Restoring the lost voices of Gypsies and Travellers in Britain’s folk music history

By: Communications

Three photos showing a woman looking at a book, a film poster featuring two women, and a woman looking through shelves of audio recordings

A new documentary from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Patrin Films reveals the “anonymous” Gypsy, Roma and Traveller singers who shaped British folk music.

Ahead of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month (1–30 June), the documentary A Basket Full of Eggs uncovers historic recordings preserved in national folk archives.

It also shows how the names, lives and ethnic identities of the singers themselves were rarely recognised.

The film follows journalist Liza Mortimer, herself of Romani heritage, as she discovers recordings of her great‑grandmother, Minty Smith, at the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library in London.

While Minty’s voice has been preserved for generations, her identity was largely absent from the official archive.

Through this personal journey, the film explores how minority voices have slipped into national collections without recognition, and what it means to restore authorship, memory and cultural ownership to historic recordings.

The film is part of the Romani and Traveller Voices in Music Archives project, led by UEA’s Prof Hazel Marsh, and was made by Lisa Smith, founder of Patrin Films, the UK’s first Romani‑led production company.

Prof Marsh said: “Romani and Traveller singers were central to what we now understand as English folk music, yet their roles have often been obscured or anonymised within archive collections.

“This film helps bring those voices back into view, not just as recordings, but as people with histories, families and cultural identities.”

The documentary is being shared widely with public, cultural and policy audiences.

Screenings will be held at community venues and local authorities across the country, as well as public events such as Appleby Horse Fair, the Royal College of Music Museum, and a programme of folk, literature and storytelling festivals.

A personal story within a national archive

At the heart of A Basket Full of Eggs is Liza Mortimer’s discovery of her own family history within the archive.

Liza said: “Hearing my family’s songs and voices in the archives filled me with a deep sense of pride. I began by searching for my great-grandmothers' story but ended up discovering a much larger collective legacy.

“These songs are not anonymous, they belong to people whose stories matter.”

The film combines archival recordings, contemporary interviews and reflections on cultural memory, examining how folk music collections were built, and whose perspectives were prioritised in the process.

How the research and film came together

Since 2022, Prof Marsh has worked with the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library at the English Folk Dance and Song Society, alongside Access Folk, to examine the role of Romani Gypsy and Traveller singers within English folk song collections.

The work forms part of a wider academic project investigating representation, authorship and attribution in music archives, with the findings underpinning A Basket Full of Eggs.

Produced by Patrin Films, A Basket Full of Eggs reflects the company’s mission to amplify GRT identity, language and culture through documentary storytelling.

The film was funded through UEA’s AHRC Impact Accelerator Award and completed in August 2025.

Audio clips of singers featured in the film are available through the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library’s digital collections.

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