I have been rather lazy this summer with regard to writing blog posts. No excuse! Well, now I hope to make up for lost time ...
When I found the theme for my
first novel, published in 2008, people did not talk about Gypsies much. A
secret world indeed! Occasionally we may have glimpsed a group that turn up briefly to
set up camp in their trailers, only to disappear as quickly as they came. I
know for a fact there were few books – apart from quite ‘chewy’ academic tomes; these bibliographies can be found at the end
of the printed versions of Gypsies Stop tHere and No Gypsies Served. The only
Gypsy memoir I could find at the time was Dominic Reeve’s books which give an
account of life on the road fifty years ago.
My research moved from text books
to real life, going on sites, talking to Gypsies, Travellers, and people who
work with them. I also found out more by going to events that displayed their
culture, history, music, dance, food and wagons and knew I had found something
different and I wanted to tell people about what I had uncovered – through a
readable novel.
I was called upon to speak on BBC
Surrey radio whenever there was a local issue concerning Gypsies as I had by
then some understanding of the culture clash, the planning laws and so on. Before,
I did not know anything about the council-run authorised sites and the reasons behind
the more visible unauthorised sites that regularly upset local people.
Then a while later, came Channel
4’s My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding – wrongly named as it did not portray Romany
Gypsies but in fact was about Irish Travellers. (See Gypsy or Traveller? 12 Feb 2010) The programme's main slant was one aspect of their lives, the over the top dresses
and extravagant wedding days. More important
issues like poor health and education, shorter than average lifespan, and weary
struggle to find a place to be, all the legislation that over the years has
criminalised their way of life – such things hardly got a look in. See below
for link to some of my comments.
I had put forward a proposal to
the radio station for a programme to embrace the lives of Gypsies and
Travellers in a more realistic way, offering my help in providing potential sources
of information. I did not hear back but later Channel 4 came up with their
series and I do wonder if there was some link. Had someone passed on this
proposal which had by then been changed out of all recognition? I have no way
of knowing.
Now we have Gypsy Kids – Our Secret World on Channel 5 and it is refreshing to hear these happy, healthy, articulate children talking
to us directly about what it is like to be a Gypsy and how proud they are, one young man set on becoming a pilot. The
immaculate appearance of their homes, the sites and themselves turns
upside down any old-fashioned notion or prejudice that Gypsies are ‘dirty.’
Whilst some of us ‘Gorgas’ might not approve of certain aspects of their social norms
– the limited educational and career opportunities accorded to girls even in this day and age, for example – on the
other hand you might say that it is understandable that they want to protect
their culture of strong family with a male provider. Women marry young, have children young and stay at
home (or travel, of course) to look after them, with little independence. If everyone is happy with that – and it seems many of
them are (perhaps not knowing anything different, some would say) it is hard to
criticise. Arguably, some young Mums in the wider world, juggling work and
under-fives might be a tad envious! By the way I apologise for getting into the
‘us’ and ‘them’ kind of narrative here – it’s hard not to sometimes.
What do you think? Daily Mail article about Gypsy Kids
Links to some of my past blogs
for further reading, if you are interested:
What has Changed for Gypsies and Travellers since 2010? (7 April 2015)
Another Grumble on Big Fat Gypsy Weddings (7 Feb 2011) – this was one of three posts on the subject, the first few sentences
of which gained a place in Letters to the Editor in The Guardian.
Two other posts were on 20 Jan
2011 and 11 Feb 2011 – my view changes as the series progresses. The 20 Jan and
7 Feb posts have interesting ‘comments’ from other people.
