Is this the perfect bivvy?

[Alan Stubbs]

Wordbender:

My dad used to live in a Vardo - first a Reading wagon, then a fancy bow-top - before that he lived in a bender, which was basically a tent made of canvas stretched loosely over hazel limbs.

 

He's had a most varied and interesting life, my dad and he's definitely responsible for my 'feral' mindset. Neither of us are happy being cooped-up and we both need to be outdoors among what matters most to us.

 

Mind you, he reckons living in the Vardos and benders was hell at times. 'We froze in the winter, roasted in the summer and if the lice got in only burning would get rid of them.'

 

Not entirely the raggle-taggle romanticism you'd expect, I guess, but he actually lived it for real. He's a remarkable man and I'll tell his story one day, for sure.

My grandparents' neighbours were the first generation of Romany's to live in a house. Brilliant people. Almost 50 years later, I still keep in touch with their children and grandchildren.

 

The funeral of one of the family was truly incredible - the cortege took 25 minutes to get through the centre of Tunbridge Wells.

[Peter Waller]

Just in case anyone wonders a 'bender' is one of these, not one of those. In reality a clear predecessor to our modern bivvy.

[Wordbender]

Wot, no telly?

 

Oh the deprivation!

[Peter Waller]

Yep, no telly. Won't be able to watch Country-File! Lets be honest, thats almost as good as being outside for real! And as near to being ferral as some folk get!

 

[ 11. February 2005, 10:10 AM: Message edited by: Peter Waller ]

[Alan Stubbs]

Peter Waller:

Yep, no telly. Won't be able to watch Country-File! Lets be honest, thatsa almost as good as being outside for real!

I preferred John Cravinnnnnnnnngggggggs Newsround!

 

At the hop farm in Beltring there are some great pictures of all the hop-pickers and their caravans. haven't been there for a few years, but last time I went, there was a refurbished van. Truly, as you say, a work of folk art. the nearest thing I can liken anything else to it would be a canal narrowboat.

[Alan Fawcett]

an old timer i know is desperate to get his hands on a bowtop, he's even driven into Wales he's that desperate (well c'mon no-one would go to Wales if they weren't desperate).

 

The last one he went to have a look at was actually stood on bricks, someone had nicked the "proper" wooden wheels off it & the front pull bars ect, it was now basically a flatbed base that could be used for erm a panel fence?, the best part of it is the fella selling still made out he'd been offered over 5 grand for it LOL.

 

Anyone know where there's a bowtop going, PM me with the details and i'll let Pete know.

[John S]

Peter Waller:

can just picture Newt on his Lambretta, back in his fish-tail parka, tiger-tail on his ariel, and twenty odd headlights!

Hehe, but you can bet that, being an American, it'd have a 5.7 liter (sic) V8 in it! :cool:

 

PS - Didn't have time to take any photo's of the 'perfect bivvy', been exercising the drinking muscles today

 

[ 11. February 2005, 08:00 PM: Message edited by: John S ]

[Alan Stubbs]

Peter Waller:

There is atleast one who is more perceptive than you in this particular instance Lee. I wasn't bivvy bashing, honest!

Bernadette just discovered this thread....

In between the laughs she said .... 'Better make it clear that whatever I was doing it wasn't bishop bashing!'

[chesters1]

strange it was mentioned it was gypsies that hop picked :confused: i doupt if they would stoop so low and actually get their hands dirty ,i also know for a fact that most kentish hop fields used londoners for labour my old man and his kith and kin being one family amoungst hundreds of others :confused: it was their holiday and a yearly occurence pity he's dead otherwise i'd ask what farm it was ,he was one of 13 kids (3 died young) and the whole kit and kiboodle used to go by train (special hop picking trains were run then) from greenwhich and blackheath they were accompanied by several other members of the family and their ofspring an invasion of grangers must have been a frightening event as my grandfather was an ex fairground boxer and horse thief with a face to match ,it seems i have inherited his face without the painfull part

i went to a local hop farm to relive his experience ,must have been a holiday indeed first day i chucked away that silly hooked knife (i was cutting the bines off the wires on a ladder on a trailor) and next day took my ww2 folding machette we finished 2.5 days faster than ever recorded much to the grumblings of the women strippers ,the hops are gone now the owner makes more using the field for car boots theres now just 1 hopfield left for many miles around

 

[ 11. February 2005, 09:15 PM: Message edited by: chesters1 ]

[Alan Stubbs]

chesters1:

strange it was mentioned it was gypsies that hop picked :confused: i doupt if they would stoop so low and actually get their hands dirty ,i also know for a fact that most kentish hop fields used londoners for labour my old man and his kith and kin being one family amoungst hundreds of others :confused: it was their holiday and a yearly occurence pity he's dead otherwise i'd ask what farm it was ,he was one of 13 kids (3 died young) and the whole kit and kiboodle used to go by train (special hop picking trains were run then) from greenwhich and blackheath they were accompanied by several other members of the family and their ofspring an invasion of grangers must have been a frightening event as my grandfather was an ex fairground boxer and horse thief with a face to match ,it seems i have inherited his face without the painfull part

i went to a local hop farm to relive his experience ,must have been a holiday indeed first day i chucked away that silly hooked knife (i was cutting the bines off the wires on a ladder on a trailor) and next day took my ww2 folding machette we finished 2.5 days faster than ever recorded much to the grumblings of the women strippers ,the hops are gone now the owner makes more using the field for car boots theres now just 1 hopfield left for many miles around

Chesters, I didn't say they were Romanys, I said there were pictures of people living in horse drawn caravans.

 

You are quite correct, many of the Kentish hop-pickers came down from London - my great-grandparents amongst them. They moved out from Walworth to Walderslade permanently just around the turn of the century. It's a matter of pure coincidence that just after Christmas, as his estate's executor, I finished the sale of 2 houses and land owned by my great-uncle - the son of the above...... The hardest few quid I've ever earned in my life.