About the Book
*BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week*
'I needed to get to the stopping places, so I needed to get on the road. It was the road where I might at last find out where I belonged.'
Damian Le Bas grew up surrounded by Gypsy history. His great-grandmother would tell him stories of her childhood in the ancient Romani language; the places her family stopped and worked, the ways they lived, the superstitions and lores of their people. But his own experience of life on the road was limited to Ford Transit journeys from West Sussex to Hampshire to sell flowers.
In a bid to better understand his Gypsy heritage, the history of the Britain's Romanies and the rhythms of their life today, Damian sets out on a journey to discover the atchin tans, or stopping places - the old encampment sites known only to Travellers. Through winter frosts and summer dawns, from horse fairs to Gypsy churches, neon-lit lay-bys to fern-covered banks, Damian lives on the road, somewhere between the romanticised Gypsies of old, and their much-maligned descendants of today.
In this powerful and soulful debut, Damian le Bas brings the places, characters and stories of his to bold and vigorous life.
About the Author :
Damian Le Bas was born in 1985 into a long line of Gypsies and Travellers. He was raised within a network of relations who taught him how to ride and drive ponies, tractors and trucks, sing melancholy cowboy ballads and speak the thousand-year-old Romani tongue. He was awarded scholarships to study at Christ's Hospital and the University of Oxford. Between 2011 and 2015 he was the editor of Travellers' Times, Britain's only national magazine for Gypsies and Travellers. The Stopping Places is his first book.
Damian lives and works mostly in Kent, with his wife (the actor Candis Nergaard); and Sussex, where he grew up and where his nan - who taught him the old Romany Travellers' little-known routes and ways - both still live.
Review :
Tender and intensely lyrical ... the prose is pure delight. The author breathes life into everything he sees ... To read The Stopping Places is to better understand the curious history of the Roma and how they have survived into 21st-century Britain
A beautiful writer who seems born to tell this fascinating story. It's brilliantly researched, avoiding stereotype and explaining misconceptions, while showing what is vital and special about modern traveller culture
A fine prose style, vividly conjuring the smell of a hop pillow, the whinnying of a horse fair and the ‘wet-look hairstyles’ of the men, as well as the dead cold of a wagon in winter... An element of memoir clings to this excellent account of folk most of us don’t understand... The end of the book hints at redemption, as Le Bas comes to terms with the conflicts of his dual world. But he is too good a writer to make a meal of it
An insight into the hidden world and culture of travelling people, written with delicacy and affection
Beautifully written and deeply affecting… While this is a beautiful, important book about Gypsy culture, it’s also a moving exploration of what it means to belong
An illuminating journey into a British culture and landscape about which most of us know nothing. This is a beautiful, important and revelatory book from a graceful new voice
Le Bas is a thoughtful writer, observant of nature and with a lovely turn of phrase... by turn lyrical, edgy and wistful... the book is rich with lore and history
I loved Damian Le Bas’s beautiful, questioning memoir, at once an introduction into a hidden world and a profound meditation on belonging and difference
He conjures up soaring, poetic descriptions of his surroundings... But The Stopping Places is more than a travelogue. It is also a colourful dive into gypsy culture, history and language... The Stopping Places is an enjoyable and enlightening account of an overlooked part of British society
A delicate description of a life split between two identities... Le Bas has a cinematic writing style that shifts between images, memory and history. He deftly traces the origins of his people, the language and persecutions as well as modern British hypocrisies... This is a thoroughly enjoyable read that manages a near-perfect balance of the personal and political
The Stopping Places is a beautiful book about belonging: both a map of a secret landscape and a rich, thoughtful memoir of a divided life. Damian Le Bas is the perfect guide to this often-overlooked geography. He is a scholar-Gypsy whose writing is lyrical, informed, and deeply humane
Lyrical and keenly researched
This book moves at the pace of a horse pulling a Gypsy wagon. It’s wonderful. Slow down and relax as Damian takes you on his year-long journey seeking out the places in the UK – the atchin tans - where his people, the Romany Gypsies, have stopped, worked, lived, loved and fought since time immemorial. It’s a delicate balance between romance and history, information and folklore, language, history, keen observations of people, deep love of nature , the minutiae of daily routine and glimpses into his own personal life, all in easy prose that frequently slips into poetry. A breath of very fresh air
[An] enthralling and eye-opening memoir
In The Stopping Places, Damian Le Bas takes us on a fascinating journey through Gypsy Britain. Full of spark, tenderness and lyricism, this beautiful book reveals to us a world still largely secret, complex with enchantment and unease, rich language and blood ties, rough weather and shining poetry. Le Bas is a wonderful guide, open-hearted and curious, always respectful, as he ventures into the past and present of his own community, seeking what it means to roam and to belong
