Travellers through Time

Jeremy Harte is curator of the Bourne Hall Museum at Epsom and Ewell. He is secretary of the Romany and Traveller Family History Society and created the Surrey Gypsy Archive. He is the author of Cloven Country: The Devil and the English Landscape (Reaktion, 2022).

Jeremy Harte’s Travellers Through Time focuses on Romanies in England . . . Harte has spent many years in close conversation with Romani families, in the position of both participant observer and, more importantly, old friend. As such, he is an excellent guide to the history of Britain’s Gypsies. His knowledge of the Anglo-Romani language and its connection to both continental and older British forms of Romani is sound. - Damian Le Bas, Literary ReviewThere’s many a good tune played on an old fiddle. This enthusiastic revival of romantic historiography, blissfully innocent of any economic, social or critical theory, will appeal to traditionalists. At the same time, the clear referencing of sources of a much wider range of historical anecdotes than usual means that the reader can check and follow up the plethora of details of English Gypsy life. - Thomas Acton, Emeritus Professor of Romani Studies, University of GreenwichUsing a wide array of resources, Jeremy Harte introduces us to a 1,000-year journey that began in India but has yet to culminate in a network of safe stopping places for Romany Gypsies still travelling the UK’s roads and byways. Suspicion and open hostility tend to follow them everywhere they go, but Britain’s Romanies have managed to adapt and move with the times, bringing with them a language and culture that has, in many ways, survived to the present day. In this well-researched account that reaches beyond the stereotype, Harte writes of Gypsy history without sentiment or bias, but always with respect. - Janet Keet-Black, co-founder and Vice President of the Romany and Traveller Family History SocietyProgressing chronologically from Tudor times when Gypsies first appear in the English written record up to the present day, [Harte] gives an in-depth description of how Romani life, culture and language have developed and adapted through the centuries . . . Harte handles their history with respect; the details of his description, his wry sense of humour and the use of telling quotes are all evidence of his enthusiasm for his subject. - Sue Turner, Morning Star