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What It Means To Be A Gypsy Queen: A Behind The Scenes Look Into The Everyday Life Of The Scottish Gypsies of Old Orchard Beach, Maine
In the 1990s a film crew showed up in our yard and announced they wanted us to line all our cars up on Exit 5 out of Saco into Old Orchard Beach, because they were filming a movie about Gypsies and wanted to have real live Gypsies in the movie. We thought nothing of it. All the white trespassers wanted was to film pictures of our cars driving off the turnpike, and then take more pictures of us on our farm and around the town. We didn't know who Stephen King was, had never heard of him, never read his books, never seen his movies, and had no idea, the trouble we had caused ourselves by allowing his film crew into our lives. They filmed their movie and left and we went on with our lives, little knowing that there was no going back, and our lives would forever be changed.
Skip ahead to after the movie came out.
No one in town knew who we were. We kept to ourselves, rarely setting foot off the farm, and lived in a lifestyle so isolated from American society, our customs and traditions unchanged since the 1800s, our cloths and our habits so outlandish, that most locals assumed we were an Amish community, that just happened to have cars. Until the summer Stephen King showed up, and one suddenly whispered over everyone’s Gypsies.
Things changed around town after that, some locals loving the fact that Gypsies lived here, but most, running in terror at the sight of us and many local businesses suddenly closing their doors and putting up “No Gypsies allowed”.
1996 was a pivotal year. With news of the film crew in the area, a rival Gypsy clan invaded the town, a violent clan, known to the FBI The Scottish Traveller Crime Family of America. Death, murder, sword fights, shoot outs with police, kidnapping, child sex slaves, bikes vanishing out of parking lots, copper pipes sawed off motels, and millions in stolen money and jewellery stolen from the summer tourists, the town of Old Orchard Beach was suddenly swept with a spiralling fear of all Gypsies, Roms, and Travellers alike.
The FBI's #3 most wanted crime family, fled town as the FBI agents stormed the town, terrorizing white men and local Gypsies alike in their hunt for this wild band of thieves. The news media jumped on the FBI's arrival and used it to promote Stephen King's movie, and suddenly the whole world knew where we lived and how to find us.
Summer 1997, was the first year the tourists arrived. Tens of thousands of them, roaming up and down the streets of Old Orchard Beach, with one question on their “Can you tell us where Stephen King's Gypsies live? We came all the way to Maine just to meet them and see where the Thinner was filmed.” When they found our farm, the next question they wanted to know “Where's the witch? Where's the Gypsy witch, the one who casts all the curses?” The clansmen all pointed to me, as my new found fans rushed to shake my hand, hug me, and get their pictures taken with me and my now very famous “movie” cars. Their favourite car being “The World's Most Haunted Car”, the real life demon car that inspired Christine.
Every summer since the release of the movie, no fewer then 30,000 Stephen King fans arrive in Old Orchard Beach, seeking “Stephen King's Gypsies” (as they now call us), the filming location of The Thinner, the Gypsy witch that was immortalized in the movie, and her haunted car that terrorizes the locals.
Few know the story behind the real haunted car, what a Gypsy Queen/Witch really is, or what life is like, for my people in a world that is vastly different from ours. At the many requests given to me by Stephen King fans each summer, here is the answer to those questions, and a look at what it really means to be a Gypsy Witch or as she is called by her own people a Gypsy Queen...
WORD 122,976 words
PAGE 396 printed paperback pages
Non-Fiction; Memoir; Autobiography; Social Sciences>Cultural Studies>Ethnic Groups>Gypsy Lifestyle>True Crime>Organized Crime Family
Skip ahead to after the movie came out.
No one in town knew who we were. We kept to ourselves, rarely setting foot off the farm, and lived in a lifestyle so isolated from American society, our customs and traditions unchanged since the 1800s, our cloths and our habits so outlandish, that most locals assumed we were an Amish community, that just happened to have cars. Until the summer Stephen King showed up, and one suddenly whispered over everyone’s Gypsies.
Things changed around town after that, some locals loving the fact that Gypsies lived here, but most, running in terror at the sight of us and many local businesses suddenly closing their doors and putting up “No Gypsies allowed”.
1996 was a pivotal year. With news of the film crew in the area, a rival Gypsy clan invaded the town, a violent clan, known to the FBI The Scottish Traveller Crime Family of America. Death, murder, sword fights, shoot outs with police, kidnapping, child sex slaves, bikes vanishing out of parking lots, copper pipes sawed off motels, and millions in stolen money and jewellery stolen from the summer tourists, the town of Old Orchard Beach was suddenly swept with a spiralling fear of all Gypsies, Roms, and Travellers alike.
The FBI's #3 most wanted crime family, fled town as the FBI agents stormed the town, terrorizing white men and local Gypsies alike in their hunt for this wild band of thieves. The news media jumped on the FBI's arrival and used it to promote Stephen King's movie, and suddenly the whole world knew where we lived and how to find us.
Summer 1997, was the first year the tourists arrived. Tens of thousands of them, roaming up and down the streets of Old Orchard Beach, with one question on their “Can you tell us where Stephen King's Gypsies live? We came all the way to Maine just to meet them and see where the Thinner was filmed.” When they found our farm, the next question they wanted to know “Where's the witch? Where's the Gypsy witch, the one who casts all the curses?” The clansmen all pointed to me, as my new found fans rushed to shake my hand, hug me, and get their pictures taken with me and my now very famous “movie” cars. Their favourite car being “The World's Most Haunted Car”, the real life demon car that inspired Christine.
Every summer since the release of the movie, no fewer then 30,000 Stephen King fans arrive in Old Orchard Beach, seeking “Stephen King's Gypsies” (as they now call us), the filming location of The Thinner, the Gypsy witch that was immortalized in the movie, and her haunted car that terrorizes the locals.
Few know the story behind the real haunted car, what a Gypsy Queen/Witch really is, or what life is like, for my people in a world that is vastly different from ours. At the many requests given to me by Stephen King fans each summer, here is the answer to those questions, and a look at what it really means to be a Gypsy Witch or as she is called by her own people a Gypsy Queen...
WORD 122,976 words
PAGE 396 printed paperback pages
Non-Fiction; Memoir; Autobiography; Social Sciences>Cultural Studies>Ethnic Groups>Gypsy Lifestyle>True Crime>Organized Crime Family
454 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 10, 2016
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July 30, 2016
Books about present-day Travellers, Roma and G*psies are not exactly plentiful, and finding one set in my own home state is even better. Wendy, I hope you'd consider working with an editor! So many more people would read your books then. Nasty stereotypes die hard, and writers who are willing to confront them should be treasured.
Displaying 1 of 1 review