n By Mark Metcalf
include door to door sales, the collecting of scrap and rags for recycling and metalwork; especially knife grinding, blade sharpening and the manufacturing of nails and pins.
According to Helen Large, museums audience manager for Museums Worcestershire, the Vardo Collection is the equivalent to a National Collection and, “we know a great deal about physical aspect of the caravans and some associated stories. But it got to a stage where we wanted to connect with all the communities that make up Worcestershire. We wanted to hear the words of the GRT community itself and were fortunate enough to begin work on this by getting funding from the John Ellerman Foundation to employ Georgie and despite Covid she has made brilliant progress since beginning work last year.”
Stevens has approached older members of GRT communities to interview them. Some are not too keen to get involved as they prefer stories to be passed on orally and they also feel undervalued as a community.
“I need them to know that is not the case and convince people that they have a really interesting story that also
dovetails with the histories of many other communities who have migrated to Britain from overseas, or who have moved from different regions of the UK and Ireland to find work”, says Stevens. She is aware that TV
programmes like the Big Fat Gypsy Wedding series reinforced certain prejudicial ideas about the GRT community.
Once the oral histories are collected, visitors – including school students – will be able to listen to them. Local schools have a relatively high intake of children from GRT backgrounds. Stevens wants these children to be proud of their identity. She wants to work with young members of the GRT community on art, music and drama projects and to build a vardo from scratch.
Stevens is also looking to redesign the vardo display area so that they are featured around a fire and intends to construct a bender tent which visitors can sit inside. There are longer term plans for incorporating interactive technologies.
The museum’s work is even more relevant now as the government has just passed legislation that – in light of
35 uniteLANDWORKER Summer 2022
Find out more Find out how to get to the
Museum at
www.museumsworcestershire
.org.uk/museums/
county-museum-hartlebury/
the fact there is a substantial shortage of approved sites – means Gypsies now have very few places they can legally stop.
Landworker readers should consider keeping up to date with developments as well as enjoying a visit to Hartlebury Castle Museum in the future.
Pics by Mark Harvey
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