Big fat gypsy weddings

[LittleDonkin]

So looking forward to this!!!! I loved it last time!

Am turning into my mother. My first comment on seeing the little ones in the limo was 'Why have those children got no seat belts on?'

There is no hope for me.

We had a gypsy funeral in our town a few months ago, brought town to complete stop, never seen anything like it. The patriach of local family had died, they had the coffin on horse-drawn carriage, then behind a big flat-bed truck with all flowers on, and.... his widow. They literally heaved this 80-odd year old woman up there, and paraded her through town

MilaMae
Your post was deleted as I reported it for being racially abusive towards gypsies and travellers.I would have still reported it if you had put the word "many" in it,the use of the word "some" would have been more appropiate as I am sure that some of the gypsies and travellers are guilty of the accustions you made, as I am sure some of the settled population are as well.

The difference being Bubbles if the settled population engaged in "grabbing" and hauling their kids repeatedly out of school they'd be dealt with by the authorities. For some reason travellers are seen as being above the law.

Personally I don't see why if it's common knowledge that "grabbing" occurs at traveller weddings police aren't there in force to arrest and charge anybody forcing young teenagers into sexual activity such as we saw on said TV show. The fact it's just shown on prime time tv with a "hey we're travellers it's part of our culture" attitude is wrong.It's sexual assult however much you sugarcoat it.

The programme should be renamed "big fat Irish Traveller,s wedding" as the Romany gypsies that I am part of, do not use the "grabbing "technique,nor do we take our children out of school as is stated.Both ds1 and ds2 went onto further ed and ds3 will in sept.Dd is in year 8 at a selective grammar school,so please dont tar us all with the same brush.

Bubbles- that must be really infuriating. A bit like someone saying that they're making a film about the French and filming a load of German people!

The grabbing was absolutely shocking though. I can't believe that there's a community where that is considered acceptable behaviour, especially one with generally such strict moral codes. The whole 'girls as property' thing creeped me out.

My big question was how the hell do they all have such thick Irish (well, not quite Irish actually. I have family there and have never heard an accent quite like it) accents when most of them have grown up in England and rarely visit Ireland. Is the community really soooo insular that their family's accents are passed down undiluted? In most families the influence of the parents would be cancelled out by school, etc, so my friend with Scottish parents who grew up in London has a London-ish accent, not her parents' Scottish one.

OK sorry for upsetting you.

I agree my wording was too strong.

Also to be honest Irish travellers are the maj I've had to deal with. Our cc did class both Romany and IT as the same re funding but it was also wrong for me not to highlight the difference.

To be honest I really don't agree with the programme. It doesn't ask any questions that should be asked and I think it ends up making some serious issues seem OK when actually they're not.

Apologies again.

I am married to a Romany gypsy and I would certainly have an issue if my daughter wanted to dress like those girls and woe betide any lad who tried to "grab" my dd,he would have me,dh and her three brothers to deal with.

Apology accepted,thank you.

As I have previously said,dh who is a Romany gypsy refused point blank to watch it,stating its not my sort of people they are filming but Irish Travellers.

That's reassuring.

I also wonder if some of it is play acting for the camera,s, no doubt the travellers are being paid for the filming,cynical I know but thats what it left me thinking.

I wondered that too.

RibenaBerry you are exactly right about the accent. I'll bet most of the young Irish Travellers in Britain have never been to Ireland but for generations they have spent so little time with any of the wider British population that they all sound Irish - though the accent is a very specific Traveller accent.

I think it is correct to call them gypsies as gyspy is a generic term, like nomad. The Eastern Europeans are generally Roma, and Romany/Romani usually refers to the branch of Rom who are in the UK, Northern Europe, or America I think) and Irish Travellers are just another of the types of gypsy tribe, and the most common ones we encounter in the UK. Each distinct group has its own customs and habits.

I agree that for people who don't understand the difference this kind of programme could cause confusion, and lead to inappropriate generalisions.

I imagine the reason the Irish Travellers think Kosovan gypsies give them a bad name is that Eastern European gypsies have gleaned a reputation for petty street crime, pick-pocketeting and begging, (indeed aggressive begging is seen as a perfectly legitimate and acceptable way for them to 'make a living' and they have no sense of shame in it at all) whereas I am not aware that I.Ts are likely to indulge in any of these activities any more than a regular British citizen. Having said that, if you ask most proud and decent British Romanies, they would no doubt think that the IT's give them a bad name, as they has some dubious habits of their own.

Of course we shouldn't assume that all behave the same seth but a generalisation about any culture is just that - a generalisation. Not a pronouncement on 100% of the people. And as milamae said, when a very large proportion of them are doing things that don't follow the socially accepted norms of British society, then it is fair to say that in general they behave in a particular way.

Fellatio - when you're talking about a group that faces a massive amount of prejudice and discrimination (and there are plenty of people out there though hopefully not many on MN who think, for example, that no gypsies pay tax) it's probably a good idea to be more careful with generalisation, and to spell out that you just mean some members of a group not all of them, than you would normally.

If you were playacting for the cameras you would want to look good, so I think either the boys have no idea how bad they look or they are not play acting.

I don't think many people think that no gypsies pay any tax - just that they (especially non-settled ones) are rather less likely to pay the full amount of tax on all they earn than the average British citizen. I'd happily stick my neck out and stake money on that one. I bet that wedding dress maker gets paid in cash. In the tens of thousands. Who else is at liberty to do that in this day and age?

sorry, emphasis on pay instead of any there!

math do you think those boys even consider what they do to be wrong? if their lives really are as insular as is made out then grabbing is completely normal and probably in the teen scene a bit like street cred. i would imagine the boys are egged on by each other and it would probably be a case of the more grabs you have done, the better.

does anyone know if the boys stay on at school or do they leave early too?

No one was paid to take part. Production companies are not allowed to pay for documentary participation.

Expenses can be paid if receipts / payslips can be provided but that's it.

I think the previous one-off documentary showed the Traveller community in a rather one-sided rose-tinted light, (I remember feeling very frustrated that so many obvious questions were left unanswered) and I suspect this series is going to aim to redress the balance a bit, and give us some interesting food for thought. I've only watched half this episode so far, but I can already see the opportunity for some very ahem lively debate among those whose default setting is one of negative stereotyping, and those who want to embrace the culture and empathise with it, yet at the same time are and appalled at some of the things they are seeing, and are having a hard time processing their negative feelings about it.

Boo, my experience is only with the Irish Travller community so I can't speak for gypsies but, in my experience, boys rarely stay on at school much beyond 12 or 13.

There is a general attitide among Travellers that school doesn't teach things that are of use to Traveller boys, beyond being able to manage basic reading and writing. Boys tend to leave school to accompany Dad/uncles/older brothers in learning whatever the family business is (tarmacing, tree cutting, scrap dealing, tending to horses etc). They just don't see the relevance of conventional education and learnig subjects that are of no use in the real world.

Jaysus...would you look at the typos in that. I've a cheek to be commenting on the lack of educational achievement in others whilst producing a post that looks like my dog typed it. Blindfolded.

I doubt if they consider what they do is in any way wrong and I don't think they would understand what MNers would find offensive - they are just as conditioned as the girls are, to act in a hyper-macho way.

I'm pretty certain the boys don't spend much time in school either. Just as an aside, young teen behaviour among males across the board in some sections of society, in Ireland anyway, is very similar to the grabbing, imo. This kind of behaviour is not limited to Travellers.

It's a hard life:

Wiki article that conveys the realities well.

'It has long been recognised that the health of Irish Travellers is significantly poorer than that of the general population in Ireland. This is evidenced a 2007 report published in Ireland which states that over half of Travellers do not live past the age of 39 years. Another government report of 1987 found:
From birth to old age, they have high mortality rates, particularly from accidents, metabolic and congenital problems, but also from other major causes of death. Female Travellers have especially high mortality compared to settled women...'

'...The birth rate of Irish Travellers has decreased since the 1990s, but they still have one of the highest birth rates in Europe. The birth rate for the Traveller community for the year 2005 was 33.32 per 1,000, possibly the highest birth rate recorded for any community in Europe. By comparison, the Irish national average was 15.0 in 2007...

'...On average there are ten times more driving fatalities within the Traveller community. At 22%, this represents the most common cause of death among Traveller males. Roughly ten times more infants die under the age of two, while a third of Travellers die before the age of 25. In addition, 80% of Travellers die before the age of 65. Some 10% of Traveller children die before their second birthday, compared to just 1% of the general population. In Ireland, 2.6% of all deaths in the total population were for people aged under 25, versus 32% for the Travellers...'

A third die before they are 25? Christ on bike. WTF are they doing?

I knew a traveller lad who used to drink in the pub I worked in as a student. His mother was in prison for murdering his father because he used to beat her up. The lad himself had a fight with someone and had his hand cut open on a broken bottle. He stitched it himself.

He showed me. It was grim. He seemed quite fine with it all.

Dreadful stats.

What a hard life the infants must have. I wonder if medical intervention is frowned upon for heath conditions of Women and children. Genuinely interested.

math those are quite shocking stats. i wonder why their death rates are so high in early age compared to settled people.