Big Fat Gypsy Wedding 25/01

[CaveMum]

I can't see another thread for tonight's episode, so here we go.

Pull up a chair!

I'm with Girlafraid. I've no problem with specifics that people want to be judgey about (spray tans, dancing etc), but when the judgeyness spreads to assumptions about an entire ethnic group (e.g "How are they paying for these weddings?") I feel a bit uncomfortable.

The judgement was based purely on the fact that the husband to be was only a labourer and they were both sooo young - not on the fact of their cultural/ethnic heritage!

A wedding dress of that sort must be £5000! All I know is that we didn't have have that kind of budget for our wedding and we were both professional people with two sets of professionall parents helping out too!!

FD / GA I would agree.

And you know I would wear a similar frock to the girls if I needed to for carnival; and as carnival is in effect my culture if not in a way completely covered by definitions (friendships, traditions, lifestyle etc)- well if I can walk down certain places at certain times of the year wearing such dresses (and whilst I have not plenty do) and feel safe I can completely understand how they feel safe in their own culture too. Would I be happy with my a DD if I had one wearing that? probably not, but I don;t get to exist almsot solely in that world.
Small judgy Welsh towns being rather different. Back home, it's fun to sit and watch passers-through double taking at the get ups of people cycling about or wandering around at certain times of the eyars whilst the locals don;t notice a thing. magnify it a hundred times and you have last night's TV surely?

MM We spent more than double that. Not on dress, but that was choice- far fancier reception. I guess in the same way DH ahd an endowment from a very young age set to mature when we married, if your kids are part of such a culture you might have the same financial arrangements (I know Mum wasn;t but who knows who paid?). Mind, DH's was for a sports car LOL but he changed his mind.

OK point taken!

Somebody PLEASE tell me before i go mad, why if they are travellers do they feel the need to stay in one spot? Why dont they buy an estate of houses and put their trailer in their garden to live in? (I am not being horrible, i just dont get it! I did feel sorry for the ones being chucked off site)

Landrover Its because they no longer have the freedom to travel, strict laws prevent them from stopping in most places and there are less places to stop nowdays.

There are less council run permanent sites so they buy their own land which they rarely get permission to build granted for.

They cant win really.

Maybe the answer is that all british caravan sites should be made to have a certain amount of spaces available for travellers? ( A bit like new build sites now have to provide low cost housing?) That would also help intergration etc with community. I bet there would be plenty of room countrywide! Surely something has to be done! Incidentaly having thought of this its a great idea!

Bloody fab idea!

a little bit off topic, but dh said yesterday evening 'just imagine kate in a dress like that in westminster abbey in april...' :o

I remember when they did that mass 'clear out' of a site in Essex. The travellers owned the land. The locals hated it. A man whose land backed on to the site had put up two fences,had dogs and razor wire. He had never had any problems. He just did it because 'you know what they are like'.

They treated the travellers like scum and kicked them off their own land. The whole planning thing is red herring. People all over the shop get away with putting up the most hidious things.

I am not a traveller groupie, I dont know much about the community. But they seem no better or worse than any other group of people connected my race/culture/traditions.

After that clear out I went to the big local Asda. There was a family with small children in the car park. Forced to live in a bloody car park!

MNs is fairly mild in comparison with other well know parenting forums. On there it is entirely acceptable to peddle bollocks about travellers of the 'yeah my mate had a cousin whose auntie got robbed by a pikey - thats why I hate them'

Any objection gets the response 'oh oh i suppose you would be ok if a hundred of them came and camped in your front garden' as if that was game set and match

well said ThefirstMrsDeVere!

People all over the shop do not get away with putting up hideous things they get exactly the same treatment as it's the law. You get planning permission before you put structures up if you don't they get taken down.

Planning deps are notoriously picky,my dad got turned down for putting up one wall on his own property.I'm sure I rem Anthea Turner having to dig up a tennis court. I also know of countless other people who have been turned down for things they wanted to build-people who don't just concrete over green field sites then build whatever they damn well please.

I would also like to know why said travellers were being offered houses by the council but seemed to be able to spend a small fortune on dresses,limo hire,holidays in Spain etc,etc. One girl said she had 15 dresses a year at £300 each. My sister had to borrow a dress for her wedding. Sorry if you can afford to spend thousands on dresses you can afford to pay for your own rent.

I also find the whole getting the biggest and best dress highly distasteful,materialistic and greedy whichever culture it happens in.

MilaMae Sigh [rolls eyes]

Having a council property does not = free home

Many many people are social housing tenants but also work and pay full rent.

Yes reduced rent it's far more expensive to rent privately.

If said families need help with funding paying for house rental they should perhaps stop frittering money on hugely expensive dresses several times a year,limo rental,spray tan and holidays in Spain.

I don't have any help paying my mortgage and I certainly don't have the cash to spend £300 a dress 15 X a year on my dd.

But they do dont they?

Anthea Turner built her horrible tennis court because she assumed she would get away with it. She was unlucky,probably because soemone who didint like her grassed her up.

For every Anthea Turner tennis court tradgedy there are a hundred extensions, garages, loft conversions etc that get away with it.

People take the piss all the time.

And a council house isnt bloody free. Its not given to you its rented to you. Yes the rents are lower but doesnt that mean that private rents should be a hell of a lot lower so people can afford them? The majority of people would prefer to rent privately because they could chose where they lived instead of being shoved in a shit hole with a broken lift.

My entire wedding cost about £1000 but if other people want to spend ten time that on a neon pink ballgown its not my business.

FFS we are going to be paying for two bloody royal weddings this year and they wont be half the fun. AND they do get houses given to them, I am pretty sure they could afford the rent.

Have nothing very clever to add other than my fave bit ever being from last week:

'What theme are you going for for the hen night?'

'Spanish'

Then the thud - I had fallen off of my chair!

milamae who said they needed help with funding house rental?

You clearly dont know what you are talking about so just stop.

I think it's important to point out that this show is a snap shot of a culture not the norm. The traveller family that live outside Lincoln recycle scrap and do house clearances to earn money and (having been to visit in a professional capacity) I was astounded by the affluent nature of their homes (faux marble pillars and murals on the walls). Even if these families were offered housing it's not what they want in a lot of cases. Their families have travelled the UK for generations and the idea of living on a housing estate would be very strange to them. The one lady seemed quite wistful that they could no longer travel but they choose to live on the land they own instead but in caravans which they love.

But Mrsdevere - when people do "take the piss" and are found out, then the planning authority HAS to take action. Applied to Anthea orange Turner just the same as to illegal gypsy settlements.

Or do you take the view that if someone "takes the piss" then everyone should be able to?

I feel massive massive sympathy in some respects for the travellers who are made to move on. But I can also see that when they've bought a massive swathe of farmland (like they did in our borough) and then parcelled it off into smaller pitches with paths, walls, fencing, buildings, hardstandings, stables and so on - well why on earth should that be permitted when a tennis court built unlawfully, or extensions over and above the recognised threshold (both of which relate to existing residential development, aren't???

Why isn't this on 4 on demand!!!!!!!!!
DH is out, I've got a cup of tea and a slice of cake, ready to watch last night's episode, and it's not on!!!!!!

Must be due to be repeated some time this week...

twirlymum if you click on the bit below where it says New Series: My big fat gypsy wedding
then it lets you watch on 4OD.

Thanks wonderstuff is that on the computer? I'm trying to get it on the tv.

Yes on 'puter