AUTHOR AND traditional storyteller Jess Smith from Crieff is calling for an official apology from the Scottish Government for the treatment of Scotland's travelling community.

She made her plea for an apology—similar to that given to the Aborigines by the Australian authorities— in the wake of the publication of a book which details how families were routinely broken up.

Never to Return, The Harrowing True Story of a Stolen Childhood, by Sandy Reid, tells of the life of a child who is snatched from his family.

He recounts how, in the dead of night, authorities swooped on a tinker camp and took Mr Reid and his sister Maggie into care. Mr Reid was just one year old at the time and he would never see his mother again.

Jess Smith, who has written her own accounts of being brought up in the travelling way of life, said, “After a report undertaken in 1895 by Sir Charles Cameron aimed at educating the rural poor and dealing with tinkers and vagrants in Scotland, many of my people were forcibly removed from their camp sites and put into industrial institutions.

“Some were given to childless couples and also sent to Australia—boys of 12 and over were sent to the armed forces, girls sent into service. Night censuses were undertaken which resulted in forced removal. Those left grew up in a land where fear of law, church and authority was the norm.

“Scotland cannot afford to harbour racism but sad to say it is a cancer which eats her from within.

“We are almost extinct as a culture but there is still enough who would see a healing if we were recognised as individuals.

“I hope and pray that Sandy’s book will help resolve this issue.

“We have to set the record straight.

“Sandy and other travellers have been living in a bubble of fear and deprivation on a daily basis and this book could help them.”

Mr Reid’s account of how he endured terrible hardship and how he survived against the odds is published by Black & White.