Page 92 - Exile-ebook

92 AN EXILE OF THE MIND TIDDLERS IN A JAM JAR 93

Photo: Associated Newspapers /Rex.

Gypsies were a common sight until new laws restricted their freedom. Joe Orton at the height of his fame. Sue Townsend at the height of hers.

above our heads. The first to move horse-drawn wagons. Rows of box bad luck to turn away a gypsy and so unimaginative mediocrity. The
as the arrows whistled their way hedges draped in brightly coloured we amassed a large collection of feeters bleak adequacy of the Saffron Lane
groundwards was called a wimp. Sur- washing were a sign of an itinerant and many promises of a bright future. Estates had a deceptive violence.
prisingly, we had only one casualty encampment in a corner field. Their The gypsies represented nature before Fayhurst [sic] Road where Orton
when one boy panicked and ran into days were spent sitting around civilisation. The last romance left in a lived, and the narrow streets around
the path of my descending arrow. He smoking wood fires under grey skies rapidly changing world. it seemed to have been vaccinated
lived but I got into a lot of trouble. to whittle wooden clothes pegs to A five-minute cycle ride away was against life… Cramped, cold and
A continuous roof space, an over- sell to the public. Some farmers were the Saffron Lane Estate. A pre-war dark, the rows of sooty pebble
pass through dusty attics, stretched sympathetic towards these nomadic council estate where semi-literate granite homes were to Orton a grey
the whole length of Apostles Row. tribes but laws were later passed to Joe Orton lived before he became backdrop, set-pieces for a lifetime of
My brother and I would attic crawl discourage gypsies from lingering. a famous playwright. He met his making do.”
from one end to the other. This was Pegs, called ‘feeters’, and lucky untimely death at the hands of his These houses were luxurious
our main entertainment until our charms were hawked from door to lover at the age of 34. compared to Apostles Row.
television arrived in the early 1950s. door with a bit of ‘drukkeriben’ or Orton’s biographer, John Lahr, Sue Townsend, another luminary
Every year bands of gypsies fortune telling in exchange for a palm wrote: who hailed from the ‘Saff’ Estate, was
clattered down the back roads in crossed with silver. It was considered “...council housing reflected its later to become world famous with