Manouche

In the 1970s, Nigel Parsons found himself working on the French grape harvest alongside five Manouche families: a group the French advised him to stay away from. The Manouche were barred from the end-of-harvest feast and vanished overnight. Unable to forget their campfires, their music and their dancing, Nigel returned to France in search of the Manouche and fell into their world. He lived as they did, travelling from place to place, under constant pressure to settle or move on from an unsympathetic government. In his time with them he saw long, companionable evenings around the campfire, but he also saw the steady erosion of their way of life. Eventually, Nigel returned to England and lost touch with the Manouche. But his times with them had been some of the happiest of his life, and after almost thirty years he would set out once more in search of his old friends.