BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS
THE FAMILY OF GYPSIES winning first prize in a village Fancy Dress competition in Cornwall actually happened," Myrna Shoa
Awaiting our prize
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From the late 1960s to the early 1980s.I set up and ran a women’s’ fashion business The Fool Ltd with 2 others in the Portobello area of London
We started The Fool with little money. What we did have was enterprise, creative ways of doing things and fearlessness: all this made the business work. Ruti and I the main creative directors unable to afford train fares used to hitchhike round the country with a bag of samples showing the designs to shops in Cathedral cities or famous tourist towns around England. We always came home with orders. We looked like hippies with our long hair and dressed in floor length flowing pure cotton hand dyed dresses or skirts One time when we wanted a holiday, on the cheap, we hitchhiked with our two young children from London all the way to the West country carrying a tent and sleeping bags. We had a ride as far as Cornwall. We then started walking to work out a way to get to a campsite |
Ruti’s daughter 2 years old was in a pushchair, We hung our bags from the handlebars. After a while, my son about 7 years old, tired of carrying the tent so we had to try and get another lift. We all stuck our fingers out.
A taxi driver saw us and took pity and gave us a lift in his cab to a campsite, a field with a tap and one toilet. He refused to take any payment. We camped there for a few nights. It was rough but fun. Our final journey took us to a village a colleague from university days had invited us to visit. We arrived at his farmhouse building, a hippy commune for drug and alcohol dependent people. We all slept in beds for the first time in days. The following day everyone was busy preparing for the annual fancy dress competition down the road in the village, transforming cardboard boxes into wacky costumes as well as making fancy hats out of paper and bits of fabric. The four of us had just what we had brought with us the minimum amount of clothing as we had to carry it. We added another scarf or scarves and added some more eye make. The children dressed in colourful clothes didn’t need any extras. |
As the four of us walked along the village street on the way to the festival site, the village green, people looked out from their windows and doorways, shouting and pointing at us.
“Look at them gypsies they look great”. Following behind us were the others from the farmhouse in their costumes they had been busy making for days. Later on in the day, the organisers announced the prize-giving for the different categories of Fancy Dress costumes was about to take place. “The winners of the family category are….. The Family of Gypsies”. The four of us were in shock. The children eager to find out how much we had won. pulled us both along to the stage. A lady there, handed us our prize money ……. “Congratulations, you look marvelous”. She handed us our prize,……50p, equivalent to about £5 in today’s money. We had won first prize in a fancy dress competition dressed as ourselves. © |
"I created the illustrations for Carolyn Joel Elva's book PROUD TO BE NAKED She asks you to question what is going on in your life now in order to help you clarify exactly what you are thinking, saying, doing and not doing." Myrna Shoa
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