Surrey Gypsy Traveller Communities Forum

It is bit of a mouthful, isn't it? But it does say exactly what it is. If you are interested in Gypsy issues but, like me, decided that the meeting in London would be an expensive trip unless you are funded by an organisation, then another October meeting may be for you. For some years now I have attended the Surrey Gypsy Traveller Communities Forum when I can, as an observer.

 

These meetings provide an excellent opportunity to gain an up to date understanding first-hand of what is going on, not just on the big, overwhelming issue of site provision.  As described on a flyer, the forum is ‘a public meeting for individuals, agencies, charities and voluntary groups to meet informally with members of the Surrey Gypsy Traveller Community.’ I have heard heart-breaking accounts from mothers of hardships endured by the Gypsy and Travellers communities, and frustrations of fathers who battle with the authorities to find a place for their family to live; as well as how the various agencies deal with difficult situations.

This meeting is covering the new regulations brought in under the Scrap Metal Act 2013. No doubt there will be divided opinions on this. Scandalous and scurrilous dealings in the industry must be curbed, but you can imagine how someone whose literacy skills are weak would feel when confronted with the bureaucracy here:  Scrap Metal Act 2013

Other perennial issues will also be debated – education, health, planning etc.

This meeting is free, open to members of the public, held at 10.00 am on Tuesday, 22 October 2013 at the Runnymede Civic Centre, Station Road, Addlestone, Surrey KT15 2AH (parking at Garfield Road car park).

By the way, as you’re here you may like to see a couple of lovely reviews that came about recently. A lady found me on Twitter and my books on Amazon, or perhaps the other way round.  Thank you JennCarol aka @JennyGaluschka on Twitter

'Art as an agent of social change' – a review of Gypsies Stop tHere

http://jenncarol.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/art-as-agent-of-social-change.html#!/2013/09/art-as-agent-of-social-change.html

'Who do you believe you are?' – a review of No Gypsies Served

http://jenncarol.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/who-do-you-believe-you-are.html

 

Perhaps I shall see you at the Forum meeting on 22 October!

Another Grumble on Big Fat Gypsy Weddings

I understand Channel 4’s aim to achieve high ratings. To suck in an audience that might ultimately consider more serious aspects of Gypsy and Traveller life and culture, you need to lighten up first. I get that. But at what cost? By sensationalising, then deliberately selecting and focusing on the more controversial things that ‘make good television’, the producers of this series have compromised on truth a step too far. The interest has brought out truly poisonous comments – yes I have seen them on Twitter too. Referred to in a TV guide as ‘gently mocking’, I find the voice-over so apparently benign as to border on sinister. Mocking and encouraging others to mock is more damaging than people perhaps realise and affects the lives of countless people trying to find accommodation, bring up their children and earn an honest living. Romany Gypsies are outraged and aggrieved that there is no distinction made between them and Irish Travellers. (I hope they do not mind me speaking for them.) Now they have seen the way TV has chosen to display the Irish Travellers, I doubt they will ever open up to reveal some of the truths about their own culture. And who can blame them? Romany Gypsies are, on the whole, proud to be called Gypsy. Irish Travellers are not generally referred to as Gypsies, which makes the title of the programme a nonsense – and harmful too. I did a post on this on 12 February 2010 – it is complicated and mistakes can easily be made. The Race Relations Act helped to bring about this confusion by lumping together the two groups into one ethnic group for purposes of legislation and rights pertaining to travelling people, or sedentary people with a heritage of travelling. Romany Gypsies, who account for a much higher percentage of this overall group than Irish Travellers, are so far removed from this picture we see on our screens, they are appalled and probably despair at the stupidity of non-Gypsies who watch it. I hope Romany Gypsies do not mind me speaking on their behalf; they are certainly speaking up for themselves too. You can see why Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month (June each year) keeps to its title, which it has to be said does not trip easily off the tongue. To reduce it to an umbrella term would be wrong. They are different and distinct groups of people – albeit with some similarities. From giving talks on the subject, I know all too well how difficult it is to get people to listen. People come armed with questions and opinions before even hearing another point of view – I am told the term for this is ‘cognitive dissonance’. Prejudice is another term for it. I do try to comment on this whole debacle in an even tone with facts and references to substantial reports, but underneath I am FURIOUS at the damage that this programme may have done. People are working hard to improve relationships between Gypsies and Travellers and non-gypsies, by fostering more understanding and knowledge. There is a huge wound that needs to be healed, not gouged out and left to fester. The more people are exposed to these negative portrayals, the less tolerance there will be for a people who by and large just want to care for their families and earn a living. Their overriding concern it to secure accommodation. The more others dislike and object, the more unauthorised encampments there will be and the more objections there will be, in an endless vicious circle. If the wider community could just stop a minute, regard Gypsies and Travellers as individual human beings, not object when a local council proposes a small site in their area, then the ‘mess and damage’ so often quoted against them might be consigned to history.

Making connections

School photos and old friends; TV programme The Young Ones; Gypsies and Travellers; and social networking. To use an awful but apt word – do you see the commonalty, or what links this hodgepodge together?
Last week I met up with three old school friends to visit our Grammar School for celebrations of its 400th year. When we were pupils we had no idea it was so ancient. An exhibition told us something of its history but it was the photos that grabbed us and made us all suddenly come alive as if we’d been injected with something possibly illegal, certainly rejuvenating. Able to reel off names of tennis players, football teams or the best part of an entire row of 1960s schoolchildren in one of those long roll black and white photos, how we laughed!!
Then my husband and I watched the BBC1 programme The Young Ones showing the energising effects of returning certain ageing celebrities to their hey-day, thereby revisiting their former talent. Forget the garish 1975 furnishings; that was unreal. But the joyful feelings of reliving younger days and a world to which they thoroughly belonged was very heartening to witness.
An ageing neighbour once said to me wisely, ‘The more you do, the more you can do!’ I certainly do not feel old yet but I shall remember all of this and fend off age for as long as is feasible. It is vital to enjoy the present and look forward to the future but dipping into the past can offer great therapy and, as this TV experiment showed, energy.
At Gypsy events where I have toddled along with my books, people from that community are constantly seeking out their past, their ancestors. ‘Are your books about Kay so-and-so?’ they will ask, unsure about the value of fiction. Old photographs will draw a crowd, like wasps to jam, seeking out faces and memories, the pull of family tugging so strong that they fight hard to preserve it.
Maybe the link between the school reunion, the TV programme, and the Gypsy community welded firm by family, is that instinctive sense of belonging; everyone, young or old, knows what it means to be part of a group or family. That same vital, tribal instinct, sometimes unfulfilled in ‘real life’, is what social networking is often about. Connectedness. There we have it.