Dale Farm et al

[AnneWiddecomesArse]

A continuation...

Why thank you, Anne :)

Perry, do you not think that, given your vast experience, you should at least be able to tell the difference between Gypsies and Travellers? They look different, they speak a different language, and they have different traditions.

It's like comparing a cat and a dog and getting the 2 confused.

(apologies for the cat/dog, it is a random example and I couldn't think of anything else)

A teacup and saucer perhaps?

Oooh thanks AWA. I was fascinated by the other thread and was most disconcerted to see that it was full.

I know there is a difference between people from the Roma tradition and Travellers but often people call Travellers gypsies and often Travellers can call themselves Gypsies.

I think that it's unfair to call into question my experience wholly but whatever makes you happy.

sarah that post was the same effectively as others posted by myself and math earlier

and the people of Essex have been around for a long time too - so how come you think they should have fewer rights than travellers? Are they less deserving?

You need to have a chat with bubbles Perry. She will tell you the difference.

Also to be fair I never said that my experience was vast but that my experience was of the Traveller community and it was broadly positive.
Not entirely but broadly

I know that the Roma are still treated and considered to be terrible in the rest of Europe. Which goes against your experience.

Why does this have to become a personal attack. I am just offering a differing opinion.

perhaps because they are not [from a particular cultural or ethic group that you happen to sympathise with]

I wonder if the travellers accept that they will have to go now or if there are plans about where they will go next?/ I presume that when they pitched up at Crays Hill, they had looked into the area?

Yes, but we're not in Central/Eastern Europe. We're talking about Essex. Which is quite a civilised and enlightened part of the world.

Apart from the tendency for plastic tits and orange skin...

Perry, you piously called everyone elses' experience into question

"...I would ask you all how much experience you really have of living with travellers."

then set yourself up as an authority, claiming to have worked with travellers and travelled with them, and been among them for ten years

and then you asked how to tell the difference between Roma families and travellers

you are a fraud

Night Ghost, everyone.

Perry, with the greatest respect, you are making a teeny tiny bit of a tit of yourself.

I could give you a quick definition of the difference between Romany & Traveller; but I'll just get deleted.

As ever on this thread sarah that is your personal pov.

TBH most people on here have no idea about what a Traveller is compared to a gypsy or a Roma

When you spoke of Romany gypsies I was tbh a little sceptical as I have seen travellers try to pass themselves off as Romany gypsies as it gives them a more romantic slant.
People's immediate thoughts of Romany gypsies are of painted horse drawn caravans and lovely helpful folk. Their views on Travellers are very different and actually very often their views on Roma are very very different.
It is all about perception and not often about reality and that was what I was trying to get at.
When asked some travellers say they are gypsies. FACT
Some try to ally themselves to the Roma

I have loads of experience of the Traveller community in Ireland not in England. I do not claim to be an expert and never have
I do have a differing viewpoint and therefore seem to be up for sneering and attack

wholly

I asked if most people had had experience of Travellers as so often people form opinions from word of mouth or reading nonsense on the internet or in the media
Not to set myself up as an expert. I apologise if that is how it came across.

My personal experience of some naughty people:
I was BF late at night. I heard a noise. I looked out the bedroom curtains.
There were three men around my car. The car alarm went off. I 'phoned the police 999. Then I watched them smash the driver window and one of them got in the driver's seat. Then the alarm stopped. Then I watched them trying to nick it. They pushed it up the road. They obviously failed. Then I watched them take all my wheels and prop it up on breeze blocks in the middle of my road.
I saw the reg number and the white van had a slogen. I reported this to the police. They didn't attend until the next day (999?).
They said the plate was false and not registered to anyone in the UK.
When I said that I knew the people and the van I was advised that it would be better to "just claim on the insurance; you don't want anything nasty to happen".
My car was stuck in the middle of the road for 48hrs. I was on a no thru' road and the farmer at the end of the road couldn't get his milk tanker down. I'm not sure about his loss.

That was my first experience.

WhollyGhost, what do you mean the Travellers all look different from each other? Do you mean in contrast to, say, the Chinese?

AWA, I do not think I need a history tutor.

sounds awful and really frightening AWA
why did the police act in that way do you think? Did you complain?

Perry. The police reacted (or didn't) because (as one Officer advised me, they were scared ). They advised that they would not react fully to any incident without a "full combat unit". A full combat unit was deemed to be required as there were firearms involved.

Math. I'm terribly sorry but I think you do; you need to revisit at the very least. You have no cogniscence of the Catholic position. Any Historian will tell you the same.

Look I know that this is a little sad of me but I do take exception to being told I am making a fool of myself. By saying that I can't tell the difference between a traveller and a gypsy by looking at them as I can't tell the difference in cant shelty or romany languages which really marks the difference these days I was being straightforward..it isn't clear cut.

So I had a look on a site written by the GRT community and this was what they had to say.

Irish Travellers also have a cultural root in
another country, Ireland, but most Irish Travellers in Britain
were actually born in Britain, although they may have a lot of
family in Ireland.
The myth of the pure bred Romani (or real Gypsy)
romanticised by Victorian folklorists is no more than a myth.
Romani academics such as Professor Ian Hancock and
Doctor Brian Belton have revealed that there never was a
race of pure bred, dark-skinned nomads and exposed a far more interesting truth: five
hundred years after arriving in Britain, the Romanies of Britain today are much as they always
were ? a hybrid nation made up of the descendents of original Indian nomads, sturdy
beggars, landless poor and the economically displaced. In many ways, Gypsies and
Travellers are Britain?s internal refugees. And communities like Romani Gypsies and Irish
Travellers have always lived alongside and inter-married with each other.
From blonde-haired, blue eyed scrap metal dealers to dark-skinned cockneys; Gypsy looks
are as a diverse as the Romani language itself, a mixture of English slang and Asian words
more closely related to Sanskrit than Hindi.

The second experience of naughty people:
I was again breast feeding my child. I heard noises at about 1.30 am.
I watched them clear my garden and shed. They came equipped with bolt cutters etc. My bench, my table and chairs, my strimmer, lawn mower; they even took the pump out of my pool
Again I 'phoned the police.
I said that I would recognise them in a line up (we had security lights).

You really don't want to do that luv. It would make life really difficult for you.

"Yes, but we're not in Central/Eastern Europe. We're talking about Essex. Which is quite a civilised and enlightened part of the world."

Are you being serious?! If so, that's exceptionally offensive. Ever been?

It's awful AWA you must have been terrified especially given the police response.

We have the same sort of thing go on here in NI with paramilitaries. In some areas it simply doesn't matter what occurs because you know that you will get in more trouble for reporting the theft to the police than accepting it. Except here reporting it to the police will also see you put out of your house.

It doesn't make it right or less frightening or more acceptable.

It makes it harder though that it came to your doorstep rather than you moving into it.
I think then that the only answer must be that we provide a decent number of sites for travellers with decent facilities and a number of nomadic sites also so that they are adequately provided for.
If the GRT community was adequately provided with sites or the ability to buy brown field sites themselves then I would be much more able to stand behind the removal of them.

It does sound like a terrible experience

Mathanxiety - it is not difficult to tell the difference between Irish travellers and Roma gypsies - you know that. For all I disagree with you, you clearly do know what you're talking about.

PerryCombover - If you had truly had so much personal experience you could tell the difference between Roma and Travellers. Yes, they may all call themselves gypsy at times, but so what? The Romany which you mention above, are another group again. Your ignorance is astounding.

People who have lived alongside travellers can recognise them, even though their physical appearance is no different from the rest of the population. They are obvious because of their mannerisms, their accent, their style. But you'd have to have had experience of them to see it.

If you really had " loads of experience of the Traveller community in Ireland" you'd know this. There are plenty of Roma gypsies there too. Your reading of websites does not make you an expert, as has been pointed out, it's just let you make a tit of yourself.

Why are you fighting the corner of a group of people you know nothing about? If you care about them, why not take the time to learn about them?

"Except here reporting it to the police will also see you put out of your house."

so, in the UK, you report thefts to the police and they put you out of your house? Is that story like your ten years spent with the travellers at Appelby (not the one in England where the travellers go, but an obscure one in Ireland, since your experience of travellers is in Ireland, not England).

Your trouble there, AWA, seems to be police who are not really doing their job as they are too fwightened.