The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)

11 Jun 21 - 04:24 PM (#4109730)
Subject: The Summer Walkers (film)
From: Jack Campin

Free to view for Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month.

film itself is on Vimeo

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11 Jun 21 - 11:20 PM (#4109765)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (film)
From: GUEST,Gallus Moll

Is this Tim Neat's film? I love all his works, they should be more widely available!

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12 Jun 21 - 03:18 AM (#4109778)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (film)
From: Jack Campin

Yes, it's Neat's film. I can't watch it right now but should manage to catch it next week.

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12 Jun 21 - 03:35 AM (#4109780)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (film)
From: GUEST,Mike Yates

What a film! Probably one of the best films ever made about the Travelling community. Wonderful to see and hear so many people that I was lucky enough to meet over the years. But sad to realize that they are no longer with us. Tim Neat's film, enhanced with Hamish Henderson's heroic and poetic narrative, is a gem.

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13 Jun 21 - 08:30 PM (#4110058)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (film)
From: GUEST,Malcolm Storey

Any more info on where to obtain a copy?
Doh!

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13 Jun 21 - 09:13 PM (#4110060)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: GUEST,Gallus Moll

Check if Greentax has any of Tim Neat's films?
There are books telling the stories, have great photographic illustrations. Can't remember all of them off the top of my head but The Summer Walkers is one for sure.
You may be able to obtain the film dvds directly from Tim? Several years ago some members of The Glasgow Ballad Workshop were able to make a group order of several of Tim's films (Summer Walkers, Tree of Liberty and some other titles) - that was easiest way for him, I don't think he has a shop as such?
- very talented man, he writes, paints, makes documentaries and films, teaches, keeps bees and I am sure has numerous other talents!

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13 Jun 21 - 10:34 PM (#4110068)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: keberoxu

Which came first, the film, or the book?

The book was published by Canongate,
and copies can still be scared up secondhand.
Don't know about the film,
which sounds perfectly wonderful.

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14 Jun 21 - 09:15 AM (#4110113)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: Jos

There are dozens of copies of the book on Ebay, in the UK, at least.

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14 Jun 21 - 01:46 PM (#4110145)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: GUEST,Gallus Moll

I think the film /documentary was a few years before the book.
There are a number of other films and books, worth checking them out!
(eg The Horseman's Word)

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14 Jun 21 - 04:50 PM (#4110170)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: FreddyHeadey

Thanks Jack.

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16 Jun 21 - 10:14 AM (#4110364)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: pattyClink

There is a singer who starts in, very beautifully, at 30:28 in the film. Confused about who it is, is it "Allie Dowell". ?

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16 Jun 21 - 10:58 AM (#4110368)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: GUEST,Gallus Moll

The singer sounded like Jeannie Robertson, tho I didn't recognise the song?
The male singer at the end (Tramps and Hawkers) might be Davie Stewart?
Shall ask Tim, let you know for sure.
A.

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16 Jun 21 - 12:01 PM (#4110380)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: GUEST

pattyClink, the singer you mention would be Ailidh Dall, or blind Ali Dall Stewart of the Gaelic-speaking Sutherland Stewart clan of Travellers. He was known as a storyteller and was recorded by Hamish Henderson. There's an oft-used photograph of Henderson and Ailidh Dall together in the fifties, the former brandishing a microphone in the latter's face.

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16 Jun 21 - 12:23 PM (#4110384)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: GUEST

Actually, to clarify, now I've looked at the film again: the singer at 30:28 is Jeannie Robertson singing 'The Braes of Balquihidder'. The Gaelic speaker BEFORE that point is the aforementioned Ailidh Call.

I am pretty sure the singer at the end is Jimmy MacBeath.

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16 Jun 21 - 12:24 PM (#4110386)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: GUEST,Mike Yates

The singer at 30' 28 is indeed Jeannie Robertson, while it is Jimmy MacBeath who sings 'Tramps and Hawkers' at the end of the film. The photograph of Ailidh Dall and Hamish Henderson was taken by the American Sandy Paton.

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16 Jun 21 - 04:45 PM (#4110406)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: pattyClink

Thank you very much!

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17 Jun 21 - 05:38 AM (#4110462)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: GUEST,RA

It is a beautiful film, but I think rather quaint and even problematic in some ways. I don't think it'd be made in quite the same way nowadays (if the opportunity to make such a film still existed, which it sadly doesn't).

Mainly I think it was a missed opportunity to have actual Traveller voices (other than the great field recordings of singing and story) on the soundtrack. Why not interview the people depicted on screen and allow us to hear their first-hand testimony? Rather than having non-Traveller voices talking 'about' Travellers as a romantic, exoticised 'other'...

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17 Jun 21 - 06:32 AM (#4110465)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar

Alan Lomax in the 1950s interviewed at length travellers Davie Stewart and Jeannie Robertson.
Davie's six minute description of how to pitch a bender tent is a gem.
Go here https://archive.culturalequity.org and search for the names.

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18 Jun 21 - 03:11 PM (#4110596)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: GUEST,Gallus Moll

Guest RA - the film was made in 1976 (some 20 years before the book) - I can't remember when camcorders became widely available, but I think it is possible Summer Walkers was shot in an older format? The other thing to consider is Tim Neat's intention with this documentary /observation? Also whether the Travellers themselves would have been willing to speak openly to Tim, even tho' Hamish was there? Hindsight is always a great thing! - I am just delighted that Tim Neat had the vision (and friendship with Hamish) that enabled him to make this delightful record of a lifestyle that was diminishing and by the time the book was produced, almost gone.

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18 Jun 21 - 07:55 PM (#4110621)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: Jack Campin

On the screen I used, it came across very dark, as if shot in a perpetual gloomy twilight. The faces got a sort of Caravaggian dignity but it wasn't what I expected from the book and it made for a rather odd social document.

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18 Jun 21 - 08:22 PM (#4110622)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: GUEST,pattyClink

Well said, Gallus. This is a priceless document giving us glimpses of an ancient way of life about to end. If critics had ever tried to make a documentary on a shoestring they would have some idea of the hurdles and challenges the filmmaker had. I give three cheers for a wonderful effort and slice of life that would otherwise be lost to time.

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19 Jun 21 - 06:20 AM (#4110661)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: GUEST,RA

Don't get me wrong - I love the film and find much to enjoy about it, and all Tim Neat's other work. And I have the utmost regard and respect for the culture that the film depicts.

I just think if it were made nowadays it'd probably be done quite differently, as sensibilities and attitudes are different now. I do wonder particularly about the decision to include only songs, stories and music recordings rather than speech of Travellers, their own testimony beyond the cultural artefacts they are (rightly) heralded for. At best, that choice seems to present a kind of one-dimensional, romanticised image of them as 'the people of song', and that alone. At worst, it arguably denies them a voice in the fuller sense.

Technically, it wouldn't have been any greater a challenge to include Traveller speech than what's on the current soundtrack. Presumably the footage was shot on a 16mm camera, which doesn't record sound, with soundtrack added afterwards. Hamish Henderson and others (notably, in Perthshire for example, Maurice Fleming) had by that point made hundreds of hours' worth of recordings of Travellers, not only their songs, stories and music but speech, oral histories, etc too. I'm assuming that the field recordings used in the film are those made by Henderson (an assumption based on his strong involvement in the film.) It would have been technically no more difficult to include Traveller testimony in the soundtrack than what's currently there.

Just a minor point. Overall I agree that it's a great and important piece of work!

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20 Jul 21 - 03:13 AM (#4113858)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: Jos

I'm disappointed.
When this thread started, the link in the first post worked, but if you click on it now you are told that the video doesn't exist.

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20 Jul 21 - 08:23 AM (#4113886)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: GUEST,#

https://vimeo.com/42601253

Not sure, but that may be it, Jos.

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20 Jul 21 - 08:34 AM (#4113887)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: Jos

Thank you but no, that's not it. I think the clue may be in the title ending in 'Month'. Maybe when they put up a film it lasts for that calendar month and is then replaced by another.

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20 Jul 21 - 09:13 AM (#4113888)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: GUEST,#

My apologies, Jos. I see now that it's a 53 minute film from 1976. The following link doesn't help, but it gives some info about it.

http://archive.faclan.org/archive/2013-festival/the-summer-walkers-rathad-nan-ceard-with-timothy-neat/

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20 Jul 21 - 06:49 PM (#4113926)
Subject: RE: The Summer Walkers (Gypsy Roma Traveller film)
From: GUEST,Joe MacGillivray (Nova Scotia)

The references to Sutherland and folk songs from Scotland and Gaelic makes me wonder if this put inspiration behind Runrig’s song the The Summer Walkers off their album tThe Stamping Ground. Does anyone have any knowledge of this?

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