Romany

As a child I loved listening to the radio, especially Children’s Hour; the programme contained a wide variety of different items, drama, adventures, factual, historical… I owe that programme so much in how it educated me.

One of the programmes was presented by ‘Romany’ and imagine my surprise while on holiday recently in Sandsend when I came across this plaque, because this was where Romany had his cottage! Romany was acrtually George Bramwell Evens; his father was English, a lieutenant in the Salvation Army, but George’s mother was a Romany who was born in a vardo (caravan) George became a minister in the Methodist Church, but he was also a broadcaster and writer about country matters. Besides his ministerial duties, George travelled about in a vardo he bought with his horse and dog, recording and writing. he died long before I was born, in 1943, at the age of  sixty but I am sure I heard his stories, so maybe they were recordings, or maybe his scripts were taken and read by someone else.

I was delighted to find this plaque on a tiny cottage up a little alley in Sandsend… happy memories of childhood listening!