Imagine being on the road for 47 years in your own adapted truck, bus or van.
Children’s activities like hoops are an important part of the Gypsy Fair roadshow as is music and other entertainment. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
The Gypsy Fair, which spent the weekend in Cambridge at Memorial Park, has done precisely that and captivated towns up and down the country since 1978.
There were the usual fair activities – food and ice cream, coffee, mini jeeps, a bouncy castle, children’s games and stalls offering crystals, soaps, candles, jewellery, clothing, hats, face painting and the ever popular fire spinning.
The Gypsy Fair, owned by Ella Keenan and partner Oskar Gray of Christchurch, started its current eight-month tour in Rotorua on September 21 and finishes in Christchurch on May 3.
Come on in. The Gypsy Fair in Cambridge’s Memorial Park at the weekend. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
The travelling troupe will be in New Plymouth this weekend.
The current fair has escaped the controversy of previous ones which dropped depictions of Romany Gypsy people from their posters and publicity.
A gypsy is another word for the Romany people, an Indo-Aryan ethnic group who lived a nomadic lifestyle.
Gypsies in history have traditionally had a bad reputation, particularly in Europe and the United Kingdom, where they arrived in the 16th century. In more recent times they have been protected as a minority ethnic.
In New Zealand they are no longer referred to as gypsies because of the inappropriateness of the term. There are believed to be about 200 Romani in New Zealand.
All the fun of the gypsy fair. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
