Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Jess Smith: A Born Storyteller



Headed to Crieff in Perthshire to visit Storyteller and author Jess Smith (http://www.jesssmith.co.uk/). Jess was a guest at the WA storyteller’s conference in2005 and comes from the traveller tradition having spent her childhood moving around with 7 sisters and parents.

Amazing thing, stories were a huge part of her childhood and she has a tremendous capacity for listening to a story and recalling it nearly in full. She is a wealth of knowledge about Scottish history, traveller livestyle and is currently working on her sixth book that chronicles the history of gypsy/tinker life and the Scottish governments planned eradication of them.

I remember when Australian aboriginal people finally got their sorry from Rudd Jess wrote a letter to her Government minister asking when her people might expect an apology.


We visited some historic spots, Dunning and the burial sight of a local woman (perhaps a traveller) accused of being a witch and burnt to death, Ossian’s Cave at the Hermitage and Innerpeffray, the oldest free lending Library in the country, founded about 1680. http://innerpeffraylibrary.co.uk/

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