Feeling upset and a little intimidated

If they are running generators then that is another reason that the police/council can move them because of the noise nuisance. We had them the other side of a 6' fence behind us. The children sat on the caravan roofs to look into our house.

I taught at a school near a traveller site. One little girl started with us who had never been to school before. Within 6 weeks she was reading and writing. She was like a sponge. Her mother was so pleased as now her daughter could read official letters for her. One the other hand we had boys in the juniors who openly smoked ! !! And others who took anything not nailed down.
A broad mix as with everyone

Having read all the posts it seems that there is good and bad among the travelling population. Most of the posts are anti though so presumably there is more bad than good. I'd love to say "live and let live" but I think I'd be anxious too sar53. I'm hoping that your experience will be one of the good ones.

There is indeed, good and bad in all of us but these travellers get a lot of bad publicity because of their behaviour and the crap that they leave behind.
They wouldn't get bad publicity if their behavour didn't warrant it. We had travellers parking up on a school playing field just before the school broke up for the holidays and they moved on - eventually. Our local council was left with the task of cleaning up after them. Civilised folks don't leave their crap (literally) around for other people to deal with.

I understand people have had some very bad experiences with the travelling community. As a nurse ( just retired) I've looked after a lot of travellers and have only had positive experiences with the people I met. I found them absolutely fascinating and lovely to talk to. It got to the stage where the nurse in charge would allocate certain patients to me as 'Suzie seems to love the travellers". That's my personal experience anyway.

It is very easy to say 'don't be too judgemental ' when you have not had these people break in to private property about 10 metres from your property. The children riding up and down on noisy motor bikes, generators on all night, yapping dogs. This was the third place locally they had broken into in the last few weeks.
Anyway we have been out all day and arrived home about 8'sh and they have gone. The field is full of rubbish, mostly bagged up. We are hoping the council will come and clear up tomorrow and secure the field.

I agree with others, be vigilant. Not ALL travellers are dishonest etc. But NO traveller uses the toilet in their trailer/caravan as it's considered 'dirty'. Something us house dwellers find revolting I expect ? so there will be mess when they're gone ?

It's not right to suggest travellers are not civilised or that only they leave rubbish behind after them. I've seen beaches strewn with plastic and glass bottles, sweet wrappings, left over food, etc all left by so-called 'civilised' people and country paths blocked by fly tipping, again by : civilised' people.

Sar53 I'm glad to hear that you have your peace and quiet back. Personally, where I live there always seems to be mounds of rubbish left behind by travellers, so while I agree anya that other people leave litter to, that doesn't make it OK for them to despoil the countryside. I started watching that series on TV My Big Fat Gypsy wedding feeling sympathetic towards them as a minority group, but I didn't have a lot left by the end, I'm afraid.