Big Louie & Me

Beginning with the author's great-grandmother's affair with a Gypsy boy in 1869, this warmhearted memoir chronicles the Gypsy life in a very close-knit community in the UK's Black Country. From a lifetime teeming with incident, George Locke shares the best stories from the old days, including run-ins with the police, gamekeepers, and Gypsy-haters, as well as his fond memories of his grandmother, Big Louie, who smoked a pipe from the age of three and had ancient knowledge of healing plants. A nostalgic and wry account of a way of life no longer to be found in rural England, this book is full of lore, quick wit, and, above all, a solid belief in family.