PRISCILLA ELLIOTTPriscilla Elliott, a much-loved gypsy matriarch and familiar character in Cranbrook, Kent, died on 26 June, 2008, aged 82.
Granny Prissy, as she was known to school children in the town, died at the Kent and Sussex Hospital in Tunbridge Wells. Born in a wagon on Holtye Common, the mother-of-four spent all her life in the Cranbrook area, travelling from place to place selling her wares.
A grand funeral procession of about 20 vehicles, accompanied by six police outriders, travelled through the town on 3 July, 2008, from St Mary's Church in Goudhurst to her resting place in Cranbrook Cemetery.
From 1998 to her death, Mrs Elliott lived with her son, Henry Stanford, and his wife Paula at the Romany Life culture and education centre in Whitewell Lane.
Mr Stanford said: "She was probably one of the best mothers and grannies you would find. She was a hard worker. She used to walk years ago from Goudhurst to Tunbridge Wells with an arm basket of flowers. And when she got there she would have to walk around the streets to try and sell flowers, pegs and bits of silk. She looked after everybody and made everybody welcome. She used to love the children and all the family."
The visitor centre teaches people about Romany traditions, and Mrs Elliott remained at its core.
Mrs Stanford said: "She wasn't so much involved with it but was encouraging us with it. When we had the heartache with planning, she went through all the emotions with us. When it first happened we thought to ourselves we can't go on with this now because the heart's been ripped out. But then I saw the cutting in the paper from when the planning got approved. How happy she was! So we'll do it for her because it is her legacy."
Many years before Romany Life was running, Mrs Elliott visited primary schools in the area to show children the art of making paper flowers and to speak about her life as a traveller.
Gillie Heath, designated traveller teacher at Cranbrook Primary School, said the children would miss the lady they called Granny Prissy: "She was one of those people who had so much personality and was so charismatic.
"The children would listen away to her. She was a genuinely kind and gentle person and she will be very sorely missed. It's a great loss to the travelling community, where she was a matriarch really."
The grandmother of 19 and great-grandmother of 39 children was also a familiar face in Cranbrook, where she would go each Christmas delivering biscuits to businesses in the town. A butcher at Anderson and Sons, in Stone Street, Michael Lineham, described her as "a right old character".
He said: "I have been butchering for 25 years and she used to come around with an old-fashioned silver cross pram selling plants. She was a very upright, smartly dressed lady and she was quite happy if you didn't want to buy any."
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