The Stopping Places, by Damian Le Bas

18 June, 2018
Genre: Travel
Category: New Books

Recommended by bookseller Eleanor Franzen:

"Damian Le Bas comes from a family of Travellers, or Gypsies, or Romanies (he uses the word Gypsy of himself and of people he knows.) He doesn’t, however, look particularly like a Traveller; he is light-skinned, fair-haired, blue-eyed. He worries about what he can call himself, and how to reconcile his heritage with the endless comments about how he looks. To that end, he decides to spend some time driving around Britain in search of atchin tans or stopping places: spots that traditional Traveller families knew as good sites to camp or to halt at, temporarily, on the road. His itinerary is interwoven with memories, especially conversations with his indomitable grandmother, who grew up one of ten children in a world where Travellers still used wagons. A fascinating, affectionate look into a world that many of us know nothing about."