Kiomi Romani

The caravan in which Fidelis was born was a red Reading van, decorated with colourful carvings of grapes and vines, and with panels of stained glass in the roof and top gate windows.

Inside was a bed, a side bench, an anthracite stove (see the chimney) and a little sink.  Fidelis slept in a red canvas carry-cot which slid under her parents’ bed.  The Great Dane, Gunther, slept in the middle of the floor.

Within weeks Fidelis was whisked off to Liverpool to meet half the family, then across the Irish Sea to Dublin to be baptised in the church where her parents had married a few years before.