conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a book about Lives, Near, Crieff with the genre: Reference, Writing, Research & Publishing Guides?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'Tales from the Tent'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the first four paragraphs for this book
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Tales from the Tent
  I am eternally grateful to the Scottish Arts Council, who through a fine grant allowed me the freedom to research further than I could otherwise have done.
  Those of you who came with me on 'Jessie's Journey,' when I told you about my life in our blue Bedford bus with Mammy, Daddy, seven sisters and Tiny, the wee fox terrier that could run rings round rats, will have an idea where we are going. To those who did not, then let me take you through the Scottish travellers' life, a life of folklore, murder and mystery. Humour jumps on board too, folks!
  Will you believe my tales? Perhaps aye, or maybe not. For what is fact and fiction in life when a falling snowflake can lead a young mother to trek upon a treacherous mountain in a blizzard perilously putting her two little boys in danger?
  Would you like to hear of the threesome who dared to bury a Royal Duke in the wee coastal graveyard filled to capacity with tramps, vagabonds and tinkers? More to the point—was there room for him?
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Tales from the Tent
  I am eternally grateful to the Scottish Arts Council, who through a fine grant allowed me the freedom to research further than I could otherwise have done.
  Those of you who came with me on 'Jessie's Journey,' when I told you about my life in our blue Bedford bus with Mammy, Daddy, seven sisters and Tiny, the wee fox terrier that could run rings round rats, will have an idea where we are going. To those who did not, then let me take you through the Scottish travellers' life, a life of folklore, murder and mystery. Humour jumps on board too, folks!
  Will you believe my tales? Perhaps aye, or maybe not.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: three more paragraphs
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: For me they represented a menacing, heaving mass of life's unwanted, the dregs of society, but to my mother (God love her) they were sad, unfortunate individuals who had fallen from life's hard road and never found the way back. She always smiled and greeted them, as she would do anyone. They in turn would remove their crumpled bunnets, click heels together and greet her with as much politeness. 'Mammy,' I remember saying, 'thon lads could just as easy slit our throats while we slept for whatever we had, and here's you smiling and giving them the time of day.'
  I, with my blindness to adult knowledge, shrugged my shoulders and asked my mother where was the sense in her words. To this day I see her eyes twinkling with a tear in each. 'They have already been robbed, Jessie, of all dignity and honour. Nothing left for thon poor souls than to live within the cess-pit of nature, surviving on the likes of folks who have a little heart left in them to show the compassion this world seriously lacks.' She then scolded me and reminded me that we travelling people should understand that better than others. She finished with these words. 'After all, who do you think taught tramps the ways of begging if not us?' Mammy had a way of painting pictures with her well-chosen words, and this is why, to this day, I can share them with you, my friend.
  Within a fortnight of us settling into the secluded spot within the Cheetam Hill area, the only other person who came into our midst was a young policeman called Jim. He took to us because he came from Fife; he was another Scot living and working in the heart of England and needed perhaps to hear familiar Scottish voices. Mammy enjoyed his visits when he was on street duty. She'd whistle him in for a hot mug of tea; this was a godsend to a street bobby, especially one who had to walk the lonely nights away with eyes in the back of his head. At first he said, 'Och, you're no needing tae be giving me tea, Mrs Riley,'—then, after a while, he'd appear with a bag of scones or a packet of biscuits expecting our hospitality as if he were one of the family. Daddy, who mainly eyed the law with mistrust, soon dropped his guard to Jim, the young friendly bobby from Fife, and treated him like an old pal.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: She always smiled and greeted them, as she would do anyone. They in turn would remove their crumpled bunnets, click heels together and greet her with as much politeness. 'Mammy,' I remember saying, 'thon lads could just as easy slit our throats while we slept for whatever we had, and here's you smiling and giving them the time of day.'
  I, with my blindness to adult knowledge, shrugged my shoulders and asked my mother where was the sense in her words. To this day I see her eyes twinkling with a tear in each. 'They have already been robbed, Jessie, of all dignity and honour. Nothing left for thon poor souls than to live within the cess-pit of nature, surviving on the likes of folks who have a little heart left in them to show the compassion this world seriously lacks.' She then scolded me and reminded me that we travelling people should understand that better than others. She finished with these words. 'After all, who do you think taught tramps the ways of begging if not us?' Mammy had a way of painting pictures with her well-chosen words, and this is why, to this day, I can share them with you, my friend.
  Within a fortnight of us settling into the secluded spot within the Cheetam Hill area, the only other person who came into our midst was a young policeman called Jim. He took to us because he came from Fife; he was another Scot living and working in the heart of England and needed perhaps to hear familiar Scottish voices. Mammy enjoyed his visits when he was on street duty. She'd whistle him in for a hot mug of tea; this was a godsend to a street bobby, especially one who had to walk the lonely nights away with eyes in the back of his head. At first he said, 'Och, you're no needing tae be giving me tea, Mrs Riley,'—then, after a while, he'd appear with a bag of scones or a packet of biscuits expecting our hospitality as if he were one of the family. Daddy, who mainly eyed the law with mistrust, soon dropped his guard to Jim, the young friendly bobby from Fife, and treated him like an old pal.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the last four paragraphs. End with the sentence ' Thank you.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: My Mammy lay dead on the paisley-carpeted floor. Only a tiny inch of petticoat peeped out from beneath her Black Watch tartan skirt. Arms were crossed over her chest. Everything was just as she wished but I had taken no part in this. No one can convince me that the Ancient Ones hadn't prepared her for my eyes, my last sight before she was laid.
  I called the doctor who pronounced her dead, and before putting her into bed to await the undertaker I held her eight times, a cuddle from us all, her precious daughters.
  So now, my dear friends, we come to the end. My travelling days never found the way back onto the road, because I travelled a different one. One with a husband and children. However, as I said before, 'you can take the traveller out of the road but never take the road out of the traveller.' I believe my road is still there, finding new bends and new campsites. Yes, of course they are all in my mind, but that's okay. As a storyteller and singer I share them with everyone. When people ask me as they always do, 'where do you belong?' I still say 'wherever the feather falls.'
  Reader, you have been fine company as we travelled together through these memory-filled pages. Thank you.