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

[AndThatsWhatIThinkOfYou]

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?

I think the law unto themselves is partly because they feel they have no stake in society, they feel shunned and marginalised at every turn, partly that everyone expects them to behave like that, partly because they feel like have no 'home' to speak of so there's no point keeping the area nice (whereas the vans are spotless), partly as a 'fuck you' to the people they see as rejecting them and partly because they get away with it.

I'm not claiming they're saints.

If all Travellers used sites without vandalism, flytipping, intimidating other members of the community and no anti-social behaviour for the next decade, do you think that the prejudice against Travellers would decrease significantly?

I've been to a couple of traveller weddings (in my local church - I'm a chorister) and they are certainly very different to any other wedding I have been to in terms of behaviour.
Cultural, of course, but a real eye opener too.
And they had no trouble at all booking their weddings at our church. We are inclusive.

On the other hand, I am close to someone who had to help close down Dale Farm site and had bodily fluids etc thrown at him. That's just revolting in any culture.

Sad really skylerwhite, even a funeral is hard to arrange. That is sad.

I have heard a lot of bitching and griping about travellers on communion days as well. My children didn't make their communion so maybe it's easy for me to say this but I used to think 'is it not their day too'. so what if somebody has put fake tan on their 8 year old. How does that ruin your religious day!? your "sacrament"!!

teacherwith2kids I agree, I think well maintained sites are key if there's to be any hope of change.

'The traviling community could buy land and make a route around the UK and NI/IR for the use of tempary campsites.'

The vast majority of those applications for planning permission would be opposed by local communities and councils would be reluctant to grant, on the grounds that have already been cited here.

Eyes, but first all those sites have to be provided .. with running water and rubbish collection, of course.

I think there would still be prejudice because of the wish to live 'differently' and apart. Though i do wonder whether the children in my last school, who have grown up and been educated alongside Travellers throughout their lives, will lack that prejudice ... but it will take a full generation.

Absoloutely blueemerald, they have no stake in society. It's actually exactly the SAME mentality that makes a row of rented houses look shabbier than a row of owner occupier houses. when I rented, I resented having to cut somebody else's grass!!! so I do understand the mentality of NOT having a stake in something.

Eyesunderarock, I do agree that prejudice towards them would decrease if they were tidying though yes.

ItsBeer,

So, how is rubbish collecte from all - legal and not legal - Traveller sites? And how is water privided and waste water collected? You will doubtless have seen e.g. a long distance train in which the water for the toilets has run out and the litter bins have proved inadequate - and that's just after a few hours. With no facilities to get rid of waste, it doesn not take long for an area to descend into squalor - whatever the ethnic background of the people involved.

Music it is sad for your DD. I used to be like her - brought up to be liberal, tolerant, non-judging. Really nice people I knew were very, very anti-traveller and I found it bizarre. The difference was: they had experienced being around travellers and at the time I hadn't. I have now. No positive encounters here and that was going in as fresh-faced as your DD.

But teacher I do find your story encouraging. I'd like to believe that could be the norm - but let's face it, what works is that you basically have a self-selected group of settled people there. The main problem seems to be with travellers who feel entitled to set up camp wherever the hell they like, whenever they like.

Teacher, round here the council have tried providing skips for sites, removed when full. They were ignored.

No, visitors to the site, or travelling travellers who set up anywhere within a 5 mile radius or so came to us as well - and were indistinguishable in behaviour and attitudes from the more settled Traveller families - though significantly more wary as they were unused to welcome or to people in schools who understood their culture.

This thread is doing my head in. People with one negative experience suddenly abandoning the principles of a lifetime and giving in to blind prejudice? Depressing beyond words.

Another one with no good experiences of travellers.

I've had two seperate pubs trashed by them fighting amongst themselves, and they once put two of my regulars in hospital for trying to protect my optics (all full) from being smashed.

IVe had my handbag stolen by a traveller child (climbed through my bathroom window during one of the above)

I've had them exhort money from my employer over some tarmacing that they did without being asked to. When he refused to pay he got a telephone call to say they'd be doing his 92 year old df's drive in a couple of days, then recited the address. He paid the 5k.....

My best friend is from a famous Circus family, I regularly stay with her and her family, in her trailer. They are Showmen, not travellers, and are a totally different kettle of fish. There is a massive difference, and Showmen are never happy to be confused with travellers.

I have met plenty of both, and in my experience Showmen are hard working, friendly folk, and travellers are happy to live outside society ( and the law as much as possible). They have little truck with gauga's. (Including the ones that stick up for them) In fact they think you're a cunt.

Eyes, that's a shame, and good on your council for trying.

As with all these posts, I can post about my experiences and they may not generalise elsewhere ... though i would say that the front and back gardens of the houses of several other families in that 'relatively high deprivation level' village were not dissimilar in general mess and revoltingness to that often assocaited with illegal traveller sites.

Cat makes a good point about different groups that we often lump under the heading 'Traveller'.

Showmen, Roma Gypsies, Irish Travellers, even different 'clans / families' within the same broad group are very different. My main experience has been with a specific 'extended family group' who were originally Roma (though in some way we never quite got to the bottom of were also strongly linked with Wales).

If all of the incidents in the OP actually occurred, then blame the incompetence of your local police for not coping effectively. And stop with the prejudice, for God's sake.

Blame the police for people breaking the law and acting in an anti-social manner. What planet are you on? Since when did people stop being responsible for their own actions? Or is it only travellers because everyone is too concerned with being called a bigot, that they are no longer held to account for their reprehensible behaviour?

I have lived in various parts of the UK, and I have encountered at least nine seperate groups of travellers, all of these left behind a massive bill for the clean up of where they pitched, and they all brought bloody hell with them, human excrement in laybys and woods, rubbish and filth all over the place, attacks on local people in town centres and incidences of shoplifting and vandalism all went up, as did burglaries. All well recorded stats by local police.

It is of course wrong to assume that all travellers behave like this, but I think it is actually pretty fair to say that a clear majority do, the only place I have ever heard anyone say they have had a nice experience of travellers is on Mumsnet, any RL encounter I have had, or been spoken to about,has been negative, and always the same sort of thing. This is why they are so unwelcome in most towns and villages. I can't blame anyone for not wanting that behaviour in their area.

Sadly I think the majority of people have had multiple bad experiences PaperSeagull

Around here we have one permanent site which hasn't been any more trouble than any other group of homes but in the past 5-6 year there have been upwards of 20 occasions of other travellers setting up on park/public land and only once has the group made any effort to contain their mess to one easy to clear up section of the land, all the rest have left it spread about everywhere as a very clear 'fuck you' to local people.

I really want to think it is a minority that causes trouble but that is hard when the evidence points the other way.

AndThat,

The specific group of people who are currently in your area are clearly behaving extremely unpleasantly.

However, if I based all my opinions of white people on one gang of drunken youths I happened to encounter in town one night ... or perhaps on a group of football hooligans ... then my opinion of white people would be very negative.

It is possible to absolutely condemn the behaviour of a single group of people, without making any generalisations about a wider ethnic group.

Teacher, I think you're mistaking me for somebody else as I made no comment about halting sites. But I do think there should be more, and they should be better serviced with refuse collection.

We have various forms of social welfare for the sick, and I don't see why that shouldn't be extended to looking after halting sites a bit better. I'm sure financially it's as broad as it's long. Dealing with a small mess as it happens as opposed to then sending in specialist cleaning teams to deal with a bigger mess later.

But how often do people have positive interactions with travellers?

'well the travellers I've met have all behaved like this'

Replace 'traveller' with black/Polish/Pakistani/any other ethnicor minority group.

I hate these threads. So depressing.

Tabitha - I work with travellers in the course of my job. The vast majority of interactions I have are positive.