Travellers taking over recreation ground

I remember the old Tinker being guest of honour at this very rural area I was visiting. People gathered to admire his work and he worked SO fast with very few tools and his hands. The finish was perfect.

I must have known at the time that I was seeing something important because although I was very young but I must have paid attention as I remember it clearly and I remember the older people telling me about how the Tinkers used to come to their houses when they were young to mend their things.

Can I ask, in all seriousness why their homes are immaculate but they don't have toilets?

I remember well the repairs tobuckets, butts and even saucepan.
It involve two metal disks, one inside, one outside with washers in between, they never leaked until the metal around them started to wear thin and then they had to be "chucked".
I also remember the tinker who came on his bike to sharpen the knives,he turned the whetstone by pedalling his bike, we kids loved to watch, things were so simple then , but imagine now being so poor you had kettles and sacepans mended because you couldn't afford new ones.

I found this oldbatty

“So you will find no sinks in Gypsy caravans because these could be for mixed use - for washing the body and for washing crockery. Similarly Gypsies will not have toilets inside their caravans- which they call trailers- because the trailer must be kept pure like the body's inside.”

Honestly not being horrible, I too have some limited experience of working with travellers, but surely they can't just go to the toilet wherever they want?

The sites all have toilet blocks old batty. It's the travelling that is an issue. When it's known a large number of travellers are to arrive in an area, those toilets used at festivals and so on are installed. That's what happens during the Appleby Horse Fair. Sadly, the sites traditionally used by travellers are left needing a total clear out. Much like festivals to be honest. At festivals, people often either burn or simply leave their tents, wellies and so on. At least the gypsies take their caravans with them.

www.gypsy-traveller.org/

This is both interesting and informative.

very interesting. I know two traveller girls, one had jet black hair, the other strawberry blonde, both with the Irish accents. Nice girls.

because the trailer must be kept pure like the body's inside
Interesting - I wonder how many have seen any inside bits of bodies?

Several of the travelling familiez I knew were ' born again' Christians. They feared abduction of their children by 'gorga' just as gorge fear abduction of their children by gypsies. We have more in common than we think!

Re no toilets:

The iconic old decorated rounded wagons were just that: decorated status symbols!

They weren't even originally slept in. Tents/shelters were pitched alongside for sleeping

Some of that may linger with keeping the modern caravans good for show

Quite right Annsixty, it became shameful to NEED a Tinker, it meant you were too poor to buy new, and that shame was transferred onto the Tinkers and they became hated when they were once welcome and respected.

We (settled people) used to have a much more symbiotic relationship with Travellers and partly shunned them to distance ourselves from our own sort of lower caste backgrounds:

A lot of settled were seasonal travellers: seasonal farm work etc. Labourers etc. But with social mobility the settled lower classes could become more settled and rejected their nomadic
connections as they moved "on up".

Our more positive interactions with the travelling community have been lost as we prefer shiny new from shops to more old fashioned barter and trade, I wonder if we will try to go back to it with brexit and global environmental crisis etc? And whether THEY will have US back?

I think they'll weather the unstable future we're facing better than us anyway!

I used to think travellers and gypsies were very romantic. Not any more. The children leave education at 11 and the virgin girls are married as soon as possible, to spend their lives subjugated to their husbands.
They treat their horses and dogs appallingly,chained up on waste ground, abandoned when no longer needed. Six tiny foals were recently left on a beach. Rescue places are inundated with travellers’ cast-off horses.
They want nothing to do with ordinary people, who might be less prejudiced if the travellers were less of a problem.

Watermeadow, I don’t seek to minimise the concerns and criticism you raise about some travellers. It does seem u fair though to put every traveller into the same very negative group. It’s some travellers, not all. Some white British settled peopke behave shamefully. Some, not all if us.

Its difficult to overcome the attitude to education when the travelling families that do want to access education face so many barriers and prejudice. It is for sure an issue, particularly for girls. There are two aspect to it though: THEIR cultural barriers but also the barriers settled society put up against their engagement in mainstream life.

Puppy farms exist because the settled community, in general, have a cultural preference for inbred disabled show breeds. Travellers prefer hardier breeds as a generalisation. I would say that as a general group, settled people treat dogs terribly, not caring enough where they come from or the painful effects of breeding for the preferences of settled people, but so long as they "pamper" them once they own them (often by supporting puppy farming and awfully cruel breeders) THEN they feel superior to travellers who chain up and work their hardier breeds that get ill less....

....Im not convinced that as GENERAL groups, there is a moral superiority there with settled pet owners...

The Irish traveller families I knew reached the conclusion school to age 13 - 14 had become necessary for their children. Schools that serve areas with housed or travellers on specified sights tend to be more willing to support their children and manage the issues arising from the June - September absence. Increasingly difficult for schools to be flexible and that will add to the drop out rate.

Ofstead and SATs dont help. Having "space" for travelling kids'll shatter their rankings unless they have a lot of support services funding which the ones that REGULARLY take travellers do, but others don't

Many of our traveller pupils were delightful clever kids! One of our TAs was from the settled site. Sadly she became very ill and died. Her funeral was an amazing tribute to the esteem her community held her in.

Oh I didnt mean they needed support because they are less clever, just that some schools can manage transient pupils without it affecting their scores and others can't. If the scores mattered less it wouldnt matter

I think your meaning was clear notanan. One of the areas I worked included the traveller site, the women’s refuge and the local hospital. Neither schools or children’s services had extra resources to help with the increased demands. Suggesting additional services or flexibility in expectations does not mean any criticism of travellers, gypsies, asylum seekers, children from homes where parents have learning difficulties, mental or serious physical health problems and so on. It’s just telling it like it is.

notanan sorry I was posting randomly..not in response to your post specifically. You are right the pressure some schools feel they are under does make them more wary of children and students who may need more help to learn than others. Terrible that schools are put in that position.