I'm a traveller- AMA

[Pinkyyy]

I was actually asked on another post to start this thread, I've been debating the idea for a while but usually decide not to because I've seen threads like this turn sour before. Hopefully I can avoid that and actually provide information and educate people on a way of life they may well know very little about.

I invite you to ask any questions you may have, and I will do my best to answer them all honestly. I ask that you don't bother to comment if you're going to bombard me with racism and ignorance. If you'd like to question a common stereotype, by all means go ahead but I will not respond to those who are simply here to be hateful. I also hope you'll respect that I don't like to share too much of my personal details on here, so I'm aiming more to speak about travellers as a a whole and not so much about me personally.

So.... AMA

@BlancheM I had no idea that feminism was also beneficial to men. I suppose the radical feminists scared me away from properly exploring it

@TacoLover some real food for thought in your post. In my community it's very much a case of there things for men and things for women and although most people are happy with that, there are the ones who choose to marry out of it who clearly aren't. I suppose my outlook seems quite extreme to you, although so did my grandparents' to me, so I suppose it's ever changing

This is so interesting as this is exactly what I found in my family.
The women are considered strong and in charge tbh. The pressure is on the men to provide, just like it was in our society as recently as the 1960's. The women I know rule the nest and put the men in their place if they step out of line.
The designer clothes and bling are a statement of wealth, and both the man and woman are happy with this.
The kids can have the most garish of outfits, but so what. I'm not talking gypsy wedding but noticeable gypsy.
We have a group in our town who honestly buy up the bling of Primark. It's lovely to see the styles they put together, I'm rather enviable.

Perhaps someone will be able to answer something for me? In my culture it's seen as rude to ask someone how much something costs, but people (especially teenagers) in yours will often compliment someone on something, then ask how much it cost. Is that socially acceptable? It's something I've always noticed and I have always been told I was weird by non-travellers when I said I think it's rude to ask someone that question

I wouldn't think it rude to ask how much clothing and accessories are but bigger things, expensive jewellery, cars, houses-that would be a bit rude, however I wouldn't be offended!

Totally agree about the gender stereotyping being a problem-same as in almost every other culture.

Hi Pinkyyy, I think in some cases it's a conversational staple for when you are not really that interested but are being polite. That conversation tends to go "look at my new thing", "oh that's nice/pretty/cool, how much did it cost?" "Oh, I got it for only £xx, got it in the sales/saved for it/used my Tesco vouchers", "oh really? That's awesome."

Sometimes I ask it if I'm interested in purchasing one, if I haven't seen one before or don't know much about it.

It's rude to ask how much someone earns or has in the bank, but I don't think it's rude to ask how much something costs (in my gorger community) - it would be rude however if person who asks then tells you something negative like "that's expensive!", or, "I wouldn't spend that much", or, "I could afford more than that".

Every year in the spring a man appears with a beautiful traditional wagon ( a vardo?) which he parks on a tiny bit of ground in the village where my mum lives. He stays there for up to a week and cooks over an outdoor fire. The horse keeps the grass down.

There seem to be lots of cars coming and going while he is there so I guess he has family visiting as he can’t easily leave the horse etc. However at night he sits quietly by the fire next to this amazing wagon. To see him sitting there is to see a glimpse of a totally different - and fast disappearing - way of life.

A few days later he is gone with nothing left other than a mark on the grass. However a week or two later he reappears and repeats it all again. I imagine it is his annual journey over to Appleby or similar and we are a stopping point.

It is fascinating to see that glimpse of traditional travelling life. He must be very proud of his roots to put so much effort into that long slow journey (we are east coast) and to have maintained the traditional wooden wagon.

How is that sort of heritage maintained and passed on within families Pinkyy? He may well of course be a settled traveller himself but clearly can harness, drive and care for horses, build fires, cook outside etc. Are skills being lost with use of cars etc or is there a real desire to keep them alive?

Also, if anyone compliments anything I have, I always say 'thanks, 50p in barnardos!' Or wherever!

Another query that's just come to mind, do travellers tend to donate their old clothes etc to charity shops or do something else with them?

OP, in my youth, my culture ( middle class English) it would have been completely unacceptable to ask the price of anything, exceptionally, vulgar, flaunting your wealth/fortune, just as it was unacceptable to ask how much anyone earned. One was taught also not to talk about religion, politics or sex and illness only by women. I think kids break these rules, they prob did then too.

But in some cultures it is acceptable. I’m not going to say which are the ones I’ve found because I shall be jumped on and inevitably it varies from person to person too.

@buckeejit thankbyou for your reply, that's quite interesting, I would be offended! You are certainly right about it being in every culture

@LadyFlumpalot thank you too! We would often sometimes reply with a similar response if we got something cheap, we might say "thanks, it was in the sale for £xx" so I don't think it's the sharing the cost, but more the asking that's the issue. This is something I've always wondered about

@Pinkyyy you say: I'm not sure why the bad behaviour of certain travellers is our responsibility to fix, any more than the bad behaviour of non-travellers is yours

You could say it's everyone's responsibility as we all live in the same country. Actually the bad behaviour of non-travellers is the responsibility for all of us to fix in a way - certainly we all benefit if it improves, and we all contribute through taxation (as do travellers - even those working cash in hand pay VAT) towards things like public health education campaigns, the criminal justice system and so on. Nobody really gets to shrug their shoulders and say "not my problem" about any kind of antisocial behaviour.

Imagine a hypothetical AIBU:

"AIBU not to use the toilet in my trailer because I think it's unhygienic, even though it means I'll have to leave a pile of shit behind me when we move on to another site, for other people to clear up?"

Do you think your answer would be YABU for travellers as well as for non-travellers, or do you think the travellers are being reasonable because they have a cultural problem with the caravan toilets?

Your earlier answers seem to imply that eventually fewer people will travel from site to site like that, and that that will solve the problem, but it seems to me it would be solved much more quickly if they kept travelling and got over their issues with the indoor toilets. Could there be clever redesigns or alterations to those toilets that would make them more acceptable to use?

Surely the majority of travellers would benefit from this because the shit left behind has such a disproportionately awful effect (compared to normal rubbish) on people's opinions of travellers? How do you think society as a whole could approach the problem?

@NottonightJosepheen see all the questions you said would be fine by me, how strange that there are such sublet differences!

@GeeIneverthoughtofthat how wonderful, I love to see people like this and their wagons. It's so sad that traditions like that are in fact being lost. Some families will try to maintain those types of skills, but in today's world most are sadly not needed so end up getting lost. He sounds so happy

@buckeejit I think with clothes people will often pass them on to others, keep them or donate them

@OrlandaFuriosa I think what you described very well describes the way I was raised to look at things. Though I'm afraid I'm not sure exactly which group you're referring to maybe its best not to say if people will jump on you

I wouldn't dream of asking anyone how much something costs. Was always taught that speaking about money, except with nearest and dearest, is vulgar.

GeeIneverthoughtofthat, you've painted a beautiful picture of rural life, I can just see the man, his horse and vardo by the fire at night.
Then I thought - where does he get water for washing and for his horse and where does he pee? Sorry, I always wonder things like that.

Pinkyy that’s a real shame as it is a wonderful sight. I can care for and drive horses myself so I know it’s not that common a skill.

jesstan he had a large water container outside on the grass (needs water for the horse too of course!) which I think is refilled by the local petrol station. I didn’t enquire about the rest but it was very tidy after he left.

In my culture, similar to Orlanda's, it would be utterly unacceptable to ask how much something cost. Very rude indeed. A rule possibly broken by the young.... 'twas ever thus.

@saturnFive you are 100% right in what you say, it certainly is everyone's problem. It would certainly be a win-win situation if everyone decided that they would proactive in trying to improve things for everyone. I'm glad that's never been a real AIBU as it would be absolute chaos! I don't think it would matter about the design, there would be no way anyone would use a toilet in their trailer. I don't know if there is a way of approaching that problem really, of course they are the ones causing it but it's certainly a difficult one

@jessstan2 it seems that there are similarities after all! This I exactly what I was taught

@GeeIneverthoughtofthat it really is, I find it such a beautiful sight. I have no experience with horses as I'm scared of them

@cantkeepawayforever I think perhaps it is a young people thing, as most people have said they don't find it acceptable too

Thank you all for your replies to my question!

@romanyroots The welsh gypsies website is great.

You said on you post about finding ancestors, eg. Cornelius. Is that typically a gypsy name? My husbands greatgrandfather was a Cornelius and they’re struggling to find info on him.
Are there any names that are typically gypsy?

Thank you for keeping up with the posts, even though it has felt like a bit of a pile on times @pinkyyy

@RedrumMurder sadly I've never known Cornelius to be a traveller name. There are many typical traveller names and the surnames in particular are of huge importance.

Thank you, I've tried my best, it's quite difficult when I get quite a few at a time and I feel bad for not giving more detailed responses but I struggle to keep up

Pinkyy,

If there were sufficient traveller sites for those travelling with their trailers to stop at for short or longer periods, with adequate toilets. would that solve the problem?

As in, is the toilet problem one of lack of proper sites for travelling trailers? Or would it be the same if sites with toilets and enough pitches were available?

Would travelling travellers clean toilets etc at designated stopping sites if there were any?

Aw, the names are so difficult, you've started me now.
They lied, no way of wrapping it up, and they changed names not to be recognised and to fit in.
Sometimes you can tell immediately when you see a typical christian name of one family and find it with a completely different surname.
Obviously, you can tell marriages from this but also where there have been mistakes made.
The census is brilliant for one of mine, it literally gives markings and feet after the post box and how far up the mountain. No 47 Acacia Drive.

Oooh....

@coconutty @pinkyyy @romanyroots

Have any of you done an ancestry dna type test? How does it look?

Yes Cornelius is popular, NW and Welsh families.
look at some of the census's ? on the site and you'll get a feeling for them, it's very interesting.

Anyone heard of the Orchard family, in Devon?

Redrum

I can't unfortunately, wish I could.
I am doing the test for my own results but I'm not suitable for the research, I'm gutted.