A Perthshire author has had her life’s work, advancing justice for the Scottish Traveller community, recognised with a British Empire Medal (BEM) in the 2023 New Year Honours List.
Jess Smith (74) was born in Aberfeldy to a traveller family and had events not conspired to root her to Strathearn, her life might have been one of constant movement with her community.
Instead, as a young woman of 16 with her heart set on leaving Perthshire to join a CND ‘Ban the Bomb’ march, while out on an errand to the shops in Crieff, she “tripped over a pair of sky blue winklepickers” and scattered carrots everywhere.
When she recovered her balance, she found herself staring into the eyes of her 17 year-old husband-to-be.
This Hogmanay, Jess and Davie will have celebrated 56 years of marriage and ‘settled’ life. They have a home in Comrie, three children, nine grand children and five great grand children.
Before meeting Davie, Jess had likely been destined to continue a traditional traveller’s life following the seasons and harvests, or at the very least, sticking to within her closed community.
Since the age of five she’d lived in a converted Bedford bus, beginning a decade of journeying in it from Dunfallandy near Pitlochry.
“Mum wanted to settle – she coped with eight young children of which I was the middle one – but dad wanted to travel.
“One day, dad came and presented her with the bus saying ‘I’ve got you a mansion!’
“It had fitted carpets, several beds, a stove.”
The family headed off to Manchester in it.
“After that winter we arrived back in Scotland and for ten years we travelled from area to area,” explained Jess.
“We attended different schools. The bus was home for ten years, till I was 15.”
Young Jess absorbed the songs and stories of travellers. She told the PA that life in the bus was happy and she had fun outside in the summer, watched deer, bathed in the river, took in the wild.
The world she knew provided the material for six published books which have helped towards an understanding of the culture of Scotland’s travellers.
The first book The Way of the Wanderers came about after a death-bed promise she made to herself in 1982 as her father, Charlie Riley passed: “It was early 1982 and there we were: him at death’s door and me crying my eyes out, watching his life ebbing away. Gripped by the sheer helplessness of knowing that at any moment his sun would dip for the final time, I made a silent promise; to discover as much information about Scottish Travellers as it was possible to find, and write a book, a simple, easy to read book.”
Settled society has always discriminated against travellers and Jess went on to tell shocking stories of bullying, violence, the enforced break-up of families and separate schooling.
But drawing on her own and her family’s experiences, she also captured the magic and drama of days wandering the roads and working the land, and brings to life the travellers’ rich and vibrant traditions.
After The Way of the Wanderers, Jess penned an autobiographical trilogy, a story book and a novel.
News of her writing –Jessie’s Journey, Bruar’s Rest, Way of the Wanderers, Sookin’ Berries, Tales from the Tent and Tears for a Tinker – has spread far and wide, despite Jess not having an agent.
Jess acknowledged her writing has had a positive effect: “My books on Scotland’s travellers, a community which I belong to, recognise the importance of diversity. This has played an important part in creating dialogue within society and the broader communities.”
Jess said she cannot accept her BEM medal for just herself. She told the PA while she is “overjoyed” by the recognition, she can only accept it “for the travelling people”.
Jess has been an active advocate for her community.
In 2014 she began a Scottish Parliament petition which successfully won the right to have Tinker’s Heart of Argyll, the old wedding place of travellers, recognised as a scheduled monument by Historic Environment Scotland.
It was a form of church where they took their young to be baptized and their deceased to be blessed before being laid to rest in the ancient nearby Hell’s glen. She has been committed to promoting a closer understanding of minorities in schools and in society as a whole.
The writer and activist has gone into prisons, schools and visited groups across the country to share stories, “leading to dialogue of the culture that I am so proud to belong to.”
The story-telling mission has taken her to Canada, New Zealand, Australia, other parts of the UK and Ireland.
She is proud to have created the charity HOTT (Heart Of The Travellers) “with several others”, to help give travellers of all ages a voice, through conversational film recordings.
A recording, Sense of Identity went on to win a British Folklore Award.
Her activities have led Jess to be named by the Scottish Parliament as one of Scotland’s 100 women of Note. Closer to home, on a recent visit to Perth she had the pleasure of running into her wire ‘double’. In the art project on view this summer were Perthshire’s 20 wee Wire Women.
“I went to Murray Royal Hospital to look in the garden where I was told there was a Wire Woman sculpture named after me. I found her, seated with her ankles crossed, just like me, in a chair near the cafe tables,” Jess explained. “What an honour to be made into a work of art and to be one of 20 special Perthshire women from every age and walk of life!
“I wanted to have my Wee Wire Woman when the exhibition was over. We spoke to Raise the Roof who organised the project and they agreed, so she’ll not go to waste.”
