Born in a Somerset pea-field in 1941, the second of eight children in a Romani family, Maggie Smith-Bendell has lived through the years of greatest change in the travelling community's long history. As a child, Maggie rode & slept in a horse-drawn wagon, picked hops & flowers, & sat beside her father's campfire on ancient verges, poor but free to roam. As the twentieth century progressed, common land was fenced off & the traditional Gypsy ways disappeared. Eventually Maggie married a house-dweller & tried to settle for bricks & mortar, bit she never lost that restless spirit, the deep love of the land & the gift for storytelling that were her Romani inheritance. Maggie's story is one of hardship & prejudice, but also, unforgettably, it recalls the glories of the travelling life in the absolute safety of a loyal & loving family.