Letter: This Is A Different World and A Different Type of Traveller

Published on: 28 Aug, 2017
Updated on: 29 Aug, 2017

From Joe Hedges

I am a Gypsy, settled in a house and have been most of my life. My childhood, at a good school was okay – but yes there was still racial name calling, although it wasn’t remotely recognised in those days.

My life has been a lot different than my direct cousins who still travelled from farm to farm, fruit picking, potato picking, hop picking. But then that was stopped by government when they removed official stopping places.

Now, in there place, we have cheap labour from Europe doing the same work but they are being housed in farmers’ sheds and barns and anywhere they don’t have to pay rent – but I guess that’s okay.

However, I do not agree with the mess left behind by these so called Travellers. It’s a disgrace and a scar on the old English Traveller tradition. They, never left a mess, just maybe a fire patch where they cooked food, and I too like to look at clean playing fields so the kids can play.

But this is a different type of world and a different type Traveller.

There is a positive way to manage this and for some it will work. It’s not the adults you need to teach but the young. They must have a chance at least to receive an education and of a winter home so they will become a new, better, generation.