Jessie’s journey

Curatorial Note

Jess Smith’s autobiographical account of her childhood within a Scottish Traveller family, spent travelling through Scotland and parts of England in a converted Bedford bus. The memoir documents a way of life shaped by mobility, extended family networks, seasonal work, oral storytelling and camp life, while also recording disrupted schooling, encounters with local authorities and persistent anti-Traveller prejudice. Combining personal memory with accounts of customs and stories transmitted within the community, the book constitutes an important first-person source on the social and cultural history of Scottish Travellers during the second half of the twentieth century.