Gypsies are often 'moved on' by the police but a new generation hope for a better future. A profile of the Gypsy community, their origin, work and where they live, including refugees from eastern Europe and the Balkans. The Nawkens of Scotland and, more controversially, The New (Age) Travellers.

Finding sites is the key to survival but planning law often stops Gypsies from living in a caravan on their own land. They find it increasingly difficult to pursue their traditional way of life, suffer a lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality rate and have low rates of literacy." By Triona.

"Gypsy/Travellers suffer from a lot of prejudice and discrimination, we basically need to get the same respect as other people. Because we move around and live in trailers settled people don’t give us respect or recognise that we have an old and distinctive culture. When settled people hear about Gypsy/Travellers they just think of bad things like piles of rubbish and think we’re all like that and that they won’t get any peace. Because of this attitude and prejudice a lot of traditional fairs (like Musselburgh near where I live in Edinburgh) has been shut down and our traditions are being lost.

Another example of discrimination is that Gypsy/Travellers still get turned away from doctors, or we can’t rent videos or equipment. If companies see a site address or think you are a Gypsy/Travellers then they won’t serve you. Just a few weeks ago some people I know in Selkirk weren’t allowed to even hire a video for the night just because they were Gypsy/Travellers!!

About accommodation - there are basically not enough decent places and sites for families to stay. For example, a city the size of Edinburgh and there is only one site for 20 families. In a recent newspaper article they said they were going to build 2 more smaller sites but the picture for the article was full of rubbish, yet again giving a bad impression. Even the Councillor who was supposed to be supporting the plan said “nobody is going to want one of these anywhere near them so we’ll be trying to find areas remote from residential communities” (Evening News 23/7/03). What kind of attitude is that and what kind of message does it give to the settled community? And why should our sites be built miles away from anywhere?

The sites that do exist, a few are okay but most are not very clean, surrounded by pylons or near tips and basically built on places nobody else wants to live on. How do they let them build sites there, I bet they wouldn’t build houses there. Also on council sites there are gates, barriers and barbed wire fences so families can’t get in and out as they want to. The fences make you feel enclosed, this is where you have to stay and you aren’t allowed to move, like you’ve done something wrong. This can make some people very depressed when you are stuck there day in day out.

If you don’t use council sites there are some private sites you can go to but even there there is discrimination. Like in Selkirk where Gypsy/Travellers have been going for generations, a couple of years ago they decided to stop letting Gypsy/Travellers on, so we had to just pull next to the river but with no toilets or water. They said there had been trouble in previous years, but again why tar everyone with the same brush? Eventually they let us pull back on the private site but only for a limited period. So again we are being treated differently.

It is also still common to see ‘No Travellers’ signs at the entrance to private sites, that would be illegal if it was done to someone else. It is illegal but people still put up these signs because of a general lack of concern about such discrimination.

My schooling has been okay, I’m lucky because I know it is not so good for lots of others. They get discriminated by teachers and other students and nobody really bothers. When the mothers go in to complain, those above just say there is nothing they can do. So young Gypsy/Travellers can sometimes end up getting into fights and being put out of the class, they get called names (like Gypo, tink) and just feeling totally alienated.

Even at my school, in English I wanted to do a project on Gypsy/Traveller culture, but my teacher said it wasn’t ‘proper’ or appropriate and there wasn’t enough information. I told him I could get help and showed him some of the books and videos, apart from my own knowledge but he still said no. But another person in the same class got to do her project on Islam, what she regarded as her culture. The Gypsy/Traveller culture is not really recognised as being valid and it isn’t respected. There is a need for schools to teach the history and culture of Gypsy/Travellers just like any other culture and to do more to protect Gypsy/Traveller children from bullying. People still have an image of Gypsy/Travellers as dancing round camp fires, putting curses on people and stealing children.

Discrimination towards Gypsy/Travellers is not taken seriously, even MPs make bad comments about us, and nobody seems to care. You could say that some Gypsy/Travellers are used to the prejudice, it has been happening for generations before us, people get tired of constantly trying to challenge and stand up for yourself.

We do need change soon, this is 2003, Gypsy/Travellers should have the same rights as other people. Being able to pull onto different sites, go to school where you want and safely and to get a doctor when you need one. Discrimination towards Gypsy/Travellers has been going on so long that I feel we now need people to come together and fight for what are our human rights."

by Joe Townsley