I’m looking at meself in the mirror, not too many marks on me face considering how many times I’ve done this. It’s no good though is it? A man of my age still fighting, having to spend a day or two lying down on the bunk in me trailer because I can’t work. Even if the fella’s hardly marked me, I still can’t go out calling for work till the bruises have gone off me face. If I never have to have another fight in me life I’ll be a happy man. But that’s not likely, not the way things is going. It’s getting worse and people is using knives and guns now. Used to happen a few times a year, maybe during or after a fair or a wedding, people’d have too much to drink, things’d be said and then it would end up in fighting. It’s more than that now. I don’t know what’s getting into people but it seems like they want to kill each other: Travellers against Travellers.

My youngest lass came and sat on me knee the other day and said Daddy I don’t like …