Opinion: ‘…A Scar On The Old Traveller Tradition’?

Published on: 31 Aug, 2017
Updated on: 1 Sep, 2017

Two of the Traveller vehicles on Effingham Common earlier this week.

Most of us live by the axioms of “Live and let live” and “Do unto others…”, so what does that mean when it comes to the treatment of Gypsies and Travellers?

These are far more tolerant times. We are far more accepting of minorities than we were even 25 years ago. Most of us think that is a good thing but it does not give licence to those minorities to behave in an irresponsible way.

Gypsy Joe Hedges in his letter: This Is A Different World and A Different Type of Traveller says: “… 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” and Nyree Lowndes responded: “Yes! That’s the prime reason for Travellers being loathed. If only they would leave sites as they find them – clean – there would be so much less hostility.”

Litter strewn across some of the site.

Is she right? Well “loathed” might be too strong but certainly their communities will lose a lot of sympathy when they leave behind litter strewn campsites as they did at Effingham Common despite the best efforts of Guildford Borough Council.

Some litter was bagged for collection in bags provided by GBC.

Intended or not, it seems that they are giving two fingers to the rest of us who pay for those council services.

If they had left the common the same way that they had found it I think most of us would have felt: “Well, it is a common and they have done no harm.” But they did – however pleasant they might have been individually – to talk to and however charming were their children.

The playing fields seemed a different matter. These are costly to maintain and need to be kept free of all obstruction.

Sir Paul Beresford, the MP for Mole Valley, in his letter: The Law on Travellers Needs a Complete Rethink, says that he and “a number of his parliamentary colleagues” think that the law on Travellers requires a review, perhaps making some offences criminal.

Perhaps so. Anyway, it does seem wrong, even if understandable, given their resource pressures, that the police are so keen to divest themselves of the responsibility to enforce laws which most of us would naturally think is part of their function.

There is no excuse for taking the law into one’s own hands but it is understandable that temperatures rise when the powers that be sit back or where action appears to be slow.

The problem of provision of temporary sites for Travellers needs to be addressed with more urgency. If they are provided then there will be less excuse and less sympathy for the type of incursions we have seen at Effingham this week.