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.

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.”