My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding Channel 4

[sailorsgal]

Anyone watching.

I watched the last half hour and would also like to know more about the travelling community. My great grandparetns were travellers and I know a little about the culture (God, the cleanliness gene has certainly been handed down!) but not much.

I though the people featured came over well.

Tbh, the sexy dresses of the young women aren't really much different than those a lot of youngsters choose. I know I dressed in some, ahem, revealing outfits in my late teens. And of you go out og a weekend, you see girls dressed that way all the time.

TiggyR, Irish Travellers in general find the term gypsy to be fairly offensive, as it doesn't describe them, and its usually used as as pejorative.

I thought it was a fascinating insight into a culture / cultures I know little about. But I wanted to know what happens afterwards - does divorce happen in these communities?

Don't know if it was the editing, but Joan's wedding seemed strangely joyless - really at odds with the 'fairytale' dresses and so on. The fact she was so upfront and pragmatic about how the marriage was going to have ups and downs made me really sad. I'm sure it's good to be realistic, but on the wedding day you hope the bride and groom are just over the moon.

Hope it works out for her.

Yes before we get all misty eyed about the traveller lifestyle, my experience is that some of them cause huge amounts of mess and damage wherever they camp. Crystal palace park ( the top site) was covered in rubbish- building materials, old fridges, human waste .

Well I have just been sat in my garden enjoying a mid morning coffee and croissant only to witness a rambler having a crap. I regularly have to witness ramblers in their bobble hats relieving themselves, leaving gates open. They are the curse of society. I blame Janet Street Porter myself.

This is on a different scale. It may be your view outside the window may, one day, be scores of caravans, noise, rubbish everywhere, horses, quad bikes.

Part of the problem is a shortage of legal
places to camp so they will settle illegally somewhere until served with notice. Certainly in north Kent it can cause alot of bad feeling on both sides.

Obviously not all travelling folk are like this, and I too find their culture fascinating. But I can also see why they are viewed with such suspicion.

I appreciate is on a different scale, you may not be doing this but many people build up a picture of the gypsy community based on a few isolated incidents.

I agree it is a lack of legal sites caused in part by NIMBYs. I would not want my beautiful view spoiling by a gypsy site so will hold my hands up to hypocrisy.

I live up the road from the site of the Dorset steam fair so I know about scores of caravans, noise and rubbish. Many of my friends growing up were from a gypsy background as were a fair few of the pupils I taught in my previous school so I know how tensions have arisen.

I think there have been attempts to build bridges through the gypsy council and local MP's. And yes it is the NIMBY attitude that stops new sites being built. Also some of the sites are in awful places - motorway unperpasses, next to train lines. I don't blame them fir not wanting to be there.

I most certainly am not trying to say that all travellers are like this - as the programme showed, there are good and bad. But I was very upset at the state of our park after they were evicted. It was horrendous.

smallorange - Crystal Palace Park was a protest site (against the multiplex) not actually a traveller site though, wasn't it?

I'm not talking about the protest against the multiplex- that was a different thing entirely.

What I'm talking about happened a few years later. Not even that many caravans but a huge amount of crap left behind.

Am at the antisocial ramblers, wastwinsetandpearls! I think you should definitely email Janet SP.

We are in a rambler hotspot, particularly first sunday of the month. On a sunny day dd offers out drinks and cupcakes.

The not closing gates is the worst thing as the sheep and sometimes even the horses can wander out onto the road.

For some reason we tend to attract ramblers who shout. So I will be in my garden reading enjoying the view and birdsong and then some shrieking harpies will go past in day glo anoraks and suspiciously clean wellies.

I think there is some confusion over whether or not gypsies are dirty, or actually very clean! I think this arises from them having almost obsessive cleanliness inside their caravans, but little respect for/interest in the outside environment - especially if they are upping sticks and moving on after a week or so. Any rubbish they have accumulated just gets chucked outside for the council to deal with - so long as their vans are spotless they are not bothered. I'm sure if you visit a permanent site (especially an unofficial one that was set up with no planning, because the land will be owned by a gyspy who is taking rent, rather than a council approved/funded site) the outside environment will be cleaner/better kept because they can't just leave it behind for someone else to worry about.

A link Bubbles4 and others might find interesting
It is from the DM though! here

Experience has taught me this!
They steal,pay no taxes, con you and want to fight at any opportunity.. No respect for our society at all. The question is why should we tolerate theirs ??

Like others have said, it just seems to be the way they are. I don't think they dress their children like that because they want them to be sexy, it's just the small child version of what the others wear. The little boy was wearing a waistcoat and flat cap in one shot. DId you see the little girl in brightly coloured crinoline? she looked like a Victorian child. It seems to me that the only only future these girls have is to be married by 16, so their parents are starting the marketing early.
As for the dancing, they learnt it off the telly didn't they! I thought the children they interviewed were gorgeous, especially the little boy at the end with the brolly.

This is cut from a complaint I have submitted to ofcom and channel 4. I hope this at least changes a few peoples perspective.

I am an English Gypsy woman and these are a few facts....

English Romany Gypsies and Irish travellers are two very separate groups. Gypsies are first recorded in English history in 1605 it is clearly established through linguistic study and documented history that we came from India - the term Gypsy came from the mistaken belief we were ?Gyptian. Irish Travellers speak a language Cant or Gamon and linguistic study has discovered the root of this language as Celtic, English history first places them in England in the twelfth century and in Ireland as early as the fifth century.

Ethnic origin is hundreds perhaps thousands of years apart and geographically many thousands of miles apart, as much in common ethnically as an Aboriginal and an Eskimo. Of course both of our groups are nomadic, have cultural similarities and live in trailers so may as well lump us in together, we certainly face the same prejudices.

English Romany Gypsies are a distinct group that this country recognise legally and have done since 1989. Irish Travellers were recognised by British law in 2000 so we are legally 2 separate ethnic groups. The channel 4 broadcast has chosen to use the word gypsy in the title when the word traveller would have been far more appropriate as there is very little representation of Gypsies as most of the participants are of Irish Traveller status, I would guess 80- 90 %.

In case law we are referred to as Gypsies and Travellers, Gypsy is not the correct interpretation of Irish Travellers.

The legal race relations ethnic terms are
English or Welsh Romany Gypsies
Irish Travellers
Scottish Gypsy Travellers

There are two legal definitions of Gypsy.

1. Gypsies as a recognised ethnic minority group under the race relations act.
2. Under Planning Law which classifies gypsies and travellers together as cultures of nomadic or caravan dwelling whatever their race or origin etc.

Clearly the planning law is irrelevant to this broadcast being ?a glimpse into our lives? this falls under the race relations act.

Government estimates for Irish Travellers and Gypsies in Great Britain is around 120,000 but this is based on the caravan count only, accepted general opinion puts it between two and three hundred thousand (as many English gypsies are settled and live in houses). Again most estimates agree on the number of Irish Travellers to be at between twenty and thirty thousand. So for arguments sake we round these figures off ?

280,000 English Romany Gypsies
20,000 Irish Travellers

This means that Irish Travellers represent a mere 6.6% of the population of us all in together. This is why the programme should not have the word gypsy in the title. The programme has used our name for sensationalist purposes or out of poor research and I?m not sure what?s worse. This has left the viewers with the mistaken belief that this is representative of the Gypsy culture.

Everyone who watched that programme will now believe that they are watching Gypsies and the legal definition of this ethnic group is English Romany Gypsies. The programme is making sweeping statements about courting practise and is reporting as fact something that is not true. It is portraying English gypsies as Catholic, we are not if you wish to make a generalisation we are predominantly protestant, Church of England.

This programme is not responsible broadcasting. It has reported as fact that part of our courtship is a ritual known as grabbing this is where a young girl is held against her will until she manages to escape or kiss the boy in which case she is his and the couple will be married, the show broadcast such a scene. We have been here four hundred years and I?m sure the populace at large as would I, and the hundreds of English Romany Gypsies that make up my family, have heard of such a custom. The only courtship/wedding customs involve jumping the broomstick and that is recorded in English country folklore so why isn?t this grabbing ritual? Anyone watching will now assume this is a custom practised by gypsies in this country due to the title.

This may be a custom practised by a small number of Irish Travellers in this country. I personally do not know any Irish Travellers to check this with but I?m sure advisory boards and outreach programmes will be able to clarify this.

A Gypsy or Irish Traveller woman is twenty times more likely to lose a child, the infant mortality rate is 3 times higher than the UK average, research by the children?s society report 63% of our children experience being bullied or attacked and life expectancy in traveller women is estimated to be 15 years lower than the UK average. The documentary didn?t mention any of this and simply sensationalised how very young girls from both our groups get married without exploring the reasons why.

The most disenfranchised ethnic minority in the country who rarely get represented, compared to other minority groups, and channel 4 chooses to commission a documentary to ridicule us.

How many families is this programme based on, from the looks of things a handful at most thirty or forty families and this programme has stated as fact based on the word of a minor in an interview that this is standard courting practise.

I understand that it is the mistaken belief of society that we are the same thing but we are not. Surely as a broadcaster Channel 4 has a responsibility to represent us accurately. Would Channel 4 commission a documentary to investigate the lives and courtships of Indians and use 80 ? 90 % Pakistani families? No, but ethnically these groups have at least a shared heritage and are only separated by religion.

Our groups do not have a shared ethnic heritage neither do we share a religion but again one third of the country is racially prejudiced to us so why should we warrant accurate representation.

The most frustrating part is that gypsies and travellers are the most marginalised group in the UK (this was identified by the government in 2007). A mori poll in 2007 found that 1 in 3 people admit to prejudice about gypsies. I wonder how many admit that about black or other ethnic groups. We are the last acceptable form of prejudice and racism in this country and the worst part is that we are an easy target. I say this because we have the lowest literacy levels of any group in the UK.

Reference to Episode2
If a programme wants to explore the problem of sites and pitches why not mention this recent finding from the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
?it estimates that the entire population of Gypsy and Traveller population could be legally accommodated if as little as one square mile were allocated for sites in England?.

Emska - thanks for clarifing all of that. It helps. I may not be in the majority, but I think that the C4 programmes gave me much better understanding of the travelling community in general and the problems it faces.

No wonder they celebrate their culture so seriously as it is all they have to cling to in their uncertain lives - apologies if that sounds patronising - it isn't meant to. I remember how well St Andrews night is celebrated by expats who wouldn't give two hoots about it if they still lived in the UK. Just clinging to shreds of culture, really.

I also find it odd that the world seems to believe the words of a 15 year old as gospel that she spends $300 on a dress fifteen times a year. Probably not true and probably not representative, but good TV.

I think the C4 show made the evictions seem inhuman, and the difficulties of living with that threat very clear. It was heartbreaking, really.

No real conclusion, but it was very enlightening. I am most impressed by the high moral standards of the females, maybe for the wrong reasons, but nonetheless, appearances are obviously deceptive and it is nice to be proved wrong about preconceptions of how someone looks.

Emska, brilliant post with sound and honest information,my great grandfather was a highly skilled Tinker from Co.Wexford who eventually travelled to Belfast to find work in the Shipyard building the Olympic class liners including the Titanic, he was always treated as second class and although a skilled metalworker he only received half the wages of other metalworkers doing the same job. The prejudices have always been there and sadly still remain today mainly down to a lack of understanding and knowledge of travelling folk, they have always been treated as outsiders so that is the main reason they remain so solitary and isolated from the rest of the population.

Agree that it is a brilliant post Emska.Well done for taking C4 to task.

My family have been close to Romany gypsies in the past and none of what the tv shows rings true at all.

Thank you for that Emska. I know very little, if at all, about this and was fascinated by the program but found it very uncomfortable viewing because of the obvious "let's all point and laugh" angle the program-makers have gone for. Your post has been very informative to me, I hope all the people who commented on the threads about this program read your post.

Emska- who are the Didacoy?

Where I grew up (edge of New Forest)there was a large caravan dwelling, nomadic group who we referred to as Didacoy. I recall being told they were 'Irish tinkers'.

Or is it Didicoy?

Erubus, Tinkers travel alone though they may travel with thier families but never in groups, they are skilled metalworkers who used to travel around repairing farm machinery or anything mechanical and making pots,pans, sharpening etc at private houses. The term "Tinker" is often used to describe a gypsy but Tinkers have not existed since the 1940/50s.