I still remember the chills I got as a ten year old when a traveller woman cursed me for being mean with the cold boiled potatoes that I was instructed to hand out at the front door by dismissive Mother Llama. As she turned to go and was cursing me in a shower of foetid Guinness spray, I hastily reached into my blazer jacket for what was left of my Giftie bar and offered it to her. Just enough distraction was it to make her confound her step and have her fall arse first into the rhododendron bush and then mash it to bits trying to climb out... Mrs Llama came out to guard the door until the woman departed and declared afterwards to a mute dinner-eating family that in her opinion that "tinker was a gypsy and she with more rings on her fingers than Mr's O'Ryan in number 45...."
There are several lessons in the sociology of bigotry in that little drama. I had a youth full of such embeddings....
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