Page 17 - HOTT Magazine Vol 3 Ed 3
P. 17
HEART VISIT INSPIRES TRAVELLER GIRLS' POETRY
It was a frosty winter’s morning the day we visited the Heart.
I had driven to pick up Scottish Gypsy Traveller sisters Bernadette and Meg, aged 21 and 22,
and Sheila Doogan, who works with them at Travellers Rights organisation Article 12.
We pulled up at the site (a little late due to my poor map-reading), and found a small figure,
hunkered down on hands and knees, with her back to us.
She was not, as I had first thought, kneeling in prayer.
She was weeding; tugging up clumps of grass, and polishing the white quartz stones.
She was, as HOTT magazine readers will have guessed, writer, story-teller, and Tinkers
Hearth campaigner Jess Smith.
As a BBC radio producer, days like this are always special for me; getting to spend time with
people, learning about their passions, and committing to tape their impressions of things
they care about.
But Meg and Bernadette were giddy with excitement. They had never visited the Heart
before, and had only recently heard of its existence.
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