I live on a traveller site AMA

[namechange2026198]

Well exactly that really got a spare bit of time and I know with some of the recent ridiculous tv shows I thought I’d see if I could answer a few myths and questions. I will say my partner is a traveller I am not but am married into the community which in itself is rare

If you would like people to know one thing about the Traveller community, what would that be?

I know you commonly keep dogs but do you keep cats as well or is the life to hard for cats?

What do you feel the difference is between living in a caravan on a permanent site and a house?

Has the community made a comment or expressed empathy or condemnation? Medics did about Shipman at the time and supported measures to prevent it happening again.

How often and how far do you travel a year?

I work in a healthcare setting and without fail the travellers who come in to visit relatives are disrespectful to staff and totally ignore any requests to come in smaller groups, to be quiet and think of other sick people on the ward and to only come in during actual visiting hours etc.

Why is this and what could we do differently as a hospital to get the reasons these rules are in place across to this community?

Are attitudes within the community altering more toward self policing, ie, sorting out people who steal, leave filth, beat up their wives etc... or is it still a case of 'we dont agree with that but its not our place to say anything, thats their business what they do' as it was when I last had any interaction with the traveller community (around 20 years ago and no i dont watch the tv shite)

I’ve experienced this too - the ward was terrorised - on a small palliative care unit of 10 beds - we had 30 people sleeping on the ward and behaving without any consideration to the other patients and their families. I have had a few experiences with travellers and none have them have been positive.

I love watching travellers clean on TikTok 😍

He knows houses exist! He just doesn’t want to live in one.

Not OP but I know this in regards to Irish Travellers as I attended a BF awareness event and a Traveller woman was speaking. In olden days all women BF as formula was very expensive and women traditionally wore very long shawls so were always covered up. Irish Travellers over time (I don't know much about genetics) became carriers of galactosemia, or something like this, that means all Traveller babies get fed soya formula from birth until they have had a blood test to make sure they can either BF or have cows milk formula. This test often isn't done for days and there is only a couple of hospitals in the UK that can do the test, so even if a woman wanted to BF it is much harder to start on day 7 for example, when bottle feeding is already established.
Having your nipples out and a baby sucking on a breast is apparently considered very degrading, there is a lot of shame in it and BF is usually not considered. The woman giving the talk (she BF) said lack of space in a trailer or house is a big factor too, because she'd have to go into a room and feed baby privately, even infront of other women. There's a status issue too, back in the day only wealthy people bought formula so over time BF was seen as a poverty thing.

How did you meet your husband? Did you keep any of your old friends?

I'm pretty sure I'm of Kent gypsy stock and my father was of Irish traveller stock which settled in Kent. They never wanted to discuss their backgrounds, and we had low contact with their families, but a few things gave it away. Knowledge of horses for my father (he was in the military) and working in the fields/orchards for my mother. She'd take us all to work with her in the summer with sandwiches and flasks of stewed tea. She made a heavenly gypsy tart too!

We always lived in a house but I can't fathom how families live in caravans these days, or would want to.

Do you take washing to a laundrette, especially to dry it in winter?

How do you heat it in winter and cope with condensation/mould?

Where do you have a shower?

If you want to keep the community, do you ever think of buying land and and creating more permanent structures?

Is the obsessive cleaning a trait unique to a certain genre of traveler as my experience has been the opposite? Sorry if this sounds rude it is a genuine question

If the ward was terrorised, was it not possible to get security to move the people out?

@namechange2026198 why do travellers go onto land that doesn't belong to them, and leave all their rubbish and debris for others to pick up?
Why are they always destructive and give themselves a bad name?

Genuine question by the way

How do travellers always seem to have crazy amounts of money?

How does your community feel about the 5 traveller teenagers that thought it was hilarious to drive up the wrong side of a motorway and put 4 innocent lives in hospital? Because all I’m seeing from the community is posts about their “Angel boys” and not a word of hope or sympathy towards the innocents they’ve given probably life changing injuries to, including a 4 year old child.

What do you think of travelling community members who turn up on an unauthorised site on a Friday afternoon just as the local council office is closing, stay put illegally until they can be evicted and then leave a disgusting mess behind when they are moved on?

Do you agree this gives the whole community a bad name? Do fellow community members ever address this behaviour with them?

You mentioned your husband wouldn’t enjoy living in a house. Could you expand on how a fixed caravan site is different than a house? I know you have family on site, but I have family that have managed to build homes on the same land if they live in the countryside or live in houses that are extremely close in more dense areas which makes me wonder if there is more to it than just family and community.

In my experience it is because they tend to work in cash, what you see is what they have, and have the borrowing power of a community, which is not uncommon across tight knit communities with large inter-related families of a variety of cultures.

It is a small hospice charity ward - the only staff are two nurses. No security whatsoever. Just us.

Baffling!

Just two staff at night I mean!

To be fair the OP has been brain washed since aged 15.