Wiltshire and Somerset

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 99, 29 April 1939, Page 10 (Supplement)

Wiltshire and Somerset

Wanderings In

There are many Englishmen who are fond of wandering about the English countryside. To them there is no countryside like it. But there are not many Englishmen who are fond of wandering about it in the active and unconventional way followed by two young brothers, Patrick and Christopher McEvoy. They are orphans, and unmarried. Patrick !• a writer, though he declares that, no fur, he liaa made more money >y gathering wool and mushrooms than he has made by his pen. Christopher is an artist. He does not Mjr what the financial result is. In tho early months of 1034 they toured parts of Wiltshire and Somerset on foot. They took wHh them a pony to carry their belongings, ami a greyhound to follow at their hwelw. At night, they put up in ruined and derelict buildings, or In a tent. That wr.s at first. After a time, they exchanged the pony for a caravan, and provided ttemselves with a draught-horse, aod wero inoro com-

fortable, and niore ijdependtnt of the weather. Patrick has now published a journal of the tour, nnder the title. "The Gorse and the Briar" (Harrap). Its style, its stories of the gorgios and the romanies they met and fraternised with, and the prominence it gives to their beer drinking, and their belief in the virtues of beer, remind us of Borrow and his Lavengro and Romany Rye. Readers who are interested in rural England—Wiltshire and Somerset in particular—will find it delightful to read. They will make the acquaintance of two lovable young men, and will learn a good deal about the farming folk in these two counties, and their villages and villagers. And, if they are interested in the gipsies who make Wiltshire and Somerset part of their beat, or, in gipsies in the Homeland in general, they will learn that they are an exceptionally race-proud people, with prejudices that crystallise against all gorgios, that they are not only shrewd and observant, but kindly and hospitable, that they are famous makers of clothes pegs, which they fashion, string together, and pile in their hawk-baskets with a speed that is astonishing, and that they have been robbed of their one-time prosperity by the cheap manufactures and eixpenny bazaars that are as characteristic of modern England as they are of most other countries. They will also learn what an English spring fair is like in such a town as Devizes. The book is admirably illustrated by eight drawings contributed by Christopher.