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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

So my quiet town had a visit from our traveller 'friends' this week and

885 replies

AndThatsWhatIThinkOfYou · 15/08/2013 13:20

They wonder why people are so against them setting up camp where ever they please.

They arrived last Wednesday on a football field with a park and caused a whole load of trouble, for example, going to the petrol station handing over euros, being told they won't accept euros as payment, they simple got in their vans and drove of.

Made a visit to our local Sainsburys got caught shoplifting, were locked in until police were called.

Local children playing on park got beaten up with sticks by the traveller children.

And to top it all of 3 vans pulling up outside a local pub, very busy, dropping their trousers and all three disgusting men casually took a shit one by one on the pub doorstep. Got in there vans and drove of.

Then left the football field and park in an absolute mess. Rubbish everywhere.

Each incident police were called but nothing has been done.

So AIBU to wonder why travellers think this behavior is acceptable? and why can't anything be done to stop it?

OP posts:
Joiningthegang · 15/08/2013 21:26

His thread is really offensive

Many many people are from, or are descended from travellers - some are horrible, some white British people are pretty horrible, some black gangs are horrible

Like coconutty I am surprised mbhq haven't deleted this thread

BoneyBackJefferson · 15/08/2013 22:16

teacherwith2kids
"English football fans abroad.

  • Young adult drinkers, in pretty much every town centre every weekend night."

Interesting that your response to other groups who are antisocial are both stereotypes and generalisations and your follow up about "white British males" is also stereotypical, generalisation, racist and sexist.

Almost the full bingo card.

edam · 15/08/2013 22:18

Prejudice against an entire ethnic group is clearly wrong. And the health statistics for Travellers are staggeringly awful - very high rates of infant mortality and early death. Horrifying.

Mimishimi · 15/08/2013 22:20

What type of travellers were they? I just can't see that taking a s**t on the pub doorstep would be accepted at all in Romanichal ... the area below your waist is marime - you are not supposed to expose it at all to outsiders (or even within the community). Were they Irish travellers?

Eyesunderarock · 15/08/2013 22:20

'Hello
It might be helpful to clarify the MNHQ position on this.
Posters are welcome to describe their personal experiences of interactions with Travellers (or any other group) - positive or negative.
But we will delete reported posts that make blanket negative assertions or generalisations about all Travellers.
We'd appreciate it if you could bear this distinction in mind, please.'

Report the posts you find offensive, and MN will consider deletion.
I have taught a number of Traveller children in different locations, some in school and some outreach on site. I've never had a problem, or felt intimidated when visiting. The site was an official one, and as well-kept as the rest of the area. Not well, and with significant mess, vandalism and dumping. But the entire local community was like that, not just the site.

skylerwhite · 15/08/2013 22:22

Boneyback that's the very point teacherwith2kids is making Confused

Eyesunderarock · 15/08/2013 22:23

Mimishimi , I think the majority of outsiders would struggle to tell the difference.

themaltesefalcon · 15/08/2013 23:20

Mumsnet, hats off to you for leaving this thread up.

inabeautifulplace · 15/08/2013 23:29

Seems pretty clear that we'd be better off as a society by offering more permanent sites and working closely with the traveller community to understand their way of life and help them understand ours. A culture of suspicion and mutual dislike shouldn't be allowed to continue.

There will always be travellers capable of vile acts; they are the same as all other human beings. I suspect that it's harder to be anti-social once you are considered part of society.

ApocalypseCheeseToastie · 15/08/2013 23:30

Yanbu.

I'm very much live and let live, when travellers set up camp in my town I defended them to the people who moaned about it........a few weeks on, having seen the fucking state they've left on the beach they set up camp by (( 2 tons of rubbish removed and the piles of human waste left which they hadn't poured into the sea )) I'm disgusted. We had similar happen when the circus came but not as bad as this, I thought that was just a one off but having seen the awful mess they left behind can see why people don't want them setting up camp near them, or are people going to start suggesting gypsies leaving a mess behind is an urban myth ??

Coconutty · 15/08/2013 23:49

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Retropear · 16/08/2013 07:48

Ina beautiful I disagree.

Travellers set up in a well known beauty spot near us creating an unholy mess.

The county council in their wisdom decided to make it permanent costing £££££££ of our money even though facilities such a libraries,children's centres etc are being cut.Aside from this locals would love their kids to be able to pitch up in a caravan in order to save for housing way out of budget.However obviously if we all did that there would be no beauty spots left.

Anyhoo whole project has been canned as said travellers reused to pay council tax when the project was finished.

Entitled much!

MotherOfDragon · 16/08/2013 07:59

I am in a fairly open area of essex, we had travellers visit last year. That I know of there were five break in's, the local Asda George was shut down due to the sheer amount of theft and one of the pubs (there are only three here) was closed due to the amount of damage.

I myself had no direct contact with the travelling community except seeing the field they left behind which looked like a festival gone wrong.

I would be interested to know why there are so any people who have had such bad experiences. Is it the same group? In which case the police could have done something! Or is there another reason? Because say what you will, there clearly is a problem.

My grandmothers family were travellers so no prejudice here, just a very real experience,

ladymariner · 16/08/2013 08:16

They've set up here as well, and they're leaving a hell of a mess. They're intimidating when you walk past, (and seeing as they're on parkland next to a public footpath you have no choice but to walk past) the mess is awful and they're not paying anything to contribute. Last time they were here the local paper went to talk to them and they chased the reporter off, then decided they did want "to put their side of the story across" so called the paper back, did a whole piece on how misunderstood they were and how they didn't want any trouble and that when they moved on they'd leave the pace exactly as they found it.....like hell they did. It was absolutely disgusting. And now they're back and it's happening all over again.

If they want designated parking areas and facilities then they should pay for it, like the rest of us have to do. Why should my dh have to do 12 hour night shifts and we have to save up for everything when they think they are entitled to everything they want on tap? Ridiculous.

FranSanDisco · 16/08/2013 08:17

Mimishi, my experinces were all with Irish travellers?

Teacher - I hear what you say about co-ed but how realistic is it for one 'group' to get this preferential treatment by being transported to an all girls, prefably catholic school, in order to be educated through their teens. I am sure there are many groups who don't wholly agree with co-ed but just have to get on with. TBH I would like dd to be in an all-girls school but there isn't one nearby unless I PAY for private education. So to sum up : they should be provided with free caravan sites, free transport to free schools of their choice, site clear up costs to be absorbed by local authority. Their way of life looks very attactive.

Retropear · 16/08/2013 08:25

Exactly our only single sex schools are the grammar.

Can I as a council tax payer have free tutoring and bus fare(over 3k a year) x 3 please then-nah thought not!Hmm

duchessandscruffy · 16/08/2013 08:32

It seems, from this thread and my own experience, that people's main issue is that some traveller groups are rocking up somewhere staying for a brief period of time and then leaving a disgusting mess and not giving a fuck who has to clear it up. It seems that people do not have a problem with the more settled communities - there are 2 near where I live. One I only know is there because the people who live there go to the same church I do, and the other one, next to a local shopping area, I didn't realise was a travellers site for years!

Do the groups with travel around a lot do so because they have no where to stay permanently or because they want to preserve the traveller way of life (genuine question). If its the former then more permanent sites could be the answer (although there is the council tax issue mentioned above). But if it is the latter, then how will building permanent sites help?

Retropear · 16/08/2013 08:37

Permanent sites are only the answer if council tax is payed all year round for the upkeep and they are kept immaculate with zero law breaking.

There should be a record of exactly who is there and when and if any mess or law breaking occurs there should be a lifetime ban(pretty much like those in social housing or private letting have to abide by).

Original poster
AndThatsWhatIThinkOfYou · 16/08/2013 08:42

yes retro, but I doubt it will happen, from planning been opposed to paying council tax

OP posts:
Retropear · 16/08/2013 08:45

Exactly so sorry but a clamp down on what's essentially anti social behaviour is the only answer.

ladymariner · 16/08/2013 08:50

Surely the same laws should apply anyway, regardless of who's breaking them? Anti social behaviour is anti social behaviour!

teacherwith2kids · 16/08/2013 08:54

My point about single sex schools - Catholics who choose to attend Catholic schools do (in general) get the option of attending them and being transported there.

I didn't mean that Travellers would want to attend Catholic schools, more that BY ANALOGY TO Catholics being able to attend Catholic schools at the taxpayer's expense, teenage Traveller girls could be given the option to attend single-sex schools, as a way to start addressing the issue of under-education of female Travellers which is at the root of some of the issues with that community (especially e.g. infant mortality).

The point is, we have to start redirecting some of the money currently spent in dealing with 'dealing with the aftermath' to 'addressing the root causes' (in the same way as we address the problems caused by young drunks in town centres, who as I have said above behave in very similar ways, through e.g. proactive policing, banning Happy Hours, licnsing restrictions, street pastors, alcohol and drug awareness education in schools etc etc). Yes, it will be diufficult, because there are tens if not hundreds of years of suspicion between settled and Traveller communities, and as this thread has shown, attitudes have become very entrenched.

But if you do what you've always done, you get what you've always got.... and the examples given throughout this thread of more permanent Traveller sites that operate very well (often with a mix of 'more settled' residents and those who travel on a regular circuit of such sites, often relatives of the main family IME) suggest that those may be the way forward at least in part.

OctopusPete8 · 16/08/2013 08:56

It depends though,

like in my town a traveller group took up 2 rugby fields, horses etc.

helicopters. police etc were out.

no fair on the local kids , where are they supposed to play?

teacherwith2kids · 16/08/2013 09:00

"Surely the same laws should apply anyway, regardless of who's breaking them? Anti social behaviour is anti social behaviour!"

So... your town centre is entirely free of any young people being drunk and disorderly on a Saturday night? Always? And every person misbehaving on such a night is always caught and punished and 'cracked down on'?

If ALL antisocial behaviour was so easy to remove, then all of our town and city centres would be clean, fragrant, well-ordered and delightful places at 2 am every Sunday morning, surely?

If we cannot solve the scourge of that type of behaviour within our own community, why are we so quick to insist on a purge of all antisocial behaviour in another community, and to set perfect behaviour as a condition of being provided with a clear field or yard, with a source of running water and a regular rubbish collection?

And as for
"Permanent sites are only the answer if council tax is payed all year round for the upkeep and they are kept immaculate with zero law breaking."

Hmmm - the large current / ex council and housing association housing areas around my town definitely don't conform to this, so setting a higher bar for another community than we do for our own seems hypocritical at best.

teacherwith2kids · 16/08/2013 09:02

Octopus - exactly. Temporary and illegal sites are a problem. One that could be greatly reduced if the number of proper, legal sites matched the number of people needing to use them...