A journey through Gypsy Britain with a dazzling new writer and native son of the Romany community
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.
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
*The Sunday Times*
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
*Amy Liptrot*
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
*The Spectator*
An insight into the hidden world and culture of travelling people,
written with delicacy and affection
*Ken Loach*
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
*Daily Telegraph*
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
*Patrick Barkham*
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
*New Statesman*
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
*Olivia Laing*
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
*The Economist*
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
*Prospect*
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
*Observer*
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
*Peggy Seeger*
[An] enthralling and eye-opening memoir
*Sunday Express*
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
*Liz Berry*
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