COMPETITION
No. 609: Proverbum sap
Among survivals from the past which are often out of tune with today's world are the traditional truths embodied in proverbs. Competitors are invited to submit proverbs for the times (in sets of three) which take account of 1970's conditions and technolo- gies. Entries, marked. 'Competition No. 609: by June 26.
No. 606: The winners
As borough and county councils now have a statutory duty to provide sites for gipsies, competitors were asked to submit a suitable address by a returning gipsy to a council chairman. George van Schaick set the right note: '. . . malice, Mr Chairman sir, is not the gipsy way,' and the `no bitterness' theme was echoed by a number of others. The four, teen-line limit suggested a sonnet, and they made up one in five of the entries. J. M. Crooks wins three guineas for his sonnet after Keats (I especially like the incongn.t, ous 'Dear Sir'): Dear Sir, Would we were steadfast as thou art— Not through green pastures roaming every shire, And watching, from the townsfolk far apart, Like ghetto-dwellers whom no men desire, The local councils do their dirty deeds, To purge and strip the patch of earth they rule Of human beings growing up like weeds, Without the benefit of home or school. No—you're too steadfast, comfortable, secure Settled inside your large, detached abode, To share the hardships gipsies must endure When forced to keep for ever to the road. But now, at last, we've won our meagre rights— Our sites must be forever in your sights.
Stevenson was laid under heavy contribu, tion; George Borrow was drawn upon, too, as was to be expected. But so was the Romany tongue itself: Adam Kahn sub- mitted a piece in Romany (with an English verse translation) and Joyce Johnson a piece of macaronies which earns two guineas:.
Me diklol shows I'm no gorgio2 toff, And last year, dik3, you a-moved us off; But now yer kenner4-dwelling rais3 Have got to give us free range guys A tan6 where rowel" and chi& and chal6 Can atch" as we please, and, as we please, ja1111 No gavvers" now can get us felled" (They may lell yer if our tan's withheld!), No gavvers now can shove us from Our rightful tan by the open drom", A tan where we can toss our log Upon our non-electric yog."
This kind of talk makes* Romani hungeri: Yn Iachl 16 I'm off to me mookerimungeri!"
'neckerchief 'non-Romany 6see 4house 'gentle, man oplace 'wife 8girl °boy "stop 12polico, 7 men "arrest "road "fire wfarewell 'tea And now hack to English with the Iwo final winners:) We are the Travelling People, Becoming the Stationary Folk:' No more nicking lead off the steeple, Nor being moved on till we croak; Your Council has due obligation To fix us with Permanent Sites Where we can achieve integration, With mains power and water as Rights :1 And when we are thus integrated, You bet we'll awaken to find Our Identity's been subjugated And our Language has sadly declined; Then to save the old Romany ways A FREE ROMANY PARTY we'll raise.
W. F. N. Watson Well, just as we promised, we're back, Mr. Young, Though minus our equine producers of dung.
Now motor-cars tow us; we've every mod. con., And you lack the power, sir, to make us move on, Since Romany folk have been granted the right To dwell where they please, you must find us a site; Though not where a sewage farm's odour pervades The woods that once offered the sunniest glades, Nor shall you allot us a portion of land Adjacent to places where rubbish-dumps stand; For municipal tips are the haunts, as you know, Of the black-headed gull and the carrion crow. Nancy Perry, They win three guineas each. Commenda, tions—in a very good crop of entries—to Andrew J. Dunne, Vera Telfer, Peter Peters son and Bruce Boyle,
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