JLM Smith

Jasper Smith and Levi Smith: were introduced to me by one of their friends, Cecily Taylor, who felt that somebody should record their songs.  I met Jasper, Levi and their sister Minty Smith, at Cecily's home where many of these recordings were made.  Minty was born c.1910, Levi in 1915 and Jasper c.1920.  Their father died in the mid 1920s and Minty, then only aged about 12, took on the job of looking after her siblings.  To earn money, Minty would tell fortunes (they called it dukkering), a skill taught to her by her Granny Charlotte, though she ran away from home when she was sixteen to marry her husband Frank, a knife-grinder.  The couple raised thirteen children and they were living in a lay-by at Sevenoaks, Kent, when I first met them.  Levi was also camped by the roadside, just outside Westerham, Kent, though he was moved-on by the police shortly after I came across him.  He then moved to Epsom, to an unofficial site where Jasper and his family were living.

Derby Smith, one of Jasper’s sons, came with his father to one of the recording sessions at Cecily Taylor’s house and it was then that we recorded his superb protest song Will There Be Any Travellers in Heaven?

Part of the booklet notes, written by Mike Yates, to the Musical Traditions Records CD Here's Luck to a Man ... (MTCD320)