Publications

The Matted Cat (Audio CD): Available to purchase online from Music in Scotland, or directly from Jess ( info@jesssmith.co.uk ), priced £11.50 + 50p pp. Address - 1 GLENTURRET, CRIEFF, PH7 4LD, Scotland. Old Scottish songs, stories, poems and haunting music. I hope you enjoy listening as much as I did recording. Here are two tracks from the CD to give you a taste!

I Lo'd a Lad (MP3 format) - sung by Jess - traditional
Last o' the Tinklers (MP3 format) - recited by Jess - Violet Jacobs

I am currently working on a short story compilation called Sookin' Berries. This collection will feature reminisces of travelling agricultural workers.

I also co-authored The Scottish Traveller Dialects with Robert Dawson, published by Robert Dawson Publishers in 2002.

 

 

cover - Bruar's Rest

Bruar's Rest

Run lassie, find your man, he who sleeps above the earth and not below... Mind how you fare, wild child of Nature: go on until the great tide frees your tired limbs and the hidden sun shines for you once more. Embrace the warmth of him who waits in the shadows...

Order now from Amazon.co.uk

"It is a captivating and enjoyable read which is filled with wonderful descriptions… and I am convinced that one day it will be adapted into a film." - Strathearn Herald

Book Description:

The story open in the Highlands as the twentieth century
begins. The gypsy wife of wild drunkard Rory Stewart dies giving birth to their second son. Many years pass, and Rory and his sons are rootless travellers on the roads of Scotland. One night, during a winter storm, they save another traveller family from freezing to death in a blizzard. Bruar Stewart and one of the girls he rescues, the hot-blooded and beautiful Megan, fall in love. But the First World War is declared, tearing their lives apart. Bruar is reported missing in action, an Megan sets off on a long and perilous journey to find him...

An epic tale of love and loyalty by the author of the spellbinding autobiographical trilogy, Jessie's Journey.

published in October 2006 by Mercat Press.

 

Tears for a Tinker

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Book Description:

In the third and final book of Jess Smith's autobiographical trilogy, Jess traces her eventful life with Dave and their three children, from their earliest years together. Their adventures and achievements are interspersed with stories of her parents' childhood, her father's 'tall tales' and the eerie echoes of ghosts and hauntings that she has heard from gypsies and travellers over many years. Fans of Jess Smith will not be disappointed with her latest memoir, full of more unforgettable characters and insight into the travellers’ way of life, a tradition that stretches back more than 2000 years and survives in the rich oral tradition of its people.

The Sunday Post - 'heartwarming reminiscences…'

The Scots Magazine - 'Tales tumble out of Jess Smith's head and its her manner of telling them that is so compulsive.'

Reviews on Amazon.co.uk (all 5 stars )

"Jess is one of the best writers in Scotland today. This is uterly astounding, mixing laughter with sadness. I can't recommend it too highly."


"This book is amazing and full of emotion, one minute your laughing out loud the next your shedding a tear.

It follows on from Jessie's Journey and Tales from the Tent and I was hooked from the first page, just like with the previous two. I would recommend the book to everyone, once you pick it up you can't put it down its so addictive, i've read it twice its so good. The book has everything from family tales, ghosts, poems, tales of the road and the story of the real Loch Ness monster, you'll never know if you don't read it! If you buy one book today then it should be this one."


"Tears for a Tinker is amazing and i'd recommend it to everyone. It's so full of emotions, one minute your laughing the next your crying. Its packed full of wee tale and stories and I couldn't put it down, i've read it twice already.

If you want to be amazed then go and buy this book and you'll find out who the real Loch Ness Monster is as well!"

 

 

Jessie's Journey: Autobiography of a Traveller Girl

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Book Description

‘I am a Scottish traveller’ begins Jess Smith’s bestselling account of her childhood as one of Scotland’s travelling people. ‘Ask me where I belong,’ she says: it is ‘wherever the feather falls or the seed is blown.’ She is the proud inheritor of a long gypsy tradition. Her mother was born in a tent, and her aunts and uncles were described on official forms as tinkers, hawkers and itinerants. She herself lived from the ages of 5 to 15 with her parents, sisters and a mongrel dog, in an old blue Bedford bus. They travelled the length and breadth of Scotland, and much of England too, stopping here and there until moved on by the local authorities, or driven by their own instinctive need to travel. By campfires under the unchanging stars they brewed up tea, telling stories and singing songs late into the night.

Jessie’s story describes what it was like to be one of the last of the traditional travelling folk. It is not an idyllic tale: her way of life was outside the margins of respectable society, and that society could be harsh to travellers. It was not easy to get a good education from widely scattered schools; sudden ill-health could present a problem to those who were not registered with any doctor, and the threat of bigoted abuse or even violence was never far away. Despite this, humour and laughter run throughout Jessie’s childhood: her story teems with unforgettable characters and incidents. In more senses than one, this is a magical book: it is full of tales and songs, glimpses of animal and human nature. Jessie’s Journey is seen through the fresh eyes of a girl growing into adulthood, travelling along the roads and the wild places of a Scotland few of us really know.

 

Reviews on Amazon.co.uk (all 5 stars )

"a fantastic delve into the past; wonderfully written,you can taste the tablet and the horror of the explosion,as well as being on tenterhooks as they climbed the devils elbow.,sends a shiver down my spine just thinking about it!!!!wonderful!!"

A reader from Boston, Ma USA
"I purchased this book on a recent trip to Scotland. I had been specifically looking for childhood memoirs by Scottish writers and I couldn't have found a better one! This book is heartwarming, funny, moving and delightfully written. Books like this make one glad to be alive! Jess Smith's book, is full of joy!"

"Absolutely wonderful...
Well, if anyone out there has a yearning for their child-hood (like me and I suspect, most people) then I suggest Jessies Journey is the place to start.

"It took me 2 days to read this book (my normal timescale reckons between 2 to 3 weeks), and 1 very annoyed wife and 1 very angry boss later but well worth it in the end.

"Jessie transports you on a fantastic journey that includes, bullying, stories of old, love, fantasies, hardships infact experiences that every single one of us can relate to!

"Unfortunately, I am not an author and thats a shame because I cannot put my enthusiasm for this book into words. All I can say is fantastic followed by a lot of !"

"A fabulous book. Don't read it on trains, planes etc or people will wonder why you are chuckling the whole time. It's the story of Jess, a Travelling Person (tinker, if you must) and her mainly nomadic childhood on the roads of Scotland.

"Home was an old Bedford bus and as it takes Jess and her sisters and mam and daddy throughout much of Scotland, whilst the family earns a living in varioous seasonal work, we learn of the prejduicie and sometimes sheer hatred she and her family meet.

Despite that, as I've indicated, it's not a sad book, though there are unhappy times. The humour of the situations and all that she experiences as a lively, intelligent child, comes through all the time. There's the time she finds a man and woman making love and is convinced the man is murdering her; the escapade with her cousin's slow worm in his troozers (for which a relative tells the innocent 7 year old she's a 'dirty wee girl' and the time she offended God (and his woman).

"Yes, you'll need as hanky to dab the eyes occasionally, but above all this is a wonderfully written book which will appeal to all teen/adult ages..

"Thoroughly recommnended. The first time I've ever felt moved to write a review on Amazon."

 

 

Tales from the Tent: Jessie's Journey Continues

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Book Description

Tales from the Tent continues Jess Smith's story. Jess left school, and after a miserable spell working in a paper-mill, she abandoned the settled life and took to the roads once more. The old bus had gone, to be replaced by a caravan and campsites. Times were changing, and it was becoming harder and harder for travellers to make a living by doing the rounds of seasonal jobs like the berry-picking. Conscious that the old way of life was disappearing before her eyes, Jess stored up as much as she could gather from the rich folklore of the travellers' world. Now she retells some of the many stories and songs she heard by the campfire or at the tent's mouth. Interwoven with these tales is the story of Jess and her life on the road--her first loves, her friendships, her days at the hawking and berry-picking, the exploits of her lovable but infuriating family, the unforgettable characters she meets.

Review on Amazon.co.uk ()

"Having thoroughly enjoyed Jessie’s Journey, Tales from the Tent is another great read. Really feel you know Jess by now and it’s a joy to share all the “tales” that she’s heard over the years. Some certainly have you looking over your shoulder and others simply make you chuckle. Definitely leaves you wanting more yet with such a sadness that her travelling days came to an end. Another great insight by Jess into the ways of the travelling folk."

 

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