Tinkers and Travellers

[joette]

layabouts with health problems

I think Tinkers & Travellers were probably hard working & the life-style they led must have made them quick witted.I'll bet also if you lived in a small village there would be as much inter-marriage as there was with the travelling folk.
When I worked many moons ago with Save the Children I worked with the Travelling community-they were maybe not "educated" in the conventional sense but were mainly intelligent,healthy & fit.Not much couch potating amongst them.

[Currie]

Hello Cairnie,

There’s a book about Scottish Travellers, “Till Doomsday in the Afternoon” published 1986. You can read quite a lot of it in the preview on Google Books. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=VRP ... &q&f=false

In Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 1904, there’s an article titled “The Wandering Population of the West Highlands”
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=AbL ... CC4Q6AEwAA

In a report on an international congress for the welfare of children, held in London in 1902, there’s some material to do with the tinker children of Scotland. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=5eI ... CCcQ6AEwAA

If you live outside the USA you’ll probably only see snippets of both of the last two. If you can’t access them and you want a copy of the relevant sections just send me an email address via a PM.

All the best,
Alan