im a traveller AMA

[TakeABreak2]

irish traveller ama

Thank you for posting take i think you've had a really unfair rough ride on here, some people are good people and some people are bad people regardless of heritage.
I was going to ask where you keep all your stuff as the trailers i have been in are always so tidy despite lots of children and the usual stuff but i see you answered that one with shed!

The families i know that have taken their children out of school have felt that the education they get at home is better and will benefit them more than a school education so learning the family business at 14 is more beneficial than learning french . I can see the logic in that argument, although i can also see how limiting it could potentially be later in life having had an education in only one trade.

We take most of our restaurant recommendations from the local travellers as they always know where the best food is

Sorry I meant on 27 March 2011 everyone in uk had to fill in a form to say who was sleeping in their house that night

So everyone must say who they are at the property, where they usually live if visiting, age, sex, job, place of birth, any disability, ethnic background (hence why I was wondering if Traveller is a tick box so therefore recognised in the gov.uk forms) etc etc

I can't remember if that is all the boxes there might be more about education status, amount of wages but can't remember

As far as I know everyone who lives in a house/flat must fill these in so wondered what happened if you are on a site or a field on that night

I guess if you were in a field then when you returned to the site you would have to say that you were on xyz field and these were the people - children are included that were with you

When we were in Australia in a hotel we had to fill one in then to say we were sleeping there that night even though we weren't living in Australia

It is so that the government know who is where so they can organise the relevant resources needed etc

It also means that in years to come people can find ancestors and read the census details about them

This happens every 10 years

BTW I meant the form says

Other - please specify

Rather than me asking you to specify iyswim

Hello OP,

Thank you so much for starting this thread

Is there anything the settled community/ education authorities could do to make you feel happier in keeping your daughters in school longer/ letting them go to university? (When I say "you", I mean you personally, and the traveller parents you know).

Does your site have a traveller liasion officer, or similar? If you do, do you find them helpful?

In your experience, are there enough permanent or transit sites for travellers?

I can add my voice to help answer the "why don't you use the toilet in your caravan?" question. I was a New Age traveller for a while, living in a caravan, and having a box full of human waste and (revolting smelling in itself) blue liquid in a warm caravan for several days is pretty smelly and disgusting! Plus, you should really have a proper chemical loo disposal point to get rid of the contents, and I'm sure not all sites have them.

limboluna
i have to agree i have to admit i know where the best chinese are 😍🤭

subtitles on sorry i cant anser this i would have only been 14 then

hi stubbornstains
im not sure about the school/uni thing
we dont have a traveller liasation officer here no we had one in barnsley and she was pretty amazing tbf
there is defo not enough council sites but is say plenty of transit sites because u can only stay 2 weeks so not full 24/7 lol
agree with the toilet

We only have a caravan for holidays and we only use the loo in it at night for wees. In the day we use shower block. Caravan loos are not that comfy and you have to fill them with 2 types of chemicals (in the flush and in the box) and you have to empty them so you have to have sanitary waste disposal. If you don’t have the latter how would using the loo work - where would you empty it? Caravan loos have v small capacity (as otherwise people would leave them too long!) so if you used them for all your toilet needs you’d be emptying them 2-3x a day.

What I mean is, it would be worse to use your loo and empty it without proper facilities as you’d have Pooh, wee and noxious chemicals being wrongly disposed of and possibly getting in the water course.

Much more sensible and civilised to use the shower block/portaloo and the supermarket while you’re out.

Hey OP

I was on your thread about setting up a business selling Spanish baby clothes. Have you got any further with that yet?

Hi OP glad you're still around, do you feel like answering any questions? I wanted to ask do you go on holiday, either abroad or on the uk? And I also wanted to ask what brought you to Mumsnet?

notacooldad

I posted this earlier
Sorry settledtraveler I missed your post when scrolling through.
Thanks for replying.

hi mishfish no further with that yet unfortunatly

elinorcadwaller
we go on our hols yes took dd to bulgaria last year (ds was too young for all the heat) dont know if well be having on this year though and sometimes we book a chalet at a butlins or havenz for the children

thenoseyproject
your pretty much bang on there ive often enough holded my wee from 4pmish till the next morning 😬

Seaham is my home town OP, always been jealous of travellers being able to have the best sea view.
Never knew any bother but heard lots of made-up stories. There was one about a bloke (Bloke is a Cant word) riding a horse into a pub, totally made up story.

My Paternal Great Grandfather was the first in his line to settle, he settled in Seaham.

Makes me miss my home town.
Great thread, you have been really open and decent in the face of quite blatant hostility.

My children’s school has a traveller liaison officer, she’s great. She’s built up a brilliant relationship with the travellers and really has their trust. She organises taxis to get the kids to school, uniform for them, all the complicated form filling (even non school related). She’s brilliant she makes the difference for some of the children between attending or not attending.

The kids quite often get picked up by a horse and trap, the horses are so chilled out and well behaved Despite all the cars and children.

Great thread OP!
I'm liking the sound of your Irish dinner!

(Just been reading through the last few comments Re: being born a traveler or becoming a traveler (new age etc)... and
It has made me think.... it's a bizarre world when you can't become a Traveller with a capital T but you can become female with a capital F if if you fancy it? )

Hi everyone

Thank you to OP for starting this thread it is very interesting. I am not a traveller but married one and had four children. We are now divorced, I am happy to answer any questions. Having lived the traveller life for 20 years I know quite a bit!

Sienna57
I'd like to ask you a question. Am I right in thinking you were a settler, then a traveller and now settled?
How did you find the transistions? Did it take a while to adjust?

noticeooldad - Yes thats correct to a degree. As they OP has said travellers cannot really travel around like they used to. Most are on permanent camps and only travel from time to time.

When I first met my ex I found the whole traveller lifestyle so exciting (I was very young). I loved the fact that they lived in trailers and spoke their own language and all the old fashioned values that a lot of travellers have. However, as I got older I began to hate it. Traveller woman must know their place, all most of them do is clean, cook and look after children. The men are either at work, in the pub or hanging around with each other. Men and woman don't really mix much. Men are embarrassed if their wife works or their trailer isn't spotless. There is a lot of domestic violence it is almost normalised as is men fighting each other. Everything is sorted out with a 'square go'. There are lots of lovely travellers but I couldn't live like that.

hi sienna im sorry but your wrong... even if you were married for 20 year🤔
if a man came back and starting on about how clean or unclean the trailer is hed be called gay thats womens buisness not mens... dv happens yes same as it does with non travellers its not a normilasion
traveller women must no there place? actually its morw of a man thinks that Nd they no if they try change that out the door they go🤨 litterally...
more do cook, clean and mind the children but alot work... but of corse most women who stay at home are minding babys most of time so how cud thay work?
men and women dont mix together? well i chat to men evry day ?? non family and before i was a christian i used to go to the pub with men and women with my husband Nd sit at the tabel together ...

TakeABreak2 - I guess everyone can have different experiences that is mine. I was also married to a romany traveller which might be the difference. DV can obviously happen anywhere but in my opinion it is normalised in the travelling community.

So glad you started this thread OP, I was hoping a Traveller would do a AMA! . When I was about 5/6 my parents did a self build and we lived on site for about 2 months in a caravan. Those were very happy days for me as a child but DM swore she would never set foot in a caravan again. I have had an obsession with Travellers ever since.

Anyway I have had a fair bit of contact with Traveller women due to voluntary work with Women's Aid. They have nearly all been lovely, scrupulously clean and want to live a good, honest life. Sadly domestic violence seems a very accepted part of the life of a Traveller woman. I would say that approx half of the women in the refuge at a given time were Travellers, they would come in 'for a break' and go back to it for a while and rinse and repeat. Sadly they viewed violence towards women as an innate trait of a man who was 'keeping the woman in her place'.
None of them were educated beyond a few years in secondary maximum and a man being literate was considered weak and effeminate.
In recent years the issue of drugs/alcohol from both parents has meant a steep increase in the amount of Traveller children being taken into care.
I just remember one woman telling me that some Travellers became Born Again and that this was frowned upon as it was going against their traditional faith. Have you experienced this OP?