ALMOST 60 years ago a crowd of about 1,000 people shoehorned themselves into the tiny church of All Saints in Viney Hill for a funeral service.

It was probably the biggest funeral the Forest has ever seen - surely the requiem for some local landowner bigwig or even royalty?

No - it was ‘only’ a gypsy fortune teller. Reporter George Henderson delves into the extraordinary life of Xavier Petulengro - self styled ‘King of the Gipsies’.

To say that Mr Petulengro was a larger than life character is something of an understatement.

Showman, horse trader, astrologer, violinist, radio broadcaster, writer, raconteur, herbalist - he was a man of many talents, not the least being a positive genius for self invention.

Such was his propensity for gilding biographical fact with romantic fancy that it is difficult to separate the real man from his popular image.

And with his jaunty, swaggering gait, hearty laugh and charismatic personality, it is hardly surprising that his anecdotes of gipsy - as life lavishly embroidered as his waistcoats - captured the public imagination.

He frequently broadcast on BBC radio in the 1930s and 1940s which conjured up an illusory image of a romantic gypsy life and his herbal remedies were a hugely popular form of alternative medicine that he sold by mail order.

An exhibition of Mr Petulengro’s life is being staged at Viney Hill Church on September 9 which has been organised by the University of Gloucestershire and Reading the Forest Project and is supported by the Heritage Open Days scheme.

Local historian Roger Deeks said he hoped the exhibition will attract parishioners who remember the funeral and have recollections of Lavanya, Mr Petulengro’s partner for many years who he passed off as his sister so as not to offend public morality at the time.