I DO not think the old Drill Hall in Birkenhead has ever been a cheerful
place: deserted by the military and transformed into a boxing booth, it
is now positively dismal. But for two months during the summer of 1911
it was ablaze with Oriental colour. Kola, the Gypsy chieftain, with his
tribe of coppersmiths, had taken possession of it, having left the
English Romany camp at Tranmere to make room for his brothers, Yantshi
and Yishwan, who had arrived from Marseilles with their wives, children
and followers. The ruling family had established itself upon the high
platform where once bruisers proved their mettle, and from it the royal
tenant looked down a crooked lane bordered on either side by the tents of
his subjects. From irregular skylights in the black roof dusty,
mysterious sunbeams fell upon gay drapery and piles of eiderdown beds
gaudily covered with scarlet and yellow stuff, on black-bearded men and
strange groups of dark women in bright red dresses loaded with gold, on
the little low round tables at which they sat cross-legged, and on the
blue tendrils of smoke that rose from their brass samovars. In the yard
outside was the din of many hammers beating cauldrons of copper, but it
was almost drowned by a babel of shrill voices quarrelling in a strange
and strongly aspirated tongue.
[Picture: Worsho. Photo. by F. A. Cooper]
For all was not well in Kola’s kingdom: disaffection was brewing, and a
schism was imminent. And in the midst of all the trouble the wife of
young Worsho Kokoiesko presented her husband with a little brown girl,
his first child. No stranger ever knew what secret rites were practised
in the distant corner of the great barn where Worsho, as a poor relation,
lived humbly. Mother and child were screened carefully from observation,
and the first token of the arrival of a new recruit was the healthy voice
of a crying baby. There was no general rejoicing, no excitement; but
Worsho slipped shyly to my side and, in his rich mellow voice which
resembled singing rather than speaking, invited me to be godfather.
Thus it happened four days afterwards that I made a morning visit to the
camp ready to add to the solemnity of the occasion such dignity as a
frock-coat and top-hat could lend. Knowing the ancient and universal
Gypsy fondness for baptism I had hoped that there would have been a
tribal festival. It was therefore disappointing to find that the
appearance of the hall was normal, and that Worsho himself was still in
bed, although the time appointed for the ceremony was near at hand.
After some exhortation he got up, stretched himself, breakfasted
leisurely, and dressed in his ordinary clothes: but Saveta, daughter of
Michael, who was to be godmother, kept me in countenance by putting on a
white dress gaudy with floral patterns. At last the little procession
set out for St. Werburgh’s Church—the strikingly handsome Worsho, his
young widowed sister Luba, the two godparents, Saveta’s pretty little
niece Liza, an assistant librarian from the Bodleian, and the
indispensable baby.
We were shockingly late, and on our arrival found that the christening
ceremony had already begun for the benefit of another infant. But the
good priest left the font, came politely to the door to receive us, put
us in our places, and recommenced the service. Although unprepared for
the solemnity and thoroughness of my godchild’s reception into the
Church, I played my unrehearsed part to the best of my ability, stumbling
only once when, some ancient memory of a grammar school in the Midlands
awaking suddenly at the command, “Say the Paternoster,” I said it
bravely—in Latin! And indeed this fault causes my conscience less
trouble than the problem of how to fulfil my godparental obligations when
my wandering goddaughter may be anywhere at all in either hemisphere.
All Gypsies have two names, one for public, the other for private use;
and it may be that the baptismal name is the one they value least. At
all events the duty of choosing it devolved, in this instance, on me, and
the parents gave no indication as to what were their wishes. Unable on
the spur of the moment to remember anything really monumental, I called
the child Saveta after her godmother, and thus she was registered in the
great book when our picturesque little party withdrew to the sacristy.
The mother’s name, Anastasi Fiodorana Shodoro, was also placed on record,
the last element being probably that of the child’s maternal grandfather.
But when I began to dictate W-O-R-S-H-O, Worsho excitedly plucked my
sleeve and protested. I had never heard him called by any other name,
and was amazed; but he produced documents and passports to prove that he
was, officially, Garaz son of Fanaz, the son of Zigano, and as “Garaz
Fanaz Zigano” he was written down. The absence of a surname caused no
difficulties with our sympathetic Irish priest; but it was quite
otherwise when we paid a necessary visit to an ignorant registrar. He
declared, “The man must have a surname,” and regarded the want of so
necessary a distinction as little less serious than the want of a head or
heart. There was a column for surnames in his register, and it would
have been a scandal to leave it empty. We filled it.
Of all the pleasant recollections associated with this adventure, one
lingers in my memory as especially bright and comforting. When we left
the church the kindly and venerable Father, who had shepherded us so
lovingly through the ceremony, conducted us courteously to the door, held
up his hands in benediction and exclaimed in a voice that quivered with
sincerity, “You have done a good work this day.”