Today in Herons and Kestrels, we had an author called Richard O’Neill join us on a Teams meeting and he told us what it was like to live a Romani lifestyle. 

He grew up travelling around in his family’s caravan and learnt how to do woodwork. Richard goes round to different schools teaching woodwork and shares, develops and helps children write stories. One day he was teaching some children to do some woodwork and there was four boys but only one girl. He told them only use your elbow. The first one was a boy he hit the nail flat. The next boy did the same. All the boys failed because they rushed and didn’t listen but the girl was patient and waited and she nailed the nail in perfectly while the boys just stood there looking at her unable to understand how he did it.  

He also told us lots of stories from when he was a child. One of which was how the October half term was potato picking week. They were told there was a king potato in the field and whoever found this giant potato he would double their pay for that day. He and his brother were so determined to find it that they snuck in at night to start digging. They did not find it but they did find a bomb which then the next day the only way to remove it was too explode it. They were showered in mud and mashed potato that day!

We were then able to ask Richard questions about his life and his stories and it was really fascinating.

Written by Callie and Jess (Kestrels)