Charles Scamp, 1908–1988
Charlie Scamp was born on 14th February 1908, and baptised at St Mary’s, Chilham on 25th February. He was the son of William (Bill) Scamp and his second wife Ann (or Mary Ann), née Jones. He had at least three older brothers, and a number of half brothers and sisters, the children of Bill’s first wife Louisa. The family have proved elusive when looking for them in the 1911 census. In the 1921 census they were listed under their alternative surname of Matthews. They were encamped at Mystole, near Chilham; William Matthews was listed as “General Dealer”, Ann as “Licence Hawker”. 13-year old Charlie now had two younger brothers, Edward and Henry, and a younger sister, Phoebe, better known by her married name, Phoebe Smith. Phoebe recalled that the family had moved to Herne Bay when she was about four years old (i.e. around 1917), and later they went to live in Ramsgate (circa 1923), then to Ickham. There were numerous families of Scamps in East Kent, some settled in Canterbury, others in Dover. Charlie’s family would meet up with other kin on their seasonal moves around the country – in the words of Phoebe’s son Manny
we would spend a couple of months here to work, then move on to another area for the next harvest, and we’d meet up with our aunties and uncles and cousins. It would be Essex, near Chelmsford for the sugarbeeting, Kent for the cherries, apples, plums and pears, then up to the Fens for the potatoes.1
By September 1939 Charlie was married, and living in a hut at Three Chimneys Farm, Sissinghurst. His wife’s name was Mary, and it seems very likely that she was the Mary Hilden whose marriage to a Charles Scamp was registered in the Dartford district in the final quarter of 1932. Records in the Medway Archives show that the couple married at All Souls, Crockenhill on 15th October 1932. The groom’s age occupation was “Labourer”, and his residence appears to be “Halbury Corner”. His age was given as 22, which was close to Charlie’s actual age; his father’s name was William Scamp, deceased – and we know that Charlie’s father Bill died in 1931.
The 1939 Register shows that Charlie and Mary had a daughter, also Mary, born in September 1933. There were probably two other children as well – there are two records marked “The record for this person is officially closed”, i.e. these people were still living when the entries were last checked.2
Charlie’s occupation in 1939 was given as “Wood Merchant On own a/c”, and he seems to have continued in this trade for the rest of his working life.
Peter Kennedy, in company with his aunt Maud Karpeles, met Charlie and recorded seven songs from him in January 1954. On 14th January, the first day of their trip, they had visited “Mr. and Mrs. Henry Scamp at Goldwell Farm, near Biddenham” (actually Biddenden), and on 15th they went “To Mrs. Stanley (Bird) living in a caravan on Mrs. Stern’s farm, 3, Chimneys, Betenham, near Sissinghurst”. Mrs Stanley was probably Charlie’s sister Mary, also known as Polly; she gave the two collectors details of where to find her sister, Phoebe Smith.
Then over the weekend of 16th – 17th January
To Mr and Mrs. Hilden, behind Denaway Cafe at bottom of hill down from Detling Aerodrome before Sittingbourne. Then to Scamps at Lower Halstow and then to Bill Scamp at Tonge, who also had a bad throat. Finally to the Scamps at Chartham Hatch.
Recorded Charlie Scamp at The Royal Oak3
As happens quite frequently with Kennedy, there is some confusion over the actual date these recordings were made. The report he sent to Marie Slocombe at the BBC doesn’t actually say whether he met Charlie Scamp on 16th or 17th January; while the archived Folktrax website4 – and also the catalogue of the British Library Sound Archive5, where the original recordings are now deposited – has 15th January as the date of recording. At any event, Kennedy recorded seven songs from Charlie, including one in Anglo-Romani, and also recorded him talking in Romani with his younger brother Ted Scamp. However the recording session in the pub at Chartham Hatch was brought to an abrupt end when it was interrupted by a police raid, and they had to return to the Gypsy encampment.
These recordings were later released on cassette, on Kennedy’s Folktracks label: excerpts from the brothers’ conversation in the Romany language appeared on FTX-441 Can You Puka Romanes? Languages of the Travellers, while Charlie’s songs were included on FTX-140 O What A Life – English gipsy singers: Sussex & Kent (in 2012 five of the seven songs recorded from Charlie were included on the CD I’m A Romany Rai, a release in Topic Records’ Voice of the People series). The notes accompanying the Folktracks release say:
Charlie Scamp and his family were camped at Chartham Hatch, near Canterbury, Kent, where they had been given the care and wood-cutting rights of a thickly wooded area. The Scamps had already attracted some public interest, as Charlie’s brother, Ted, had been featured in Rupert Croft-Cooke’s book about English Romanies “The Moon in my Pocket”. The author had, for the purpose of his book, purchased a horse drawn wagon and had travelled around the country learning the traveller’s way of life. Ted accompanied him for most of his journeying, but at some point, without any warning, he just went off and left him, to continue his travels on his own.
The recordings were made by Peter Kennedy, in the company of his aunt, Dr. Maud Karpeles, in January 1954. It was Charlie and Ted Scamp that told Peter the whereabouts of Phoebe SMITH, an outstanding gipsy singer featured on the FOLKTRACKS Documentary, 60-100 I AM A ROMANY. Although Phoebe had herself mainly travelled in the Kent area, and annually took part in the hop-picking, she had moved to Suffolk and was living with her husband, Joe, general and scrap-dealer, near Woodbridge, where she was building herself a bungalow.6
Maud Karpeles, who accompanied Kennedy on this “Collecting Expedition”, wrote
Our main objective was Mrs Stanley (real name Mrs Bird), Bettenham, near Cranbrook, a gipsy whom I had met on my previous expedition [in October 1953]. On our first visit she was out, but we called again on the morning of the 15th. As I suspected, she has a big repertory of songs. Unfortunately she was suffering from laryngitis. She managed to sing us a few songs, but she was unable to hold the tune and I doubt if this was entirely due to her ailment. She gave us the names of several members of her family, including her brothers, Charles Scamp at Chartham Hatch, near Canterbury, and Oliver Scamp, between Rochester and Sittingbourne, both of whom have a big repertory of songs which they learned from their parents. The Scamps are a big Romany clan scattered all over Kent and most of them seem well-to-do.
We made great friends with Charles Scamp, at present a timber dealer, and his friendship will be an open sesame amongst other Romanies in the district. His brother Ted, the hero of a book by Croft Cooke (?), and he are interesting characters. Peter Kennedy recorded some conversation between them in ‘Romanish’.
Peter Kennedy recorded a number of songs from Charles. He has a fine voice and his style, though hardly ‘authentic’, is interesting. He has the florid gipsy way of singing, combined with a conscious voice production (self-trained, of course). He has modelled himself on Al Johnson. He has a prodigious memory which includes songs of all kinds, but he knows a number of authentic folk songs. He has sung at the Palace Theatre, Ramsgate in a circus show.
His brother Oliver has not taken up the new songs and his style of singing is much more straightforward than that of his brother. Unfortunately he is just recovering from bronchitis, so was unable to sing much and we made only one record. He has a good voice and probably even more songs than his brother. He is willing and anxious to give us his songs and I think he would be well worth another visit in a few weeks’ time. As it is only a short distance from London, probably recording sessions on a Saturday and Sunday, with one night away, would be sufficient.7
Karpeles’ comments on Charlie’s singing style betray the fact that she clearly believed there was an “authentic” way of singing folk songs. When she wrote that he had modelled himself on Al Johnson this is presumably a typo for Al Jolson. It’s certainly true that, perhaps more than any other English travelling singer of whom we have recordings, Charlie Scamp sings in a pronounced “crooning” style, and it does seem likely that this was influenced by listening to popular singers – whether Al Jolson or Bing Crosby or some other star we shall probably never know.
Before singing ‘A Blacksmith Courted Me’ Charlie explained:
These songs that I am a-going to sing to you was made up before songs come about — that is for why that we like singing these songs. It was handed down from my grandfathers right down to my father and to us kiddies, and we exceptionally like ’em and I hope that everybody else do, which I think the old songs is much better than the new songs today.
In fact Kennedy’s recordings show that Charlie prefaced each song with an introduction, frequently asserting that a song was true – not just ‘The Folkestone Murder’, which is of course based on actual events, but also ‘Barbary Allen’, ‘Young Leonard’ and ‘Come, Father, Build Me a Boat’. Introducing the latter he said
These songs that I am singing to you is true. They were a hand-down — handed down from my, great grandfather to his children, right down from my father to us. And I know they are true; that is for why I am singing ’em.
With this song, he recited all the verses, in a somewhat deadpan style, before launching into the song itself – this was something that his sister Phoebe Smith also did on some recordings.
It may have been the same Charlie Scamp who was featured in the first episode of a new radio series trailed in the Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette, 23rd April 1958:
CHARLIE, THE LAST OF THE TINKERS
RENE CUTFORTH. whose liking for forthright investigation into the manifestations of our age has resulted in entertaining and revealing features about subjects as diverse as pubs, cheese, vintage cars, and age groups, has been out with his recorder again. This time he has been tracking down modern holders of the much-recited eight ancient offices: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man and Thief.
He will introduce the recordings he obtained in eight weekly features in the Home Service. Beginning on Friday, May 9. at 8 pm., with the title ‘Tinker, Tailor…’ The producer is Maurice Brown.
Among those taking part will be Bob Roberts (sailor), who is skipper of one of the few remaining Thames sailing barges; Ceci Gee (tailor), whose name is familiar in many a shopping district; Jim Phelan (beggar man), whose years of success as author and broadcaster have not diverted him from his original calling; John Bridges (soldier), producer of ‘Saturday Night On the Light’ and a former Guards warrant officer; and Raymond Way (rich man), the well-known car dealer.
NOW RETIRED
The series begins with one of the last of the tinkers, Charles Scamp, now retired from the trade in which there is no longer a living to be gained, but still living with his wife and children in a caravan and tent at Chartham Hatch, near Canterbury, where he has been a familiar figure for years.
A trained craftsman, as were his father and grandfather, he earned his living until a few years ago mending pots and pans with tin and solder, as a true tinker should (though in Scotland and Ireland the name is also given to roadside travellers). Rene Cutforth reports that in spite of the widest search, he was unable to find one man still living entirely by the ancient trade which had its roots as far back as the Bronze Age.
The first programme was reviewed enthusiastically in the Sutton & Epsom Advertiser, 15th May 1958:
René Cutforth started his series, “Tinker, Tailor…” with a winner, in the person of Charles Scamp, one of the few remaining men who have plied the true tinker’s trade, which could only flourish when pots and pans were real, honest-to-goodness affairs that could be tinkered.
Not that this worries Charles Scamp, who is a “traveller” (not a gipsy or Romany, he assures us) and proud of it, and one of the best propagandists you could have for the life of the caravan.
There’s not much he can’t turn his hand to, from buying an orchard to breaking up a Bentley for scrap. And can Mr. Scamp talk! René Cutforth was either very lucky or very astute in finding such a representative. If he does as well with his other characters, he will have a fine portrait gallery by the time he reaches “thief.”
One certainly wants this to have been the same Charlie Scamp whom Peter Kennedy had met a few years earlier. The strongest evidence in favour of this is that both men were camped at Chartham Hatch – although given the number of Scamps in East Kent, it’s by no means impossible that there were two Charlie Scamps camping at Chartham Hatch in the late 1950s. We have no specific evidence of the singer working as a tinker, although no doubt he turned his hand to all sorts of money making activities. Almost 20 years earlier his main occupation had been listed as “Wood Merchant”, and he was working as a timber merchant when Peter Kennedy met him in 1954. So talk of him having “recently retired” from the tinkering trade in 1958 doesn’t quite tally with what we know. But it could be that he’d only recently withdrawn completely from working as a tinker. Or simply a degree of flexibility with the facts on the part of him, the programme makers, or the journalists writing about the programme. Again, we have no specific reference to Charlie’s father Bill working as a tinker – he was listed as “General Dealer” in 1921 census, while elsewhere he is referred to as a horse-dealer.
What definitely doesn’t ring true is the radio tinker’s protestations that he is
a “traveller” (not a gipsy or Romany, he assures us) and proud of it
The Scamps were absolutely a Romany family, and in 1954 Kennedy had recorded Charlie singing and conversing in Anglo-Romani.
It appears that there were at least two other Charles Scamps living in the Canterbury area around this time. The 1939 Register – which showed Charlie and his family camped some distance away near Sissinghurst – listed a Charles Scamp (“Horse Dealer Unemployed”) living at 36 New Ruttington Lane, Canterbury, and another (“Gen Builders Labourer”) at 34 Vauxhall Avenue, Canterbury. A few months earlier, as reported in the Kentish Express, 24th March 1939, “Charles Scamp and Peter Burnap, Canterbury, were fined 5/- each for poaching at Littlebourne”. But the following week, 31st March, the paper felt obliged to issue this clarification: “In fairness to Mr. Charles Scamp, cattle dealer, of 27, Military-road, Canterbury, we should like to make it clear he was not the person referred to in our report of Wingham Petty Sessions last week as having been fined 5/- for poaching. We apologise to him for any inconvenience that he may have been caused”.
A Charlie Scamp is quoted in a report in the East Kent Gazette, 22nd March 1963, although the reference to his father and brothers serving in World War II suggest a younger man than Charlie the singer:
GIPSIES DENY COUNCIL ALLEGATIONS
The gipsy families encamped in the Sittingbourne area hotly deny the allegations made at Monday’s meeting of Sittingbourne and Milton Urban Council’s Allotments Committee that they are causing damage on allotments through their horses and dogs wandering, also the more serious allegation of thieving.
Mr. Charlie Scamp, who has been a gipsy all his life, vehemently told an East Kent Gazette reporter. “It’s the same old story, guvnor. We get the blame for everything. It’s not us doing the thieving; we are getting blamed for those who live in houses.”
And he was backed up by Mrs. Patricia Lee, the mother of five young children, and whose husband is an ancestor of the late queen of the gipsies, Mrs Rose Lee.
“These things they say about us are just not true,” she declared “They make these accusations so that they can have some reason for wanting to move us off”
“We tether our animals and take care of them. Everybody is willing to give the gipsies a bad name just because we don’t live like other people,” she added.
‘WE HAVE FEELINGS’
The gipsies declared that they were tired of being hounded from one site to another.
“We are human beings,” said Mrs. Lee, “and I would love to settle down in a house. I would like to given the same consideration as other people. People seem to lose sight of the fact that we have feelings. We don’t take things that don’t belong to us. The people in the houses do that and we get blamed for it.”
Mr. Scamp, too, said that he would like to settle in a house. “We’ve had our name down on Faversham’s list for three or four years and are still waiting. If we can’t have a house why can’t the council find a site for say 25 or 50 trailers?
“We would be willing to pay £1 a week and keep the site tidy, and those who didn’t conform to the council regulations would be kicked off and kept moving on.
‘WON’T LOOK AT ME’
“I want to settle down in one place. I’ve tried to get a mortgage but they won’t look at me. We’ve come to the stage now where education is very important and I don’t want my children to grow up like me, unable to read and write.
“I went to school when I was six and left at 15 and I can’t read or write because in that time I must have gone to 150-200 schools—a day here, a half-day there. I couldn’t stay long at any school because we were kept moving by councils.
“I, and I think I speak for most gipsies, would like to settle down and find a steady job. Foreigners get better treated in this country than we do. My father and his brothers were good enough to fight for the country in the last war and only four of the 12 came back, surely we are entitled to some consideration” he said.
The issues raised here are entirely consistent with those mentioned in 1960s newspaper reports from the Sevenoaks area featuring the Romany Gypsy singers Minty, Levy and Jasper Smith.
Writing in 1977, Mike Yates referred to “the Kent gypsy Charlie Scamp who now lives in Faversham”8 and at his death in 1988 he was living at 18 Tanner Street, Faversham – coincidentally or not, the same street that his sister Phoebe had been born in. It would appear that he had lived here since at least 1963: the Sheerness Times Guardian, 3rd May 1963 reported that “Charles Scamp, of 18 Tanner-street, Faversham, was fined £3 for carrying goods without a licence”. He was fined again two years later, according to the Faversham News, 2nd July 1965:
Father and son, Charles and Monty Montgomery Scamp, both of 18 Tanner Street, Faversham, were charged at Faversham magistrates’ court, last Wednesday, with offences concerning a lorry they run in their business.
They pleaded guilty to using the lorry not fitted with two mirrors and with a defective tyre.
Inspector J. R. Hall, prosecuting said a police constable on motor patrol duty at Ospringe Road on April 3 stopped the lorry which was being driven by Monty Scamp, found there was only one driving mirror fitted and that one of the tyres was in poor condition, with a band of canvas showing round the whole of the circumference.
Charles Scamp, who owns the lorry, told the court that it was being driven from Ospringe into Faversham for repair when the policeman stopped his son. It was not loaded. One mirror had been broken while the lorry was working and the tyre was reasonably good and suitable for re-treading.
Both men were fined a total of £3.
The same newspaper, 21st March 1986 carried a brief report that fire had “severely damaged a four-berth caravan parked at Bessborough Farm, Hernhill. The caravan, owned by Mr Charlie Scamp of Tanners Street, was on land to Mr D. Kay”. And a notice in the East Kent Gazette, 21st August 1986, tells us that Charlie traded as “C. Scamp & Sons”, and was applying to renew “a licence to use Wood Yard, Bysing Wood Road, Faversham, Kent, as an operating centre for two goods vehicles”.
Charlie Scamp died at the age of 80, on 20th February 1988, and his funeral service was held at Faversham Parish Church on 1st March. His funeral merited a report in the Faversham Times, 3rd March 1988:
Gipsies gather at huge funeral
Hundreds of gipsies from all over the county gathered in Faversham on Tuesday for the funeral of 80-year-old former traveller Mr. Charlie Scamp.
Mr. Scamp lived above the Three Tuns in Tanners Street until his death on Saturday.
A lengthy procession of 14 limousines, a hearse and a lorry laden with flowers brought traffic to a standstill as it slowly wended its way from Tanners Street towards the parish church.
At 2.30 the procession travelled from the church to the windy cemetery, where its parked cars took up the whole length of Love Lane. Hundreds of mourning gipsies – some from as far as London – then gathered round Mr. Scamp’s grave for the burial and sang traditional songs.
A spokesman for Faversham police said traffic was delayed for a while.
Somewhat bizarrely, on 17th March the Faversham Times had to issue a correction:
Following our 3 March report on the funeral of Mr. Charlie Scamp, we are asked by solicitors acting for the family to make it clear that Mr. Scamp lived “not above the Three Tuns but at 18 Tanners Street, that he was not an ex traveller or gipsy and that there was not singing of traditional songs around the grave.”
The first point here may simply be a factual correction – he lived not above the Three Tuns in Tanners Street, but in the house next door. However the denial of his Gypsy roots is rather sad, hinting perhaps that his family sought to dissociate themselves from their Romany heritage, because of prejudice and the discrimination which this could bring.
Memorial notices in the Herne Bay Gazette for 22nd February 1991, marking the anniversary of Charlie’s death, show that besides Mary (born 1933) and Monty (born 1946), he had another daughter, Jane (probably born 1944), a son, Tommy (probably born 1939), and at least eight grandchildren.
Songs
- Atching Tan Song (Roud 1732)
- Barbary Allen (Roud 54)
- A Blacksmith courted me (Roud 816)
- Come Father build me a boat (Roud 273)
- The Folkestone Murder (Roud 897)
- How old are you my pretty fair maid? (Roud 277)
- Young Leonard (Roud 189)
Discography
I’m A Romany Rai: Songs By Southern English Gypsy Traditional Singers, Topic Records, TSCD672D (2012)
https://www.topicrecords.co.uk/2012/04/im-a-romany-rai-tscd672d/
O What A Life – English gipsy singers: Sussex & Kent, Folktracks FTX-140 (cassette)
Can You Puka Romanes? Languages of the Travellers, Folktracks FTX-441 (cassette)
These Folktracks releases have not been available since Peter Kennedy’s death in 2006.
- Quoted by Mike Yates, notes to The Yellow Handkerchief, Veteran VT136CD (2001) ↩︎
- The rule is “Individuals’ records remain closed for 100 years from their date of birth or until proof of death”. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/1939-register/#9-living-individuals-and-closed-records ↩︎
- Peter Kennedy, ‘Kent Trip January 1954’ (report submitted to Marie Slocombe, BBC), https://www.peterkennedyarchive.org/1954-2/kent-1954/ ↩︎
- [4] Folktrax archive, https://folktrax-archive.org/menus/performer_s.htm ↩︎
- British Library Sound and Moving Image Catalogue, https://sami.bl.uk/ ↩︎
- Folktrax archive, https://folktrax-archive.org/menus/cassprogs/140gypsies.htm ↩︎
- Maud Karpeles, Report on Collecting Expedition in Kent January 14 – 17, 1954, copy held at the VWML. ↩︎
- Mike Yates, review of I am a Romany (Folktrax FTX100), Traditional Music No. 6, Early 1977. ↩︎
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