AIBU to feel sorry for the travellers near us

[dorsetdumpling]

We had some travellers arrive near us on Monday. They have been no problems and have told the council they will leave on Sunday as there is an event on the field where they are.

I'm a bit annoyed that a couple of snobby residents have been interviewed in the local rag saying its a disgrace.

I would love to tell the travellers that we don't all hold that opinion.

LOL rogersmellyonthetelly I'd be tempted to see if it jumped, and take it to a show while it was there!

I'm not comfortable with the travellers' way of life, or the dirt they seem to leave behind (and I've seen piles of it in some places they've been around here) but there is a little bit of me that admires how they sail over the top of health and safety, Council tax, planning regulations, land use restrictions, etc. All of which bug me far more frequently than travellers do.

The trouble is there is no where for gypsies to go. Every council in England is supposed to earmark an area of land which can be used by travellers, but hardly any do. The idea behind it is that if there were a traveller campsite in every town then gypsies could come and go as they please, and pay a ground rent to the local council for as long as they are there. Since hardly any councils provide this, gypsies are forced to camp illegally and the council get no revenue.

Where I live, lots of travellers buy their own land and camp on it, but then get evicted by the council (at great taxpayer expense) because the land is not for residential use/they haven't got planning permission. Round here most people's gripe is that they don't pay council tax, which to me seems like a really minor thing: some benefit claimants and students don't pay council tax, and gypsies will be paying VAT and income tax if they work.

It gets better Nijinsky, he wanted me to give him a £200 deposit and then the rest in the autumn when the foal was ready, said he would give me a ring, but I thought I would have more chance of seeing the queen's arse than of ever hearing from him again, so I politely declined.

OMG! Do they think people are really that stupid?!

I suppose if he kept asking, theres bound to be someone out there with more money than good sense who is naive enough to believe him.

"there is a little bit of me that admires how they sail over the top of health and safety, Council tax, planning regulations, land use restrictions, etc. All of which bug me far more frequently than travellers do."

This is it.

I don't have a problem with their ideas on how they want to live. Good for them, I don't care -their life.

But when it comes to pushing up local coucil rates for cleanup, and pitching up on land which other folk can't or can't afford to rent for a camping trip - it does seem to be a law for some and not for others.

I grew up in an area relatively infamous for its travelling sites, and despite individuals being perfectly nice on the whole (just like the rest of the population), the mass breaching of local planning laws and "we'll do what we like" ethos is completely at odds with the non-traveller residents in the unfortunate areas they choose to plonk themselves down on.

No issue with individuals at all, I went to school with some, but as a group their way of life conflicts with principals I hold dear (adherence to the law, respect for property, respect for the land we live on, treating others the way I want to be treated).

How can they avoid paying vat? Anything they purchase in shops will have VAT added, so they are definitely paying that.

Some gypsies (those who are at permanent sites) have ordinary jobs so would pay income tax. Many do casual labour and may get paid cash in hand. It is up to their employer to declare, deduct and pay their income tax. If the employer doesn't do that then it is their fault no the fault of the casual labourer

OP yanbu, and I have a lot of respect for your thread. Sadly though it does attract the usual menagerie of posters happy to refer to an entire race of people as 'they who leave a mess, they who live in dirt and they who don't pay tax', oh and 'they who waste my taxes'

I work with families, including those of irish traveller and roma gypsy origin. The only sweeping generalisations I can make from experience are that 'they' adore their children and will protect them by any means (like the rest of us), 'their' homes are absolutely gleaming, and 'they' have a real fear of non-travellers, which is borne of 100s of years of shit awful persecution.

And the prejudice and persecution faced by roma started long before there were cars to burn out. If anyone is interested, roma have been persecuted arcoss europe for hundreds of years. Women and children had their ears or arms cut off in parts of europe simply for being in a country, while men were hanged; in some countries both were put to death; children forcibly removed from the families and placed in 'respectable homes'; gassed in Auschwitz with Jews and disabled people. I don't know of any race who has suffered as much persecution.

If my ancestors have been through this, I'd be scared. If my parents and grandparents had been through this, I'd be scared.

Now unless you want to be considered a racist, mind your language please.

Small story from one of the local traveller sites from my local area - I went to school with a girl who was from there. I met her dad once, when we went to hers to get some money for sweets - he handed her some money after counting it very carefully (oh what 50p for sweets would buy you then! felt a fortune)... and i asked her after about how her dad "couldn't count or write" - nonsense surely as i'd just seen him counting her money for her.

"Oh he can't count numbers" she replied. "just money."

After digging around what she meant, apparently her dad had learnt to recognise the value of coins and notes in their demoninations but not learnt basic maths in a general sense, or learnt to read. Struck me as quite amusing when I remember it years later - the idea that her dad had learnt a way to survive without a formal education - in the end she disappeared from school and i have no idea what became of her

ok, so your average person who has a traveller come to do his trees/garden, will they go to all the bother of income tax etc? do they hell. I KNOW several travellers who have vans with a company name on the side, people use them thinking they are self employed and declaring earnings etc, and pay them in cash, but in reality, they wont be declaring anything. And because they have no permanent address, they are impossible to police.
As I found out when I had all my stuff nicked. Police came down, heard the story, told us our stuff was probably half way down the country by now, as they only nick stuff when they are about to leave the area, so they wont be caught.

maristella, you're not going to convince me that the "people as 'they who leave a mess, they who live in dirt and they who don't pay tax', oh and 'they who waste my taxes" is a total fabrication. This was a huge, HUGE problem in the area where I grew up.

I'll agree it's unfair to label an entire race of people as XYZ (in any sense, not just for travellers) but let's not pretend the problem doesn't exist. It's what causes most of the friction between the residents of the community in my hometown vs. the traveller community there. The waste issues (and subsequent cleanup fees) - NOT "I don't like you because you're a traveller". I put myself in the former category, not the latter.

But let's not pretend negative connotations between this group's way of life are all fabricated. They're not.

It's tricky I think. It goes against every liberal bone in my body to write off a whole community

But here in Essex there have been very well documented problems with a HUGE travellers site which has been "made permanent" by the travellers "building" their own homes - which they call chalets. They are like holiday park homes iykwim

The problems come becase they have arrived en masse into a small rural community which simply doesn't have the resources to cope. The local village school has been entiely vaccated by local people who got fed up with all of the schoold resources going into teachng traveller kids whose educational attainment was very low (and BTW I have no problem at all with helping these kids but I can also understand the frustration of local people who felt that their own kids' education was being compromised) This has, in turn, led to the school being a bit ghettoised which leads to more problems. There is MASSIVE resesentment locally about all this especially since the travellers aren't travelling and have been there for YEARS!

I won't go into the stories about theft and violence because afaik they are anecdotal (although ex is a retail manager in a sector of esepcial interetst to travellers and has had MANY run ins with them :()

So, in short, I'm torn

There are some disgusting posts on here,not all gypsys and travellers are as described on here.A lot are paying income tax,national insurance and council tax,lets face it not all members of the settled community are well behaved law abiding citizens,so not fair to tar all with the same brush.

all races have blaggers!

their are tax dodgers in every race within this country, plenty are white british! people are happy to refer to travellers as an entirity in a negative way that they quite rightly would not about blacks, whites, asians and that is what i will always stand against.

if you don't like someone's way of life, don't live it. but don;t forget their are plenty of traveller families living their lives just like you and i do: in houses, paying taxes etc. the mispresentation of roma and travellers is not helped by the fear people have of ascribing to their ethnic origin for fear of being judged.

Bubbles - I completely agree that not all gypsys and travellers are as described on here, as I said in my first post, there are those who leave a mess, and those who are clean and respect the site they are camping on. There are those who are decent honest folk, and there are those who would nick a walking stick from an old lady. But this is the same in every culture, and I think it is very wrong that travellers are persecuted and abused just because they are travellers.
Unfortunately, the issue of travellers is not an easy one. Someone in government needs to get tough with councils and FORCE them to provide decent areas for travellers, with good facilities and access to schools and healthcare, but the travellers need to be prepared to pay for this like everyone else.

Curry recent govt testing on children of all races found that children of roma/traveller origin fell behind on literacy but were far ahead on numeracy :)

Of course there are! I never said there weren't. The problem near me is caused by the massive strain this mass influx of people (who have need to education, healthcare, social services, refuse collection etc) put on local resources - especially when the community doesn't move on (for 10 years!) and the conflict this causes for local people

Having said that, Essex CC are Tory arses so I take what they say with a pinch of salt

That doesn't surprise me maristella :)

The problem is when a small village school with say 100 pupils suddenly gets say 100 new children arrive, many of whom have so far had no formal education and many of whom do not speak English as their first language.

They need halp and support - of course and I wouldn't begrudge that. But you cam imagine that the parents of the exisiting children resent all the resources being diverted from their kids. It causes conflict

In the end every single child from a settled family left the school :(

Being part of the travelling community doesn't make them immune to criticism, you know.

I view the local travelling community generally with fondness. I don't have the same fondness for the segment that think it's acceptable to cost the local residents and council thousands in cleanup fees each year.

I have the same disdain for segments of the Muslim community that feel it's okay to arrange forced marriages. An extreme, and most Muslims aren't like that, of course - but it's a highlighted example that's thrown around in the media a lot (even more in the last few years than in previous ones, as the government and charities seek to help those affected and prevent future cases). But the problem is a very real one for a minority due to the "group" belief in a certain way of life (i.e. adherence to the religious laws, listening to religious leaders). I could say the same thing about Christians, or whatever - the group's general concensus on the best way to live a life being in conflict with the wider community around them.

It's ok to not like segments of a group's beliefs when they are in direct contradiction to our own moral codes; it is not ok to sweep aside an entire group of people with generalisations that don't hold true for the entire group.

That's where the distinction between racism and voicing legitimate complaints comes in.

I agree with everything you said there frgaaah and it is that distinction between racism and legitimate complaints that i'm standing up for. You just wouldn't see a thread where legitimate complaints about africans, chinese, jamaicans or portugese in the way we sadly do about roma and travellers.

Its not genuine criticisim of gypsys and travellers that offends me,it is the generalisations that have been made on this thread that get to me,imagine if "traveller" was substituted by another ethnic minority,I think there would be alot more protesting then.

I live near Dorchester and unfortunately I think the travellers are the vent of some of the more "superior" Poundbury resident's fury. They can say what they like (pretty much) about the travellers, whilst if they dared say the same about the social housing residents then it wouldn't be allowed, let alone printed. However I have no doubt they hold similar views (i.e. these undesirables spoiling their beautiful habitat).

My DB used to work at the local secondary school (one of the best state schools in the country, a walk in the park discipline wise) and certain Poundbury residents used to complain about the children walking to the shop in Poundbury to buy their lunch. Yes, that's buy lunch, not go round shoplifting or vandalising cars.

I agree with you OP, let's see what happens before we go round making judgements about them.

Curry the educational difficulties are often borne from parents/elders negative experiences of education, parents/elders fear that their children will lose their culture (which is a big issue amongst a lot of travellers as there is so much pressure in wider society for this culture to be lost), and of course from moving about.

Some of the traveller mums I've worked with are so keen for their children to be educated, and some send their children to school against the wishes of the wider family.

bubbles4 exactly!