Romani Roots

We at Romani Roots are extemely honoured to welcome Richard O'Neill to our site.

Richard is an extraordinary gentleman whose talent for telling stories throughout his life and as his profession, make him an asset to, and fine example for our race.

We are most grateful to Richard for the following article which complements and very nicely introduces our Fireside Storyteller page.

We hope in the future to be able to feature some of his stories!

ROMANI ROOTS would like to make it clear that Mr Rcihard O'Neill is NOT a member of this site.

   I’m sure most storytellers will get asked the question:

‘So how long have you been doing this then?’

 There are two answers I can give to that question the first is since I was five so that’s forty one years and the second one is four years professionally.

I was born into a large Romani Gypsy family in the North East in 1962, in a modern caravan, my dad in 1925 in a horse drawn wagon and his dad before him in a tent. My ancestors came into this country 500 years ago they were believed to be from Egypt hence the term Egyptians which was eventually shortened to Gypsy. Irish and Scottish Travellers also have histories going back as far. Literacy levels were always low but training in people skills, buying, selling and telling stories for fun and profit were very high.

I grew up listening to stories around camp fires, at family camps and fairs, in caravans at weddings christenings and funerals. When I was five years old buoyed by having learned to read at school I did my first performance, some reading (which amazed many of the older people) and a little selection of tales about my school and the Gorja (non Gypsy) people I met there. I carried on telling my tales whenever I was asked, developing new ones especially for my children and their many cousins who seemed to have a voracious appetite for them. Like most things you acquire for free it wasn’t something I particularly valued. However I did realise that the skills certainly came in handy in my work as a construction company owner who had to explain complicated plans to customers who had little or no knowledge of construction, as a volunteer in youth clubs and schools, as a therapist and trainer and in gaining support to launch National Men’s Health Week now an international event.

Five years ago I set up a website to encourage more Gypsies and Travellers to express themselves in the written and spoken word and through that website I was asked to tell stories at a community centre in Manchester on a professional basis. This led on to a number of other offers in Manchester to tell stories in places as varied as the Imperial War Museum and at a corporate board meeting.

Since then I have worked with a number of different Traveller education, museum and library services and a number of charities and non profit making organisations around the country entertaining and educating, but also helping to train more storytellers from the Gypsy Traveller communities through the lollobal storytelling group.

I was really pleased to be involved with the ‘Open roads Open Minds’ project in Leeds in which Peter Saunders and his team brought together Irish, Scottish and English Travellers to perform in schools and theatres and to record a DVD with storytellers like Sheila Stewart and Jess Smith.

I have been overwhelmed with the response from schools, teachers, conference organisers and the corporate world to the stories. A really nice compliment was to be asked to tell a selection of stories and to deliver workshops at a national Teachers with Travellers residential conference.

The question why tell stories is always in the back of my mind, I do it because I love it, the reaction from audiences, the satisfaction that comes from encouraging others to express themselves through story and the opportunity to give people a different view of the Travelling communities. We are currently working on a project with a county council to help them get their message on community involvement over to a range of different communities through storytelling.

Since the play ‘The management reserve the right’ was performed in Edinburgh and London last year there has been a huge interest from high schools to run storytelling workshops especially from students studying drama. Drama teachers really seem to see the benefits of understanding storytelling, simply because it is at the heart of all drama.

Two of the most popular children’s stories have been turned into plays by children themselves, it’s not just about Traveller culture there are common themes that most of us experience being discriminated against, feeling lonely and powerless.

The old saying that a man dies twice once when he leaves this earth and again when no one alive remembers him I believe to be true, we do keep our relatives and those we have loved and learned from alive with story but it also gives us a sense of who we are and where we have come from.

Story has been and still is a powerful force within the Travelling communities in fact it was one of the main factors that decided Romani Gypsies and Irish Travellers should awarded ethnic status in the1989 and 2000 court cases.

These are very exciting times for storytellers, because I firmly believe the true potential and application of storytelling is still to be realised. I am committed to training and encouraging more people from the Travelling communities to tell their stories professionally as I believe it’s vitally important that audiences outside the communities get a genuine and clear depiction of our culture the past and the present, unfortunately there are some who have taken stories not understanding the language or the culture and represented us wrongly.

I personally don’t anyone tell else’s stories only those I’ve created or ones that have been passed down through the family.

I have been asked if I will run workshops and training courses for non Travellers to teach them the culture, language and skills to deliver the stories and the answer is a resounding yes, I would like to see many more people who really understand my culture and my stories delivering them around the country.

 My older relatives are pleased but also amazed that traditional Romani storytelling skills are being used in the diversity and leadership training I carry out for Police forces, local authorities and government departments and that they have been featured on radio and on TV.

It is the older relatives as well as the young ones who are right behind my current project ‘Story time live’ a big family storytelling show I plan to perform around Christmas time in the North which will be full of the most popular stories like Ora Matchiko, Kushti Feeter and Baro Mush and characters like Jasper and Bob, King Mouse and the beautiful Queen. If successful I hope to tour it in 2009.

 The advice I was given by my Dad before I did my first public performance.

"Dik, Shoon, Rokker" which in English translates as ‘look, listen and then talk still enters my head every time I’m about to perform.’

 I remember the stories I’ve been told and the people who told them, they still have a huge impact on my life and I hope I continue to remember to look and listen more than I talk.

Richard O’Neill