AIBU to go and ask travellers to behave?

[3MenAndMe]

This may be longish..........
So they've descended onto our playfield,neighbouring with my house yesterday,I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw loads of caravans 7.30 in the morning and I didn't hear a thing(the main gate is next to my house,window open and was waking few times to my 10 week old)..

The police and thr council was there at 10am and said that they are at the process of removing them,however they are still here.Personally, I have nothing against them,their lives must be really hard....
BUT......

• I can't take my LO for a walk in the pram(it feels really intimidating
  

-I can't walk my dogs without a lead anymore(they have couple of small dogs who chased mine yesterday,I have the feeling they are not vaccinated etc.)
-My older boys usedto play there with their mates,riding bikes and I just feel it is not safe anymore

BUT THE WORST is the noise (music in the car till 5am),constant souting,lack of respect towards residents,shitting everywhere and coming to my house at 9 pm asking for flipping lighter (or just checking who is in the house).

Sorry for the rant,I'm a bit sleep deprived and it makes my PND worse...

[SilverApples]

Don't worry about the gas, they've been using it for years to cook and light with. They know what they are doing.

[mrsjay]

we caravan for holidays the gas is fine it wont explode ,

[ShellyBoobs]

Be very careful about approaching them, OP.

Travellers descended upon the town closest to us, last month.

Local news report

The damage and mess left behind was unbelievable - I saw it myself when visiting a friend who lives there.

The sports field surface is absolutely ruined - collections are underway to pay for repairs.

The cost of cleaning up the mess is in the the thousands and will have to be paid for by council tax payers.

Worst of all, the field concerned is the local hospital's designated landing area for the air ambulance so that had to be diverted elsewhere.

Still, if it's part of someone's traditions and culture.

[Thymeout]

Yes - I saw the Channel 4 prog, too.

What got me is that the Irish Irish Traveller criticising the English Irish Travellers for the 'grabbing' custom was blaming the girls for being grabbed, not the boys for grabbing them.

[FrigginRexManningDay]

I have no idea whether they were travellers or not but the laws are there,its that the laws are not enforced.

Its traditionally a very mysogenistic culture so the girls would be blamed for being grabbed.

[Dobbiesmum]

Now I have had a run in with a traveller family and it went fine, granted we were at a festival, in a tent on a farmers field, I was out here>>> pregnant at the time, it was around 3am and a large family rocked up music blaring, engines going, that sort of thing.
Poor sods were confronted by a large stomach screaming at them to shut up and respect the family camping rules... And they did..
The next morning one of the women came over and apologised for the noise, they had come onto the wrong field as it was so dark. They stayed where they were and were actually really nice, just a bit noisy.

[dufflefluffle]

their lives must be really hard....

Why???

[saintlyjimjams]

Some travellers moved onto a farmers land near us. They didn't seem in any hurry to leave so he put a sign up saying muck spreading would commence on date. They moved on.

Don't approach them OP, but do keep on at the council.

[lljkk]

They have much lower life expectancy than the settled population, much higher infant mortality, insecure employment, low education, marginalised by society. I think a lot of that is hard.

[SilverApples]

That's the thing about having freedom of choice when living in a free society.
You get to choose how you live and whether or not you access the services available.

[saintlyjimjams]

I've only had close contact with travellers once. For a very short period of time. They had been flooded out of their site and were being housed in the four star hotel where the boys have swimming lessons. (Sorry that's a bit Daily Mail but it's to demonstrate how there was a big change from the usual quiet lessons) I have never spoken to the boys about travellers, they have never seen tv shows or anything about them. They have no concept of travellers at all.

On the way home:

'Mummy why were those children so badly behaved? One kicked me and they were swearing and one tried to jump on my head'
'Why was there a baby with chickenpox next to the pool?'
'Why was there a dirty nappy open next to the pool'
'Why were the children ignoring everything they were told'.

Anyway I tried to explain the idea of travellers without being racist or rude, but they were aghast at what they had seen (it was CHAOS - the kids were running around as a gang in a small space and the baby had very severe chickenpox and the nappy was gross, & the person on the desk from the hotel was practically passing out from stress & fielding complaints and trying to get them to behave).

Ds2 settled with commenting that he thought he was sometimes badly behaved but those kids had been really badly behaved.

DS3 asked whether they went to school and I had to admit I had no idea, although I said I thought some did, but depended on how often they moved. Does anyone know? This group live on a settled site.

[Nancy66]

The children usually have some schooling but tend to leave at around 12 or so

[saintlyjimjams]

Thanks Nancy. I actually really struggled with the conversation with the kids because I know so little about travellers & I wanted to explain without being racist. (The two of them have a severely autistic brother, so they're not freaked out particularly by unusual behaviour in public - & it has to be above a certain level for them to even notice but I was just stumped as to how to justify/not justify it or what to say really)

[ThingsThatMakeYouGoHmmmmmmmmm]

Wow, all the Claire in the Community types must be off lentil weaving.

Normally they turn up to say they personally know many travellers who pay tax, nic, and do a lot of charity work.......

[ProfYaffle]

"There's a piece of land near me which I drive past every day coming home from work. Recently travellers moved on and I immediately thought 'here we go, the place will be trashed in no time'. However driving home one night I could see they'd piled up their bin bags in a pile ready for collection. A couple of days later the bags had gone. This happened again a few days later and then a day or so after that the travellers had gone and there was no rubbish in sight. I was quite shock, after years of bad experiences with them had I finally witnessed a decent group? "

This is largely my experience too. We have a lot of common land around here and the travellers turn up regularly, stay a few weeks and move on. They leave neat piles of bin bags at the edge of the road and the council come and pick them up. No idea what happens toilet wise I'm pleased to say!

[ThingsThatMakeYouGoHmmmmmmmmm]

Yep, we've got the same sort of deal going where I live.

It's called refuse collection, and we pay a lot of council tax for it.

[sashh]

Also, in Scotland, each local authority has to provide a site for travellers, with water and power. Is this not the same in England?

One of the many things Thatcher's government abolished.

ProfYaffle
That's sounds like Gypsies (Romani), they dig a ditch and fill it before they leave. They are proud not to leave a mess.

[mrsjay]

I know 4 traveller women not irish travellers and the one of them had a secondary education but she left at 15 , the others finished primary 7 which i think is really sad although one woman went to college in her 40s

[Mollywashup]

i wish they would move near MPs see how long they would put up with it instead of ordinary people

[SubliminalMassaging]

They have much lower life expectancy than the settled population, much higher infant mortality, insecure employment, low education, marginalised by society. I think a lot of that is hard.

And all of those things can easily be changed but the change has to come from within.

[lljkk]

For them those changes mean losing their culture & identity. It wouldn't matter to me but I understand most people are irrational about keeping cultural identity.

How in the world do the parents get away with children leaving school at 12?? I bet if I let DC bunk off from 12yo that the authorities would make my life Hell.

[SubliminalMassaging]

What good is anyone's culture or identity if it doesn't fit in with the way society in general is run? There are plenty of communities who have different cultural expectations to the mainstream populace but they have to adapt and compromise to an extent or they will not survive in the modern world.

The authorities bend over backwards to make sure these people can access healthcare and education but they need to be met halfway or nothing can change. As far as I can see the Travellers are all take and no give.

[SilverApples]

Your last sentence is appallingly racist and I have reported it.