Many years ago there was a sizeable gypsy population in our area, their makeshift shacks made from whatever was available and tents well-worn from a constant shift of pasture. When the Boss and I first came to Portugal following several years of severe drought, their horses, donkeys and dogs looked starved, their children forever begging and often the roads were clogged by extended families in convoy searching for new grazing. Today there are still a few encampments in the vicinity and their animals look sleek and well fed, although sometimes their carts are so overloaded one wonders how the horses pull them along.
It is thought these migrants originated in India and over the centuries trekked westward until they reached Spain and Portugal either via northern Africa or across central Europe.
Always a closed community and even today with no wish to integrate with their adopted countries, they have suffered much persecution.
In 1574 King João deported gypsies to the Portuguese colonies and also to Brazil, but in modern history a notorious ethnic cleansing was ordered by Adolf Hitler during the Second World War. About 500,000 gypsies were sent to the gas chambers and the few who escaped again fled to Spain and Portugal. Without doubt some of those escapees founded families which today we see trekking round the Algarve.
Despite attempts by local Câmaras to give these Romany children an education their efforts often come to nothing, the liberty of a roaming life and skills learned within their tightly knit clans being sufficient for their way of life, closely guarded against excesses of the 21st century.
Although donkey carts have become a rare sight, it is a joy to see what, in my youth, was an essential part of daily life. When I was a child both bread and milk came by horse drawn transport and a Rag and Bone man plied his trade behind an old racehorse which had seen better days.
At boarding school in Buckinghamshire the older pupils drove a Gig to the local train station to collect and return visitors, while early in World War Two it was my job to drive the Women’s Institute carthorse and dray round the district collecting anything which could supply a need.
These included old iron, fruit for jam-making and clothes for the refugees from over-run countries. Archaic by today’s urgent demand for immediate satisfaction, nostalgia may iron out the downsides such as working animals which sometimes suffered from human ignorance and cruelty, and streets rich with an aroma of fresh manure.
Hence the geriatric pleasure of living in the Portuguese countryside. A local small holding which I pass many times a week, during the warm weather has a haze of richly dunged straw on which livestock has slept without a change of bedding over many months. One sniff of ammonia and I am a child again. Come summer its enough to make the eyes water with each deep breath, and I could be back working on a Devonshire farm mucking out the horses and cows after their six month winter lie-in.
Happily some things remain the same, not least the arrival of the Greater Spotted Cuckoo on March 29. Perched on a tall eucalyptus within seven metres of my bedroom window its piercing sweet call wakes me at sunrise. As the tree sways in a breeze, small birds circle round aware of the threat this predator brings, its song a constant accompaniment to monotonously cooing ring doves.
Another less pleasant sound dominates the sky from now until autumn – that of a twin-engined ‘plane devoted to the pastime of skydiving, or straight forward parachute jumping for brave folk seeking an instant adrenaline rush who, from time to time, fail to live to tell the tale.
Meanwhile, it appears that David Cameron has thrown himself to the lions by saying that Britons should be more confident about their country’s Christian status. And why not when the judicial system and constitution have their origins in early Christian ethics based upon the 10 Commandments? While some Muslims and Jews, having come to the UK for its tolerance and radical adherence to the EU law regarding human rights, are getting in a froth about ‘discrimination’, it should be noted that the three religions have at the root of their faith a belief in the same deity and share what are the basic moral principles of civilized living.
Then there are the Humanists, the Agnostics and the Atheists, the majority of whom also adhere to the principles leading to social harmony.
Stirred up by the media in search of a quick buck, with a General Election next year and UKIP making the most of the situation to secure votes, things are not looking good for the current Prime Minister.
It will be interesting to see the result of the ‘Independence for Scotland’ referendum in September and what happens at the polls in 2015 should that be a purely English hustings. Either way, politicians appear to be losing both the plot and the electorate’s respect.
So it was a relief to get away from the sour grapes of those faiths embroiled in a fight for recognition and make the most of Easter week at St. Vincents Anglican Church. Services for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Day satisfied an annual need to be reminded of the reasons for being a practising Christian.
Photo: Senior pupils from my school dated 1932, taking geese to the local market driving the Gig, which is mentioned in the column
By Margaret Brown
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Margaret Brown is one of the Algarve Resident’s longest standing contributors and has lived in the Algarve for more than 20 years.
