara Maiklem has scoured the banks of the Thames for over 15 years, in pursuit of the objects that the river unearths: from Neolithic flints to Roman hair pins, medieval buckles to Tudor buttons, Georgian clay pipes to Victorian toys. These objects tell her about London and its lost ways of life. Moving from the river's tidal origins in the west of the city to the point where it meets the sea in the east, Mudlarking is a search for urban solitude and history on the River Thames, what Lara calls 'the longest archaeological site in the world'.
-
-
Unexpectedly fascinating insight into lost London
- By oorkris on 25-08-19
-
Braiding Sweetgrass
- Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
- By: Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Narrated by: Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers.
-
-
Spellbinding
- By Milkmoon Mama on 24-02-20
-
Homecoming
- Voices of the Windrush Generation
- By: Colin Grant
- Narrated by: Colin Grant, John Sackville, Debra Michaels, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Homecoming draws on over a hundred firsthand interviews, archival recordings and memoirs by the women and men who came to Britain from the West Indies between the late 1940s and the early 1960s. In their own words, we witness the transition from the optimism of the first postwar arrivals to the race riots of the late 1950s. We hear from nurses in Manchester; bus drivers in Bristol; seamstresses in Birmingham; teachers in Croydon; dockers in Cardiff; inter-racial lovers in High Wycombe, and Carnival Queens in Leeds.
-
-
We are here because you were there
- By Naz on 14-04-20
-
Fresh Eggs and Dog Beds
- Living the Dream in Rural Ireland
- By: Nick Albert
- Narrated by: Andy Stevenson
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nick and Lesley Albert yearn to leave the noise, stress, and pollution of modern Britain and move to the countryside, where the living is good, the air sweet, with space for their dogs to run free. Suddenly out of work and soon to be homeless, they set off in search of a new life in Ireland, a country they had never visited. As their adventure began to unfold, not everything went according to plan. How would they cope with banks that didn’t want customers, builders who didn’t need work, or the complex issue of where to buy some chickens?
-
-
Lovely, relaxing listen!
- By Ann D on 26-11-19
-
The Fens
- Discovering England's Ancient Depths
- By: Francis Pryor
- Narrated by: Francis Pryor
- Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Fens is Britain's most distinctive, complex, man-made and least understood landscape. Francis Pryor has lived in, excavated, farmed, walked and loved the Fen Country for more than 40 years: its levels and drains, its soaring churches and magnificent medieval buildings. In The Fens, he counterpoints the history of the Fenland landscape and its transformation with the story of his own discovery of it as an archaeologist.
-
-
A very personal history
- By Ian on 19-05-20
Summary
Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Stopping Places, written and read by Damian Le Bas.
BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week.
'I needed to get to the stopping places, so I needed to get on the road. It was the road where I might at last find out where I belonged.'
Damian Le Bas grew up surrounded by Gypsy history. His great-grandmother would tell him stories of her childhood in the ancient Romani language: the places her family stopped and worked, the ways they lived, the superstitions and lore of their people. But his own experience of life on the road was limited to Ford Transit journeys from West Sussex to Hampshire to sell flowers.
In a bid to better understand his Gypsy heritage, the history of Britain's Romanies and the rhythms of their life today, Damian sets out on a journey to discover the atchin tans, or stopping places - the old encampment sites known only to Travellers. Through winter frosts and summer dawns, from horse fairs to Gypsy churches, neon-lit lay-bys to fern-covered banks, Damian lives on the road, somewhere between the romanticised Gypsies of old and their much-maligned descendants of today.
In this powerful and soulful debut, Damian le Bas brings the places, characters and stories of his to bold and vigorous life.
What listeners say about The Stopping Places
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- claire bell
- 25-09-18
probably my favourite audiobook ever
probably my favourite audiobook ever - so so brilliant. I carried on driving a loop around Cornwall for three hours so I could keep listening!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mountain Gal
- 18-06-19
The Stopping Places.
I so enjoyed this book ,it was unusual and well presented. I look forward to listening again. Very glad I decided to buy it. :)
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jay Cono
- 13-01-19
Most enjoyable audiobook ever
I loved Stopping Places. Damian gives such a seemingly honest account of his experiences, balancing the mix of his way of life, giving us an insight into the history and modern day traveller life. His writing is beautiful with the everyday observations of nature, his descriptions and impersonations of the characters he meets and the baring of his feelings. Just loved this, still have half a chapter left to read cos I don’t want to finish it!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 09-09-18
Can well recommend
First heard some highlights on book of the week R4. The full edition is really enjoyable and unravels the secret ways of the true travelling community that are still practiced. Really good narration by the author. Enjoy :)
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mr. S. Ruffle Coles
- 11-08-20
great read
I came to this book wanting to listen to a book about British Romanis (owing to my Grandad being one and me know next to nothing about what that was or meant - a common thread in these reviews). I can't say that I got the history lesson I was initially seeking and it took me quite a while to realise what I was listening to but once I did, I realised I was enjoying it a lot 👍
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- mark Nieuwenhoff
- 28-07-20
interesting insight
I really enjoyed this book. well written and read by the author. highly recommended and look foward to reading more from him.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kane Ashmore
- 21-07-20
A new favourite.
A book of great history and adventure! I truly enjoyed it from start to finish.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Spencer
- 22-05-20
Brilliant.
A great piece of gypsy history told by one in know, when a story is told from the inside out, rather than the outside in, its authenticity has no doubt. A rare opportunity to discover what is actually true about a traditional gypsy lifestyle. Loved it.
-
Overall
- Sreep
- 22-02-20
Insightful and personal
It didn't really go anywhere, a little bit tortured and sad. Interesting and I felt I learned more about traveller cultures from it.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dawnio
- 13-01-20
Evocative and honest
Evocative and honest telling of a man’s quest to find his place in a world which - on the whole - still struggles to allow his people their rightful claim to the earth. Loved hearing Damian speak his native tongue. His words will stay with me for a long time.